Smartphone Apps, Android Phones and the Search for Open Mobile Ecosystems

AT&T is adding a second Android smart phone to its product offerings - the Aria (News - Alert) from HTC. Given HTC's success with the Droid, the Incredible, and other Android based phones, this would seem to be a Good Thing for any AT&T subscribers who want more smart phone choices and application options.

Android represents the open platform model that allows the subscriber to pick from a host of independent third party, specialized Android applications outside the confines of the controlled iPhone App Store or the carrier approval process. Right? Not so fast. It seems that celebration of expanded application options has been premature, since this week has brought a batch of negative headlines and blog postings about AT&T's (News - Alert) decision to block the Aria from downloading apps from anywhere but the Android Market.

It might be pointed out that the Android app Market is a wide open frontier town compared to the buttoned-down aisles of the App Store, but at least iPhone customers get to pick from over a hundred thousand apps that have made it past Apple's approval process - and more app developers are lining up every day to run that approval gauntlet in order to get in front of millions of app-happy iPhone owners around the world. The developers who are creating applications for the Android OS are much fewer in number, and they are making a bet on the long-term future of a widely distributed open platform. Part of the reason for that bet is that Android apps can be promoted and delivered in multiple ways -not just on a single, controlled marketplace or device manufacturer. At least, the Android's open model and multi-maker strategy was high on the list of advantages for developers when Google first introduced it. I bought the first G1 Android phone from T-Mobile mostly to support the premise of an open mobile option and developer independence from the traditionally closed world of U.S. wireless applications. (It certainly wasn't because of the design of the device.)

However, I'm not about to join the chorus of criticism of AT&T's decision to limit the HTC Aria application universe. That decision is consistent with AT&T's iPhone exclusive agreement, its curtailing of data plan usage and its history of device control and walled gardens for mobile content and applications.

And AT&T is hardly alone in pursuing this strategy. Remember the backlash over Verizon Wireless decision to disable the Bluetooth data connection on the Motorola V710? That led to a class action suit on behalf of subscribers that was ultimately settled in September 2005 by the Superior Court of California ordering Verizon Wireless to offer subscribers a rebate and a penalty-free termination of their subscriptions. Remember the years-long struggle by Skype to get carriers to accept Skype mobile? The days before number portability? Not so long ago, dual mode Wi-Fi handsets were seen as a threat to the cellular network business models. The norm for mobile carriers during the past ten years has been to exercise as much control as possible in the hopes of optimizing revenues, locking down customers and, to be fair, avoiding security and network performance problems. So it shouldn't be a surprise to see that long-standing policy applied to the latest generation of smart devices.

Google, on the other hand, seems to be shifting its position. Today's Google is looking less like a champion of open and potentially disruptive business models for transforming wireless services and more like just another partner in the smart phone and wireless network ecosystems. In May, Google announced that it would soon end direct-to-consumer online sales of its Nexus One Android phone (which was released in January 2010 to much fanfare about expanding consumer options). In less than six months, Google has gone from positioning the Nexus One as a "beacon of innovation among Android handsets" that would ensure a "quick and easy" process for subscribers to buy an Android to rather tepidly describing Nexus One as the impetus for "a lot of innovation" in numerous other Android handsets.

Apparently that innovation doesn't include open access to Android apps as Google starts to repurpose its Nexus One web site to point buyers seeking smart phones to wireless carrier plans with their inherent restrictions on bandwidth usage and content. As the May 14 posting from Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering, sums up, "the changes we're announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google." Maybe that should read -- especially Google and their wireless carrier allies.