Andy Rubin Gets Interviewed, Says Android is Revolutionary

If you don't know Andy Rubin (the man pictured above), you should. He's the brainchild behind this whole Android movement and his direction is what guides our favorite smartphone OS. So when Andy Rubin speaks, the entire Android user base should listen--what he says can very well dictate what's in store for the future of Android.

Andy Rubin discusses a ton of different topics in his CNET interview, mostly regarding smartphones and of course, Android. He talks about staying open, the goal of Android, a 'GooglePhone', Android 1.5, business models, China, and so much more. It's a really good read--if only to pick the brain of Android User 1.

Hit the jump to see some of Andy Rubin's better quotables!

[cnet]

on China:

There will be a couple of launches; we've generated a lot of interest in China. The use cases in China are slightly different in the U.S.; typically in China, because of the Asian input, people prefer a pen-based interface rather than a capacitive-touch based interface because they expect a stylus to be able to draw the complex characters. So the use case has completely changed but we have achieved compatibility.

on a 'GooglePhone':

Yeah...I mean, it's funny, if you build one phone...I'd much rather be the guy that does a platform that's capable of running on multiple companies' phones than just focusing on a single product. A single product is going to have, eventually, limitations. Even if that was two products that's going to have limitations. But if it's a hundred products, now we're getting somewhere, to the scale at which Google thinks people want to access information

on "openness":

In that honest goal of not having consumers being blocked and allowing them to access information, it helps our competitors as well. What we don't want to do is disadvantage anybody by being the only person; we don't want to create any kind of separate structure where people can only access Google. And this is the definition of openness: it's not just open source, it's the freedom to get the information that you're actually looking for.

on Apple and Palm:

Controlling the whole device is great, (but) we're talking about 4 billion handsets. When you control the whole device the ability to innovate rapidly is pretty limited when it's coming from a single vendor. You can have spurts of innovation. You can nail the enterprise, nail certain interface techniques, or you can nail the Web-in-the-handset business, but you can't do everything. You're always going to be in some niche.

on the lack of current Android devices:

It takes about 18 months to build a phone from end to end. What we wanted to do for our market entry was make sure that we had one successful showcase product to prove that the product was reliable and robust and ready to go. We chose HTC as our partner for that.