Shalom says his firm's decision to target specific hardware, in pursuit of higher performance and greater scalability, is in some ways similar to Oracle's recent moves to leverage the proprietary server hardware it got with its acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

FORBES

Ultimately, it'll need to start opening up to programmers with hardware specifics if it wants them to target Moto handsets with any level of specificity, but in the meantime, it seems that they're already developing quite a reputation in the community for really helping prospective devs out -- a solid start.

ENGADGET: Motorola's dev programs reveal some Android table scraps

There are a few ways to react to this, particularly remembering that these numbers are meant to help developers figure out how many users are available to target on the various versions of Android and types of hardware.

ENGADGET

In the hierarchy of computing hardware, artificial muscle doesn't really even register: it's usually a target for action, not the perpetrator.

ENGADGET: Turing machine built from artificial muscles may lead to smart prosthetics

The point is that Android, Symbian, webOS, Windows Phone 7, and the rest of the pack should be able to advance with almost total disregard for the hardware business, knowing they're resolution-independent (within reason) and they can expect to target an ARMv6 or ARMv7 core.

ENGADGET: Editorial: Should your next mobile OS update cost you?