The first Android phone was rolled out in the U.S. only a year ago. With the introduction of different models from a number of manufacturers, the Android’s popularity has exploded. Android recently garnered a lot of attention with Verizon’s aggressive advertising of the debut of their first Android OS phone: the Motorola Droid. As the first handset to feature the Android 2.0 platform, the Droid has increased awareness of the Android OS and its potential.

At the heart of the Android phone experience are proprietary applications like Google Maps, GChat, Gmail, Google Voice and YouTube. Besides these applications, on its own, Android is not a revolutionary OS. Like the iPhone, Android relies on a large selection of applications. Currently, the Android app store has about 12,000 apps, compared to Apple’s recent announcement that the iPhone app store has passed the 100,000 mark.

The key element here is quality not quantity. Many of those apps are, to a great extent, useless. One example is, iBeer for the iPhone. This app will make your screen look like a pint of beer that is fully interactive. This app is clever, but mostly useless. The exciting moment will be when the top 500 apps for the iPhone find their way onto the Android platform, too. As more apps are made available to Android, an increasing number of customers and applications developers will be drawn to the Android.

The potential for the Android platform is substantial, and there has been a lot of talk about the future of the Android platform. Some see Android moving into other platforms such as DVRs, e-book readers, portable music players, and who knows what else. Looking ahead, Android may become a platform of choice for all our portable gadgets, seamlessly connecting us to the “cloud.”