The Android war begins

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 13 May 2009

The benefits of Vodafone's majority shareholding in Vodacom are starting to show, with the local release of the HTC Magic next week. Vodafone has exclusive rights to sell the Android-powered phone in the markets it services, which includes SA.

Vodacom says it will also unveil an applications store to accompany the release of the second-generation HTC phone.

Chris Ross, Vodacom sales managing executive, says there were a number of queries to Vodacom regarding MTN's announcement that it had signed an exclusive contract to distribute the HTC Dream last week.

“A lot of people were asking us why MTN had 'beat us to the punch' when they announced the deal with HTC, yet we were waiting to make our announcement on the HTC Magic, which is the latest HTC Android-powered phone,” says Ross. “The HTC Magic is a true Internet phone and brings to the user the full Google experience.”

The HTC Dream is the first-generation handset sporting the Android operating system, which was developed by Google, and was released late last year. The HTC Magic is regarded as the second wave of Android-powered phones and was unveiled by Vodafone in February.

Increased functionality

A Vodacom statement says the HTC Magic has a variety of mobile Internet capabilities, including an Android-optimised Webkit browser.

The phone also features a number of Google applications, including Gmail, Google Maps and Google Search, and Vodacom says it is preparing to launch an application store, which will be tied to its Vodafone Live mobile Internet service.

Ross says the three main reasons people would prefer buying the HTC Magic instead of the Dream include its aesthetic appeal, the availability of Google applications and the variety of free applications available on the Internet for the phone.

“We found that close to 60% of the applications, which are available to the phone, were created by South African developers and this is why we are going to be unveiling an application store, much like the iPhone's application store, with the release of the HTC Magic,” says Ross.

Local apps

The release of the HTC Magic is expected to spur a rise in the number of locally-created mobile applications. Ross says the handset can handle a number of applications, which can be mixed and matched for increased functionality.

“It would be nice to run an application development competition for local programmers,” he adds.

Frost & Sullivan ICT analyst Lindsey Mc Donald says, with the release of both the HTC Dream and Magic, space will be opened for local developers to create applications that can be sold and proliferated on open source platforms.

“This is not the first open source application store, since the iPod Touch and iPhone 3G pioneered it with the opening of the Apple iTunes application store late last year,” explains Mc Donald.

“Yet I think that phones with Google will make application development more prevalent because they're open to everyone instead of Apple product holders.”