New proof-of-concept hardware and the latest flavor of Android bring important new features and tech to smartphones, which leads Rik Myslewski to examine…

Conventional wisdom says that if Apple had freely licensed the Mac’s operating system when it was released back in 1984, the vast majority of the world would be using it, Windows would be a niche player, and everyone would be happier.

Conventional wisdom also says that Apple is now making the same mistake by keeping tight and proprietary control over iOS, the iPhone and iPad’s operating system, and by doing so, it’s letting Android, Google’s mobile-device operating system, chomp away at Cupertino’s market share. After all, Android is steadily improving, sales of Android-equipped smartphones are outstripping iPhone sales in some markets, and the number and variety of Android-powered offerings give customers a far richer array of devices from which to choose.

To which I say, “Great!” Competition is good. Varied ways of serving a market is good. Choice is good.

Android keeps Apple on its toes. But as the world’s second-largest company when measured by market capitalization, Apple is in a far, far stronger position than it was back in the ’90s when Windows 3.0 stabbed it in the back and Windows 95 slit its throat. Google won’t drive Apple into the shadows as Microsoft did.

That said, with Android’s latest iteration—version 2.3, a.k.a. Gingerbread—Google is taking direct aim at some of iOS’s core competencies. For example, Gingerbread includes enhancements designed specifically to help game developers, such as an improved memory-recycling technique (prosaically called “garbage collection”) to smooth and speed animations, as well as snappier input handlers to improve responsiveness. Games written for Gingerbread will also benefit from new audio features, more and better video and 3D services, and support for new sensors such as gyroscopes, a variety of motion-sensor types, and—of all things—barometers.

“So what?” you might ask. “The iPhone already has a gyroscope and a quite competent accelerometer. And who the heck needs a barometer to play Angry Birds?” And you’d be right. But Gingerbread isn’t Google’s only new tasty treat; it has also rolled out its own proof-of-concept smartphone it calls the Nexus S. This cuddly li’l curved-display handset has in it an advance that Apple hasn’t yet embraced: near-field communications (NFC) hardware. NFC allows users to wave their phones at NFC-enabled point-of-sale devices to make purchases, at posters or displays to read info about a product or receive special offers, or at…well, whatever…to receive info about…well, whatever.

In most countries, however, NFC suffers from the chicken-or-egg dilemma: which will come first, NFC smartphones or NFC info sources peppering the real world?

And though you may not be using NFC yet, it has been available in Japan for years. One research group predicts that by 2012, NFC-enabled transactions will total over $30 billion per year in that country alone. Also, remember that when Apple popped USB into the iMac back in 1998, the world wasn’t exactly awash in USB devices. NFC is coming—it’s just a matter of time.

And there’s more icing on Gingerbread than help for game developers and new sensors. Its support for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) makes internet telephony a snap. Its open video and media protocols (VP8 and WebM, for you in-the-know geeks) open up more content sources, while a number of interface improvements also boost usability. And then there’s its embrace of Steve Jobs’ bête noire, Adobe Flash. But we won’t go there
this month.

All these Android advances are great news for iPhone users. Why? Because lack of competition makes companies lazy. Just look at what happened when Microsoft sat for years at the top of the PC food chain: Windows Vista. Apple won’t make that mistake. Expect great things in iOS 5 and the iPhone 5. And thank Google for them.

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Since the late 1980s, Rik Myslewski has paid his rent by keeping an eye on Apple. He was editor-in-chief of MacAddict from 2001 until its transformation into Mac|Life in early 2007, and is now a member of the snarkily sophisticated team at London’s The Register, which is “biting the hand that feeds IT” daily at www.theregister.co.uk.