I found an article by Andrew Nusca on ZDNet which caught my eye. He gives 5 points as to why Android will beat other smartphones. I’d like to comment on them:

Google backs Android, a major pipeline for its cloud services.

Yes, true, but Apple backs the iPhone and clearly has cloudy things in the pipeline with it’s building of a new billion dollar data centre.

Android is improving rapidly. The Cupcake 1.5 release was well-received, and Donut 1.6 has already been sent over the air to handset owners.

iPhone OS is improving all the time as well. Granted Android is faster, but for developers I think it’s great how Apple release iPhone OS. It means you have time to get ready for each release to make sure all apps work properly on each version.

Android is open, making it easier to quickly gain developers’ support.

The iPhone SDK is free to download and only £59 to become a member of the full developer program. It’s really not that much of a barrier.

Android will run on phones from several manufacturers, which will help it quickly spread through the marketplace. HTC, Motorola and Samsung are already supporting handsets.

This is a bad thing in my opinion. I absolutely love the fact that with the iPhone you know exactly what devices the app will run on, and you know every exact specification. Only if the hardware manufacturer is the SDK provider, can this happen 100%.

Android combines the best of what’s out there. It’s open, but it offers iPhone-like menus and apps, with Windows Mobile-esque icons, with Palm Pre-like multitasking. There’s another arms race afoot — the battle among Android handset makers as to which company can squeeze the most out of the OS.

Is that a good thing to mix-and-match? I prefer having a rock solid, stable OS, built by one of the best software companies in the world. Furthermore, they build the hardware as well so they know how to eek every last bit of power out of the hardware to provide software developers with one of the best platforms to develop for.