I'm going to pick on just one or two articles and snark them to death here, because I'm mean like that in a rush, but there are quite a few similar pieces out there which I could just as easily hang this article from.
For those of you who have been busy doing other things besides worry about what goes inside your cellphone, you may be bored to hear that Google are releasing a product known as "Android", which has been positioned by more than a few people as an "iPhone killer".
I'm not sure why this is, possibly a short attention span that means people can only tie together the last two things they saw in one technology area, or maybe just wishful thinking for a nice juicy battle to write about, but it's not uncommon to see lists like this one, which I shall now attempt to pick apart. Again, I'm being a little unfair, especially when the site posting that list also rebuts some of the points itself, but you can find these 3 points trumpeted all over the web.
Android can be used by any cell phone maker
This is attractive - to cell phone makers only. It doesn't mean that users will know or care whether their phone has 'Android Inside' (sorry). In fact, if the god awful attempts at branding I see from my current carrier (hi T-Mobile!) are anything to go by, you'll be hard pressed to figure it out even if you are interested.
Android runs on Linux
The argument here goes something like "All developers love Linux, there are millions of people crunching code for Linux, and you can run all this code on your phone. Yeah. I always wanted to run web, email and DNS servers on my phone. Maybe if I get one for each member of my family we can build a phone Beowulf cluster while we're at it.
And it isn't like you'd have any usability issues trying to run Linux-based stuff designed for a desktop on a phone or anything. Or, for the average phone user, installing any of this stuff, that isn't wrapped up in a nice phone-friendly format by either Google, the phone supplier or the telephone company. This is an advantage that Apple and Microsoft have from making their mobile platforms different to their normal one: You have to re-code and this forces you to re-think the UI while you're there. You can argue that this doesn't work so well for some of the ugly apps you see on Windows Mobile, but the worst "Windows Mobile" based app will be more usable than a "full fat system" app squeezed onto a phone, if only because the mobile UI designer knew the size of screen and approximate number of buttons they were developing for.
Which brings me to what I see as the biggest problem with this idea. For the majority of mobile phone users, what operating system their mobile phone runs is completely irrelevant. What software is installed is almost completely irrelevant. Most people don't care how or why their mobile phone works, as long as it does. Frankly, they'll look at you a bit funny if you even ask them to consider what operating system is on their phone. And they'll be right to do so - if it does what they need then how it does it need not concern them, and if it doesn't do what it needs they'll pick up another phone that does, and still not care about the 'how'.
Now I know I've written a fair bit on this site about Windows Mobile, iPhone, Exchange syncing to mobile devices, etc... but people like you and me are very much the exception. Anyone who thinks the fact that their phone runs Linux is important to the average phone user has no idea about the wants and needs of real users at all.
Android is made by Google
Oh hey, look, something else totally irrelevant. I'm probably buying my phone from the phone company. It's probably got the name of the manufacturer on the bezel. I can already point email and web pages on my phone (whatever it is) at Google's services. What's your point?
The operating system's maker is as irrelevant as the operating system itself. I'm buying the phone from either the phone company or a reseller. I'm buying services from the phone provider. The phone has the manufacturer's name on it, and people who like it are going to say "ooh is that the new Nokia / HTC / whatever? Can I see it?", not "Oh look a gPhone".
I'm not Google's customer for any part of my day to day use of the phone, unless the OS imposes itself on me to remind me that Google are there. And that sort of thing isn't likely to improve my experience of using the phone...
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Fact is, Google, like Microsoft, are selling to the phone manufacturers, which will probably make them a good deal of cash, but it means that the view of their phone will be unfocussed, as it will be behind different kinds of phones from lots (if Google are lucky) of manufacturers who all do things their own way, supplied to mobile telecoms companies who will rebrand the phones and further blur the focus of the "Android product".
Apple, on the other hand, are tightly focused. They've partnered with only a few telecoms providers and kept tight control of the iPhone experience. They might have to let a few telecoms people into the tent in order to get a connection, but you're left in no doubt that you're buying an Apple device that works as a phone and as an iPod, and can be controlled via iTunes. At no time do you need to know what OS the iPhone runs, you just need to know how to use iTunes to buy music, ringtones and applications for it.