
Choosing a phone by OS
"Apart those with either a technical or professional interest, it's open to question how many mobile phone purchasers weigh up the matter of a device's operating system before handing over their cash.
Looks, camera resolution, cost, yes. OS? Probably not."
Um, think again. The huge (and sorely disappointed) legion of Palm users were loyal to the Palm OS until the company screwed the pooch through bad decisions and mis-steps. Not only did you have the wonderful UI for managing everything, much like the vaunted "MarketPlace" you had a wealth of 3rd party software available (much of it for free). And as the #1 PDA, everyone had "sync" software to sync your PC's list of contacts and calendar entries with your PDA. Corporate software like Outlook and Notes included. And, if you yourself were a developer and so inclined, you could write your own apps.
Similarly, I suspect there are Windows Mobile users who choose by OS as well.
I think Android will indeed fit into this category -- people will definitely choose phones that are running Android because they are, just as people did with Palm phones when they arrived. The decision tree becomes: #1 questoin: is it the OS I Want? Then, after that, all the other questions.
So, not only do some people take into account the OS when they choose a mobile phone, when they do so it is often the most important primary question.