(WSJ) HTC Gives Apple Run for Money and I love mah EVO 4G!

Got my EVO 4g on Friday and it is tremendous. What is missing here is that HTC and Google have figured out a way to give Apple some competition by putting out phones that tech wise catch and in the EVO 4G case surpasses it. Google is putting out Android on a fast schedule while demanding better tech for it. In the end the customer is the main beneficiary of all of this competition.

HTC's growing influence follows the company's shift from making phones primarily running on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software to emphasizing devices that use Google Inc.'s Android operating system. HTC made the Nexus One, the Google-branded phone that the Internet search giant rolled out to highlight the capabilities of Android. HTC has also invested more heavily in its own software, building a new user interface to work with Google's system.

HTC took a page from Apple's playbook: Pay as much attention to a phone's design as its innards. Its "secret sauce" is One & Co., a 20-person San Francisco design studio HTC acquired in 2008. One & Co. designers still work on other products like snowboards to keep their ideas fresh. But today, two-thirds of their time goes to adding design flair to HTC phones.

"HTC has really stepped up its software and device capabilities," said John Harrobin, a senior vice president at Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile phone company, which is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC. "This bodes well for working more closely with them."