And I'm feeling mostly disappointed about it. Unfortunately for Google there's nothing there which will make Windows Mobile, Blackberry or iPhone users drop their allegiance and jump ship to the new platform. Full details are here, but to summarise we have a bunch if apps that do pretty much standard location aware things and two of the big winners do exactly the same thing: take a barcode and provide local purchase information.
I suspect the real purpose of this competition has been to ensure that there are plenty of applications available in the Android Bazaar (yes, that's really what they are going to call it) and to slip the better developed or conceived ones a considerable bung to compensate for the free app only nature of the bazaar at launch. The apps that seem to have done best out of Google are those which integrate well into the ad-backed Google ethos.
I see some fairly major issues with the 'Bazaar' and Android in general; complete free rein to publish applications effectively guaranteeing the sort of device hangs and crashes that have plagued Windows Mobile for years. Even the Maemo platform makes some effort to control and direct users to stable applications.
I think Google's partners (almost certainly T-Mobile and HTC, at least for now) will see some steady early sales, but they are unlikely to make huge dents in the market shares of RIM, Microsoft and Apple based on what's been declared to be the platforms best applications. Unless the hardware is something amazing anyway...
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