Engadget has some photos of Google’s new Android user interface for mobile phones. Yes, it’s too early to judge it. Yes, the whole thing is Open Source, and therefore infinitely customizable by the unwashed masses. Yes, the thing has potential. And yes, I’m interested in seeing where this will all go.

But in the meantime, it looks to me like Apple can let out a small sigh of relief. Unless they seriously screw up the release of their own programming API, they don’t have that much to worry about: they’re light-years ahead in UI design, which is in the end the most important feature of a gadget.

Google enters the mobile phone arena. Via John Gruber:

Did Apple announce iPhone third-party apps as an aside in their “Hot News” column (instead of on Steve Jobs’s home court, a conference keynote) in order to get the news out fast — before Google?

I’d bet my iPhone! Competition is grand.