When the T-Mobile G1 was shown off in NYC last week, it didn't have the gusto of a Stevenote. There was no "boom!"—no "one more thing!" And as a result, many (including us) felt a bit underwhelmed, and were quick to interpret the device's inconsistent GUI as an indicator that the lack of attention to detail would doom it.

But allow me to remind all of those getting their naysay on this early in the game that we've seen only a fraction of what the G1 can and will be able to do with the open-source Android OS. And when Google's mobile machine is finally humming at full power—with an army of coders cranking out add-ons for the Market, today's skeptics—including some of us—are going to have to eat crow. It's not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and OS handcuffs. It's about giving phone makers shackled to Symbian and Microsoft's phone OS the chance to build with something different and better and free. And who's going to complain about that?

Back to Apple for a minute: The iPhone has brainwashed us into thinking everything that's revolutionary and exciting in the gadget world needs to be a sex object. Now, I enjoy an Apple hardware brainfuck as much as the next, but a phone is never a better phone because of hardware alone, and Google knows this too. And it will be entering the market at a time when iPhone’s software strategy is starting to show wobbly legs. If you’ve been reading our weekly app roundups, you’ve probably noticed the story shifting away from clever developers doing cool things no one previously thought possible to more about what Apple won't let iPhone developers and users do with their phones. As a result, we’ve seen tons of variety, but not a lot of depth. There are a ton of clever calculator apps of various kinds. There are a ton of games, a ton of flashlights. But in the groundbreaking and unexpected functionality department, all anyone can hear lately is crickets. And Apple's lawyers trying to get the crickets to sign an NDA.

No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I'm excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don't like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager—something that's technically possible in WinMo but often comes off more as an awkward re-skinning and not a top-down integration. I'm excited to add system-level features to my phone for free, and not just apps that are only allowed to bounce around on the surface. These are the benefits that an open platform will allow developers to provide to Android users, and the benefits that Google hopes all mobile phone customers will come to expect from their phones as a result.

This is all banking on the platform being successful, of course, which is obviously up in the air this early on. But would Google mount such a huge undertaking as Android if they were only expecting to be a different flavor of Windows Mobile? That seems hard to believe.

Everyone who gave the G1 a quick run-through last week was in reality testing a product still in beta. Because as we’ve said repeatedly, Android is now in the hands of its developers (from within Google itself as well as third-parties), who will have unprecedented access to all parts of a mobile phone and a centralized distribution network (Android Market) in order to do things that have only been teased until now. It’s all banking on the Market, and its ability to attract grade-A content that will provide even novice cellphone users with many opportunities to greatly customize their phones.

To do this Android will need one thing: critical mass, on both the developer and consumer side, in that order—with each reinforcing the other. Its pre-release may be sold-out, but on October 22 there probably won't be campers and local news crews stretched for miles outside of the T-Mobile store. That's because Google knows who they need to go after first—the developers. The geek community. It wasn't a coincidence that at launch, Sergey Brin came on stage on Rollerblades bragging about his accelerometer phone-toss app that he wrote himself. This first release is all about getting developers into Android, and giving them a similar open dev environment that Larry and Sergey will be the first to tell you they couldn't have built Google without. The iPhone didn't get that until version 2.0, many firmware releases later—and it's still not nearly as open as Android will be. (The iPhone also couldn't reliably hold a call without dropping for many until version 2.1, but that's besides the point.)

Open source has failed many times before, critics will say. Here's why Android will not fail in this regard: governance. Google told us that priority number one right now with Android is setting the standards by which the project will operate—what makes a device Android 1.0 compatible, how often full system upgrades will be offered, and the like. One thing that's fairly evident, though, is that an upgrade path will have to be fairly regimented (closer to Ubuntu’s strict twice-yearly schedule, rather than the “release whenever we feel like it” model found in other smaller projects) in order to keep all of the members of the huge Open Handset Alliance all on the same page. There will be no folks still waiting for their carrier to release Windows Mobile 6.1, years after it was made available. Android will not and cannot operate like this—to keep the Market thriving, all of the developers and users will need to be on the same (regular) release schedule. So, while they're taking care of the problems of being open source, they're also taking care of the same problems that a paid platform like Windows Mobile has.

Google has their eyes on the long haul with Android. Which is why reactions to a somewhat scattered UI in the very first implementation is not something they're worried about too much. This is a platform about further reducing the mobile carriers to raw pipes of data, and giving full control to the consumer. It’s about creating a critical-mass open-source ecosystem. And even if they fail to sell a ton of handsets, they've already put pressure on all the carriers and phone makers by the fact that they've created a free alternative that does not have to win to impact the players in this industry.

Of course, all of these arguments can be debated, but there's one thing that no no one can argue with: You don't take Google lightly.

