10 Good Reasons Why Android Will Beat Apple's iPhone by Christmas 2009

(h) Android is Build for the net

Because Google is behind Android, you can expect the platform to have internet access at its core and while Apple pushes the iPhone as a "Jack of all trade" that does phoning on the side (see its official advert), Google partners will flog their Android smartphones as the mobile internet devices. Make no mistake, the fact that the HTC Dream G1 smartphone has a keyboard and a touch screen clearly points in that direction.

(i) No reliance on related product segments

Apple has to care about the iPhone not killing the iPod touch altogether and has to make sure that iTunes is properly tied in; plus there's the Mac Book and the rest of the iPod range. Google does not have any hardware products to care about (except perhaps Google Mini but that's a different ballpark). Whether Android ends up in a phone, laptop, desktop, media server, a MP3 player or as a platform for a multimedia marketplace, Google shouldn't really care as long as the devices have access to the internet and Google's products/ads are displayed/sold.

(j) Deeper integration

Although Google will provide developers with full freedom with regards to Android development, it will also present manufacturers with a template, a foundation that uses off the shelf, easily available, widely acceptable products. GTalk, Gmail, Youtube, Google Apps, Google Gears and Android are some of the products that Google is set to offer on Android from the onset. gOS provides with a good indication of what a fully fledged, mature Android platform might look like.

As to the Christmas 2009 deadline, we reckon that it is the optimum amount of time (13 months) before Android really spread its wings. Unless Apple decides otherwise, we will be greeted with one more iPhone v3 with marginal improvements on v2 while Google will hopefully have more than one hundred products based on Android.

Read our complete coverage of Google's Android ever since it was announced, here.