MWC 2011: Facebook Phone Maker Says Android Should Get Past Geek Factor [INQ CEO Frank Meehan Says Android Has to Overhaul Image & Focus on User Experience to Be Even More Popular]

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Android is on the rise. Android smartphones have been the best-selling smartphones the past two months, and are fast overtaking other platforms. But what can make Android more desirable to common folk? Why do the pretty girls have iPhones and Blackberrys?

INQ, creator of the Cloud Q and Cloud Touch, might be running on Android, but the company’s CEO, Frank Meehan, says Android has much to learn in terms of image. Most of Android phones are tech- and hardware-driven he says. But bottomline is, most people don’t care.

“If you go to a nightclub in any city in the world, the pretty girl has an iPhone or a BlackBerry,” Meehan said in an interview. “She doesn’t have an Android phone. She has no emotional attachment to an Android phone. It’s too complicated. It’s a geek device, it’s all wrong.”

INQ phones have been criticized for having low specs, such as a 600 MHz processor and paltry memory. But the phones use a heavily customized UI, which focuses on the social aspect of mobile, and are considered the de-facto/unofficial Facebook phone. Meehan says Android is great, but engineers are focusing too much on the technology and hardware behind it rather than what makes it an interesting smartphone OS to use for different kinds of people.

Meehan thinks Android is cool, but he says “most people here think it’s about mucking about inside the Android code, but it’s nothing to do with that. You’ve got to do better experiences with the tools you get. What can you do better for the customer? Give me something useful.”

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