OStatic

You have probably heard about the lawsuit Apple has filed against HTC--the big handset maker--claiming patent infringement. Apple doesn?t like what HTC is doing with Android on phones it is selling in the U.S., and claims that HTC infringes on numerous iPhone patents. In a post today, our friends at jkOnTheRun argue that the real impetus for the suit may be Apple's concern over Google's upcoming Chrome OS. Chrome OS is the open source operating system based on the Chrome browser that is likely to end up on tablets that will compete with Apple's iPad, and elsewhere. Check out jkOnTheRun's analysis of why Chrome OS has Apple worried.

First rule of public relations: Don't make an announcement when it's going to be drowned out by competing announcements you can't hope to beat. The Wholesale Applications Community announcement put out yesterday was up against not one, but two mobile announcements guaranteed to steal its thunder: Windows 7 Mobile and the MeeGo announcement from Nokia and Intel.

Setting aside the bad timing, let's look at the actual initiative. What is the Wholesale Applications Community? A major initiative from a gaggle of telecom operators to build an open platform for mobile phone users. It combines 24 operators, including AT&T, NTT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and many others, with device manufacturers LG Electronics, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. The group's mission is to create a wholesale app ecosystem for deployment across all carriers and devices, rather than the fragmented ecosystem that we have now with apps for various phones and carriers.

It finally happened, and hardly anyone noticed. A major Linux announcement got the Apple treatment from the media, and generated major consumer excitement. Granted, Linux snuck in under the guise of the Nexus One, but if the media excitement over Google's superphone is any indication, millions of people will be picking up Linux personal computers in 2010. While not quite the year of the Linux desktop Linux enthusiasts have been hoping for, it's still a major win for Linux and FLOSS.

It's long been argued that FLOSS advocates should be looking at the next generation of computing devices. That strategy is paying off. More than 1.4 million Google Android (that's Linux) devices shipped in the third quarter of 2009. It's too early for numbers in the fourth quarter, but you can bet that they're even higher. In three months, that's 1.4 million users adopting Linux for personal computing. Granted, still a minority next to other smartphones, but the Nexus One looks ready to give other smartphone vendors a run for their money.

Slowly but surely, Apple has been trying to crack the Chinese market with the iPhone. There have been many obstructions, and China Mobile has already expressed its desire to push Android-based phones, such as Dell's, throughout the country. As MacNewsWorld reported late last week, though, the iPhone's slow boat to China has finally arrived. China Unicom, the second largest wireless provider in China, announced on Friday that it will start carrying iPhones in this year's third quarter. Is there likely to be a smackdown between Android-based phones and the iPhone in China, and how free and open will China's government allow cutting-edge smartphones to be?

Today, JKOnTheRun notes that HTC--the first hardware maker to back the open source Android operating system--may be putting Android on over 50 percent of its future phones. If true this is a big blow to Windows Mobile, the platform on the major portion of HTC?s lineup for some time, they conclude. I have to agree, and this is yet another example of Android's pronounced momentum in the smartphone market, where we're going to see large waves of Android handsets arrive this year and next. Android is shaping up to be a hugely influential open source platform.? For Android phones to really get competitive with the iPhone, though, the cool factor matters. This is much more important than it may seem at first glance.

Consider the different approaches to openness taken by the two companies with (arguably) the greatest product differentiation, most thriving ecosystems and potent cash-flow generation engines in the [mobile arena]: Apple and Google, writes Mark Sigal on GigaOm.? Apple and Google are playing out a classic proprietary vs. open game of tug-of-war with the iPhone and the Android platforms. Sigal argues that the fly in the ointment with Google's Android strategy is that Google has to set limits on what will work with deployments of the Android platform. How much of a problem is that, and how truly open is Android? Check out Sigal's post for more thoughts.

At yesterday's Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, where Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G and numerous other initiatives, it became very clear that the coming battle among smartphones will be largely decided on? the basis of who gets the best applications. Applications built with the upcoming iPhone 2.0 SDK looked very mature, and there were many demonstrations showing how easy they were to create. What does this mean for Google's Linux-based Android mobile platform and the wave of Linux-based phones expected later this year?