My T-mobile G1 is on it's way! My expectations are not huge. I already know it won't be as swish as an iPhone. My reasons for not getting an iPhone are that:
I already learned Objective C once, in college. I liked it then, but I've since been spoiled by the nicer syntax of other languages. I am also addicted to Java.
Apples default attitude of "we'll let you know, when we feel like it, maybe never" is not great when it's applied to the question of why your iPhone app just got dropped from the App Store.
I like being contrary, at least a little.
What does Android give me that iPhone doesn't? The Eclipse development environment fits nicely into what I work with every day. The GUI library is ok, and will never be as swish as the iPhone, but it's not bad enough to dissuade me.
When it comes to openness, Google is the opposite of Apple. Mr Jobs was forced to release his developers from NDA schackles, whereas Google just spew out videos, web pages and the like.
Apart from all this, technically, Android is just neat. Regardless of whether you see the Dalvik VM as primarily a run-around Java ME licensing, it still stands out out as interesting piece of technology.
I also really don't buy into the iPhone restrictions on background processes. Rather than banning all usage of such processes, Android clearly delineates when your app may be killed and what techniques you should use to reduce battery usage. If I really want to produce an app that uses a fair bit of juice but which uses it to produce something worthwhile, then I am allowed to do so. The Android marketplace will decide if such a trade-off is worth it. With Apple, the choice simply isn't there.
I've yet to play with a physical device and sign up as a developer ($25, that was a little surprising) so maybe I'll eat my words. However, so far, playing with the emulator, I'm having a fun time, playing.
Btw, the Hello Android book, although slim, is quite a good introduction. I won't be referring to it for reference very often (the index is crap for one thing) but it's already helped me a couple of times to fix small problems I was having. I wouldn't say it's worth the £17 I paid for it. I've got "Professional Android Application Development" on order, so we'll see if that covers enough of the same ground to have made HA a wasted purchase. If anyone from work is reading this, I should be finished it by the end of the week, if you want to borrow it.