Entirely Too Many Android Phones. Entirely.

For those keeping count, yes; I've jumped ship from a Blackberry enthusiast to an Android spokesperson to a bed buddy with Apple's iPhone in less than a year.  So what, don't judge me.  Familiarity with the three major smartphone platforms allows me to view them all more objectively.  Plus no real gadget head can talk his junk without having used them all.  That said, I'm noticing a slightly unsettling trend within the Android platform.  The same trend that was once an annoying issue amongst Blackberry critics: there's simply too many of them.

Let's look solely at the Android release history for Verizon Wireless.  In the past 8 months we've had: The Droid, Droid Eris, Devour, Droid Incredible, The Droid X (coming next month) and Droid 2 (coming soon after).  The Droid 2 will make the first Droid obsolete less than a year after it's release.  The Devour was a mistake to begin with.  Crappy version of Android and Verizon must have known this because I've not seen one advertisement for it.  Droid Eris was great as an more affordable Android phone but really, $100 isn't that much more to spend in the grand scheme of things to get a MUCH better phone.  The Incredible is about to be outdone in less than 2 months by the time the Droid X is released; it seems to outdo the Incredible in every meaningful category.  How will those who blew their upgrade on the Incredible feel?

I wrote an article not too long ago outlining this exact problem (also included in that argument was the Nexus One, which is no longer anywhere close to being the beast of a smartphone it was in January, but I digress).  One thing I didn't mention in that article was the one company that's seem to handle this problem perfectly: Apple.

Say what you want about them, but Apple has exactly the right platform for how to do a smartphone release.  There is only one iPhone.  You don't have to worry about a newer, faster, better, more powerful iPhone coming out 3 months after you blow $200-600 on your current iPhone.  Apple can take their time releasing subtle but useful updates to keep your iPhone feeling fresh and in a year or two, they'll hit you with the BIG update.  This to me makes far more sense than a bunch of manufacturers trying to out do one another in a dick measuring contest of Android power phones.  Because in the end, it's the consumer who's stuck with yesterday's phone the minute they walk out of the store.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the advancement in technology happening right now.  But it's very easy to see that this same advancement isn't exactly consumer friendly.