With the release of the Motorola Droid, it’s becoming clear that 2010 is going to be a very exciting year for Google Android. The operating system is now two years old, and Android 2.0 has begun shipping with new phones.

Gone are the growing pains of introducing a new mobile platform in an iPhone-dominated marketplace and dealing with shoddy first-generation hardware. Now Google, along with the other members of the Open Handset Alliance, can focus on spreading the word of Android with better phones, better software, and an increased presence in the public consciousness.

Here are ten predictions for what will happen with Google Android in 2010.

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Looking back on Android’s first year on the market, there’s no denying that things have been rocky for Google’s ambitious mobile platform. There was little hardware diversity for the better part of the year, and with the hype surrounding the release of the Palm Pre, Android seemed almost instantly dated. For all of its initial hype, the platform never really seemed like much of a threat to the iPhone, and in many ways it was barely competing. It seemed as if Android was going to celebrate its first birthday merely running on the fumes of excitement from its launch.

The announcement of the Motorola Droid’s upcoming release on Verizon’s formidable 3G network changed all of that.

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The consensus is in on Windows Mobile 6.5: According to the likes of Engadget and Gizmodo, it’s a stop-gap solution by Microsoft meant to bring some slight user interface polish and touch-screen friendliness to their aging Windows Mobile platform. It doesn’t bring Windows Mobile anywhere near the level of accomplishment that we’re seeing with the iPhone, Palm Web OS, and Android phones today – for that we’ll have to wait for the release of version 7 sometime in late 2010. Simply put, 6.5 is the Windows Me to WinMo 7′s Windows XP.

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It’s easy to forget that just 20 years ago, mobile phones were a rarity (and the size of a brick). These days we all take them completely for granted and everybody has one.

All these years, mobile makers have competed with each other mainly by trying to outdesign and outfeature each other on the hardware end. Hardware, hardware, hardware. It’s always been the focus. Making the phones smaller, putting cameras in them, making the screens better, and so on. Tech specs were the way to stand out.

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