Android is the first free, open source, and fully customizable mobile platform. Android offers a full stack: an operating system, middleware, and key mobile applications. It also contains a rich set of APIs that allows third-party developers to develop great applications. Instead of a device or vendor dependent mobile operating system, Android is released as a platform independent mobile OS. For example, the mobile manufacturer Nokia supports Symbian and companies such as Asus and O2 supports Windows Mobile. The global competition for these operating systems become more vigorous when Apple Introduced their Iphone OS 3.0 in association with AT and T. All of these mobile operating systems support touch control, rudimentary multi-tasking, rich media, desktop-like Web browsing, and advanced messaging services. The one that stands-out in this list is Android. The Android OS is device independent open source project funded, supported and promoted by Google. (visit: http://www.android.com/).
With devices built on the Android Platform, users are able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favorite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos.
