gPhone, hPhone, iPhone - Yes, please!

This Tuesday marks for me the long-awaited announcement of the first phone utilizing Google’s Android mobile platform software. I’m not especially excited for the phone; I’m excited for the competition and innovation that is about to occur in the cell phone market.

Apple challenged the market and the business model when AT&T gave them incredible amounts of freedom on their cell phone service. That was step one. The cell phone companies are so stubborn and set in their ways right now that the gPhone and the iPhone can only do good.

Simply the fact that they reach outside of the box with technology that’s never been done in the American cell phone market is good for everyone: gadget-lovers to grandma. Apple came to Verizon over two years ago with the idea for the iPhone and Verizon said no; they didn’t want Apple to have that kind of freedom on their cell phone network. What did that mean for Verizon? It meant that they missed out on enough dollar bills to completely wrap and cover every animal in the San Diego Zoo, twice.

Luckily AT&T allowed Apple the freedom to innovate and because of that, now cell phone providers like Sprint are thinking, “Maybe giving them a little room to play won’t kill us all, maybe the terrorists won’t win that way.” Duh. You’ll be making tons of money!

The American market right now is begging for a change, begging for innovation, and that’s where Google and Apple enter the fight. Long gone are the days when Microsoft and Yahoo were the big names in technology and the Internet, the torch has been passed and the cell phone market is about to blow up in ways that would piss off Smokey to no end. Phones are going get smarter, they’re going to become more personal, they’re going to be easier to use for me and you and your parents and in the future, if you can dream of what you want your phone to do, there will be a way to make that happen.

Phone companies in the next five years are going to have to step back and let the customers play. They’re going to have to drop the dull platforms that allow the user no freedom for platforms like Android, where people can customize their cell phones to do things that Verizon would have strokes over.

Innovation is good. It’s what we need right now. In the end, a whole batch of new, shiny and fun phones are about to come out of the pipes, we just need to wait a few months for greatness to occur.