Dear Android handset manufacturers,

Think what you might about the Apple iPhone, you can't deny that the handset has been a major hit. Just this morning, the company announced during its quarterly earnings call that it has sold 6,892,000 iPhones in Q4 alone. Many of you have been scrambling to roll out your own versions of some of the innovations introduced by the iPhone; some have even gone so far as to market your own iPhone killers.

Given that momentum, though, it's going to be difficult to beat Apple at its own game. Fortunately, Google has once again decided to change the rules. In many ways the antithesis of Apple's notoriously locked-down handsets, phones featuring the Android OS may issue in a new era of openness. Android is a highly customizable OS, with an incredible amount of potential. All you have to do is design hardware that matches Android's potential, and you'll have a surefire hit on your hand.

T-Mobile and HTC have already taken swing at this. The G1 has thus far been a hit, but that success is largely based on the fact that the G1 is the first of its kind. A good portion of buyers didn't even wait for critics to weigh in on the handset before rushing out to pre-order one. PC Magazine found the phone to be good, but not great--a valiant first attempt.

The T-Mobile G1 is by no means a killer phone. Another handset running Android could easily come along and eclipse the G1, particularly if the new phone were released for a carrier like, say, Verizon. With the proper hardware, such a handset could even, perhaps, be the iPhone killer you've been hoping for. After all, Android is only going to keep getting better and better, and so will the applications for the OS, which, thanks to Google's openness, have a good chance of eclipsing the selection in the iTunes App Store.

Here are a couple of friendly tips for your handset, courtesy of PCMag's Lead Analyst for mobile phones, Sascha Segan.

• Embrace diversity. Hit every possible carrier, both CDMA and GSM, in a range of form factors. For Android to become a standard, it can't become ghettoized to one technology or one carrier. That trick works only for Apple.

• Improve the media experience. Music and video on the G1 basically suck. Android needs a decent video player and a music player that syncs with PCs, on phones that have 3.5-mm headphone jacks. It needs streaming players, podcast clients ... The whole nine yards.

• Pump up the RAM. You can never have enough onboard program or storage space, really. That holds for PCs, and it holds for phones, too.