#“Android need some hardware standards”
Anyone who knows me is sick of my bitching and moaning about the closed nature of the iPhone. But that closed nature has one huge advantage; a global ecosystem of accessories has built up around it. From cases to speaker docks to headphones, suppliers work with fixed form factors and interfaces.
That ecosystem must now be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It strikes me that Android could achieve the same thing but in an open way and with a focus on interfaces rather than form factors.
The first and most critical thing needed is an audio interface. This could be a software overlay on USB, it just needs to be defined. Currently Android phones can only connect to docks by 3.5mm jack and with no ability to change tracks etc.
Google (and Moto with Droid?) have created phone-specific modules but surely that defeats the point of Android?
Whilst A2DP could be the solution, it's still Bluetooth with all the pairing bullshit that it entails. Maybe NFC could sort that out?
I spent the weekend testing an iPod and iPhone dock. We used 2 generations of iPod and 2 generations of iPhone and they <em>just worked</em>. The poor HTC G1 dangling off the back on an audio cable looked like something from a previous century.
So how about it Google? Android should enable business opportunities, not get in their way.