'These aren't the Droids you're looking for'

Let the march to Android 2.3 begin, with (gasp) more smartphones running version 2.2. You've got to love this one-step-behind (sometimes two) innovation that defines Android. My Google-branded Nexus S runs Gingerbread (aka Android 2.3), and it's the only phone that officially does. The carrier and OEM channels move much slower than does Google operating system development. I kind of understand the slow upgrading of existing handsets, but most everything new shouldn't run something old. Hehe, "these aren't the Droids you're looking for." Today's 2.2 star: the HTC EVO Shift 4G from Sprint, available on January 9 for a cool $149.99 (with two-year contract and after $100 mail-in rebate). Update: After I posted, Best Buy announced presale availability of January 6.

By the specs, Sprint's new smartphone impresses (except, perhaps the processor): 800MHz Qualcomm processor (MSM7630); 3.6-inch capacitive touchscreen (with 800 x 480 resolution), slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 720p video capture, FM radio and all the other expected stuff, like GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi. Too bad that the EVO Shift 4G is but another new Android phone running an old OS version.

In a way, my griping is unfair, since Google must deal with carriers and OEMs that face hurdles, such as manufacturing time to market and, in the United States, FCC approval, that make releasing the newest of new rather difficult. As such, not a week goes by when some blogger or journalists writes about fragmentation dooming Android. That's hardly the case. Google has done a remarkably good job mitigating fragmentation, and Android handsets are outselling iPhones. As long as apps are compatible with the install base, fragmentation is more nuisance than problem.

Still, iPhone sets the gold standard. Apple achieved something of a carrier coup bringing iPhone to market in June 2007. Apple -- and not carriers or manufacturers -- control software updates. The approach was quite novel two-and-a-half years ago and still is today. Apple determines what software version ships on new handsets and has a mechanism in place to update them all to the newest iOS. Google controls software load and updates for just two handsets -- the Nexus One and Nexus S.

But, again, the travails of Android fragmentation is often overstated -- for the broader market. It's more a problem for mobile geeks and gadget enthusiasts -- many of them Betanews readers -- who crave the newest, fastest thing. If you're a Sprint subscriber looking for that golden Android smartphone announcement coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show, the EVO Shift 4G isn't it.

Google must do better managing perceptions about Android innovation and what's new and exciting versus iPhone. As I griped earlier this morning, so many bloggers, journalists or Wall Street analysts make so much noise about Apple it seemingly is the only tech company innovating anything. Google needs to push the market along faster to newer Android versions. Open source shouldn't mean open season for iPhone-obsessed pundits to whack Android -- or for gadget geeks like Betanews readers to sigh about following one step behind.