The BBC’s Cellan-Jones interview of Google’s Hugo Barra was quite informative in a negative sort of way.  With only one ‘new’ handset confirmed from HTC, the Android platform seems to be spluttering to a halt.

HTC’s Magic seems on the face of it to be a G1 without the keyboard.  Also T-Mobile has been passed over, or did T-Mobile pass over it, for Vodafone as Magic’s launch partner.

In his interview, Barra seemed to be shrugging his verbal shoulders to the questions on what Google is expecting from Android and the market.  A thousand applications he felt wasn’t bad (compare that to the avalanche of choice in Apple’s App Store).  To the question of why there is not a choice of handsets Barra effectively said that as an open source project how would they know?

If Android is truly a big part of Google’s future strategy then they should know.  With T-Mobile floundering with the G1, and no other manufacturers promising delivery of the next generation Android handset, Google doesn’t appear to care.  The market won’t take care of itself, and Google will lose out to Ovi and Microsoft in the web apps department if it can’t motivate itself to care about Android. 

It says a lot that Acer would rather pay Microsoft licensing fees, reducing their margins, than take Google’s free OS.