Android goes mainstream

Google's operating system for mobile phones took a little while to get off the ground: T-Mobile's clunky G1 phone was the first to run it, but there was nothing aspirational about the brick-like handset. Then along came the Magic and Hero models, and suddenly it became obvious the the iPhone wasn't the only cool handset with built in music and usable internet. Crucially, too, the Android app market has expanded massively: now Google's phones can do almost anything you need, from tracking train times to reading Office documents. MW