Amid the iPhone 3G launch hysteria, we made a pronouncement that, looking back now long after the dust has settled, pretty well nailed it: forget hardware, it's code that counts. Code via the juggernaut that is the App Store, which allowed the iPhone to truly came into its own as a mobile platform.

Now, our first official look at T-Mobile's G1, the first Android-capable phone built by HTC, is less than 24 hours away, and the same adage holds true now more than ever. Android's openness puts the emphasis even more squarely on the code this platform will run, making the hardware almost an afterthought. And while it's still quite early in the game and things won't really kick up until the G1 becomes available sometime in October, the Android Market is already looking like an equally if not more vibrant place for great apps for your phone.

One of the main positive points in our Android preview guide was that Android will likely be home to the best direct tie-ins to Google's web apps like Maps, Docs, and Gmail, of any device around. And not only will they shine individually (remember's Apple's proud claims of the iPhone's custom Google Maps integration?), each Google service is set up as an open API within Android, meaning they're all available for mashing up with any other type of data imaginable in third party applications, effectively allowing developers to easily convert awesome Google service hybrids (like Beer Mapping, one of my favorites) into mobile apps.

Unsurprisingly, Maps integrations are the main focus being taken by the early wave of Android Apps, many of which were written in response to the Android Developer's challenge. Throw in location awareness via GPS or cell towers (another Android core service), and we've got ourselves the ingredients for some truly next-level stuff.

Enkin: When many people envisioned a location-aware future for mobile tech, they were probably dreaming up something like Enkin. If you can last through the somewhat brutal video here, you'll see some amazing potential: Enkin is basically a visualization framework for location information which can place locations on a two-dimensional map, a quasi-three-dimensional Google Earth type view, and coolest of all, overlay them onto the view streaming live out of your phone's camera. It uses GPS and accelerometers to sense exactly which direction the camera pointing, giving you an annotated view of the real world. You can add your own placemarkers or draw them in from the internet.

Locale: Borne from an MIT class specifically for writing Android apps (and winner of a $275,000 first prize from the Android dev challenge), Locale lets you define your most frequented places on a map and set your phone to respond to those places in a number of different ways. While the prototype is mostly focused on phone settings (like switching to silent when you're in the office or at a movie theater), these kinds of frameworks can be expanded infinitely. Home automation software could be programmed to turn on the lights (or start cooking your breakfast, Pee-Wee Herrman style) once you're a few blocks away from your home, for instance. It takes Bluetooth proximity to a whole new level, one that's not dependent on the limited proximity to another device but only your actual real-world location independent of any other variables.

GeoLife: In a similar vein is GeoLife, a location-aware to-do list. You can pair actions on your list to locations (or types of locations) to get a reminder to buy milk when you're near a grocery store.

Ecorio: Using GPS, Ecorio runs in the background (another edge Android has over the iPhone) and estimates the carbon output of your day's journeys. Once it learns your habits, it can then suggest public trans or carpooling alternatives. Another $275,000 first prize winner.

Cab4me: Takes your current location and feeds it into a database of nation-wide cab companies, allowing you to order a cab pickup instantly with your current locations. Google Maps overlays also show areas of cities where you're likely to hail a cab off the street.

BioWallet: Not all of the innovative apps are map based. BioWallet uses your phone's camera as an iris scanner to lock down sensitive information like account numbers and passwords on your phone, or even the phone itself. Handwriting-based IDs can also be implemented, all processed for an additional pass/fail reading—all processed on the phone itself which keeps biometric data secure.

CompareEverywhere and GoCart: Both capture photos of product UPC codes to then tie into online databases for comparison pricing, product availability, and shopping list compilation.

TuneWiki: Music apps are a bit thin pre-release, but TuneWiki (which is already out for jailbroken iPhones—not in the store yet, which won't be a problem with Android) looks impressive for grabbing lyrics and album art with your music. See it in action here.

Teradesk e-Storage: We love Air Share on the iPhone, and e-Storage looks to provide many similar services, with file versioning and Google Docs integration (one of the first of many G-Docs tie-ins, surely).

True, some of these apps could seemingly be just as at home in the iTunes App Store and on other platforms (many mobile OS's have some iteration of a barcode reader, for instance). But what has the potential to set Android apart though is its open source foundation; with the support of the open-source development community—one of the largest and most important driving forces of innovation in computers and software throughout history—Android could blast open mobile platforms even further than the iPhone has or could. Especially when you consider the core open-source projects that have shaped the internet since the beginning—Apache, MySQL, PHP, ssh, and countless others—making it onto phones in a core and unified way. Despite early SDK kinks, we could be seeing some exciting stuff in the next few months.

For a few of the other sides to the Android coin, be sure to check out our guide to five things both good and bad about Android. And if you've seen any other embryonic pre-release Android apps that look exciting, tell us in our new-and-improved threaded comments.