android phone, cell phone, new droid phones, mobile phone

We have been talking about the HTC Droid Eris smartphone as if everyone knows what a droid actually is…It’s kind of geekspeak, and I would bet that most people (understandably) do not know what a droid really is.

A droid is short for the term “android”. The dictionary will tell you that an android is “a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human” (see the first Star Wars movie).

For the purpose of discussing new mobile technology, an android is an open-source mobile operating system created by Google. “Open source” means that anybody can develop new enhancements — called “applications” — for you android device, which makes is very easy to customize a phone like the HTC Eris Droid. Other touchscreen phones like the iPhone let you add these “apps“, but do not let you change the core interface like android devices.

As a result, Googles’ android operating system lets you switch phones and service providers without having to change the functionality of your device, or learn a completely new operating system.

The Android operating system has made some serious inroads within the past two years. In fact, in a short amount of time it has grown from an obscure platform to the preferred operationg system, used by a wide variety of devices and manufacturers including Samsung, Motorola, and HTC.

Droid Eris

So What The Heck Is an Android?

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