I agree that Android up till now has been as you describe, but I've no idea what they're planning for Android 3.0. I assume that part of the reason why Android's UI idioms have been a less usable copy of iOS's so far is because they were rushing to rework what previously resembled BlackBerry into something more iPhone.

I get the Mac/Win analogy, but Microsoft never really grokked UX, while Google generally does. Given that UI is their focus for 3.0, I'd assume their UX people will have more input this time around.

I hope you’re right.

If we may dive into a tangent, I am quite interested in why you say Google "generally groks UX." Their search home page is a great example, sure, and Gmail for the most part (certainly not their Contacts organizer). But then I think to Buzz, where I think the UX was terrible (I wrote about this here: http://alanhogan.com/buzz-is-already-dead, HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1125126). I’d love to hear your thoughts on Google and UX.

Nice critique. I never really used Buzz, because my first instinct was to turn it off, but what little experience I have with it seems to match up.

I've never worked at Google, but I know someone who interned for the UX team, who complained that UX wasn't as involved with design as they could be. I'm guessing that the usability of non-core Google projects depends a lot on whether the engineers who start them seek input from their UX people. If you're doing a 20% project and want other people to work on it with you, you've got to find and convince those people yourself. So at least initially, the involvement of UX people outside of core Google projects depends on whether their involvement is sought.

Buzz in particular appeared to have been launched with little forethought, so there's a good chance it didn't get much of a UX pass, either.

Google's always approached design as an objective engineering challenge and less as an artistic endeavor. As a result, their designs are minimalist, utilitarian, and functional, but they sometimes seem to give up the ghost when they attempt to build complex or unique software like Buzz or Wave that could benefit badly from someone with a passion for aesthetics and UX.

Regarding Android, I'm encouraged by news that Google picked up WebOS's lead designer, (as reported here: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/05/27/palm-loses-their-lead...) as WebOS is often lauded as an intuitive and innovative user interface in a manner Android simply isn't.

When Douglas Bowman (Google's former lead designer) left the organization, he cited, among other things, a fastidious, over-engineered, design-by-committee-and-hard-numbers approach that drove him crazy. He mentioned an example where Google had A/B tested 41 shades of blue to determine which to go with. That's demonstrative of the greater issue their culture seems to suffer from: if you want to bring about creative or subjective change, you often need objective facts and figures—metrics lacking by artistic design's very nature.

I wrote briefly about Google's methods in a bit of a rant on Facebook's whiplash-inducing approach to design here: http://www.htmlist.com/design/google-vs-facebook-interface-d..., but in the end, it comes down to balance. I have high hopes for Android 3.0 because I'm hoping that they just shipped with what they had and told themselves they'd worry about making it pretty later. Later is now, evidently, and it will be really interesting to see what Google does in this next round, especially if they've removed the handcuffs and decided to trust their designers.