Philips Unveils Made for Android Products at CES

One thing that makes the iPhone so popular is the vast array of accessories you can buy for it: bumper cases, docking ports, car accessories and even a toy gun which you can slot the iPhone into to play games with. The same has never really been the case for Android – there are too many manufacturers and too many different phone sizes and designs for any company to seriously consider investing in accessories.

A few months back Philips had announced that it had developed a range of Fidelio stereo docking speakers for Android, the sort of thing that many will be familiar with for iPhone. The promise of this new system was that it would hold any Android phone regardless of its size or design. At this year's CES Philips has shown that this wasn't just a one-off experiment as they have many more Android devices to release to the world in the coming months.

The company officially unveiled its Fidelio range of docking speakers that use FlexiDock technology so that you can easily connect your Android phone in either portrait or landscape. The different sizes of Android phones had probably been one of the biggest obstacles for people producing Android docking speakers but Philip's FlexiDock technology shows that it can easily be done. You can also connect your phone to the speakers wirelessly via Bluetooth – so even if your Android phone is one of the very few devices that won't fit in the FlexiDock you can still make use of the Fidelio speakers.

Along with the Fidelio docking speakers there is the Soundbar Home Cinema Speaker that can connect to any Android device or PC with DLNA Wi-Fi support. The Soundbar is controlled with a dedicated app called SimplyShare, and supports a wide range of music and audio formats, includes HDMI output but does not yet have support for services like Netflix.

Philips have also developed a some headphones for the Fidelio range that can be used by most Android devices. The headphones use a special Philips Android app and come with remote controls and microphones.

Perhaps headphones aren't really very exciting, but Philips was also keen to show off its GoGear Connect Wi-Fi MP4 players that will be some of the first music players to run on Android. These devices will allow Google to eat away a little bit at Apple's iPod market dominance – although anyone already owning an Android phone may find them a little bit redundant. The GoGear devices support 720p video playback, Skype and Android Market so the only thing you can't do is make standard phone calls.

Even with all the peripheral docks and gadgets perhaps the bestselling iPhone accessories are just simply cases. You can already buy protective cases for Android phones of course, but there are few around and usually just limited to a few of the top handsets. Philips will be launching a range of protective cases for five of the best HTC Android phones currently on sale, and will be offering them in a range of colours and designs.

Philips may just be opening the floodgates here – they have shown that it is possible to produce accessories that can be used with most Android devices and it won't be long before many of the companies producing products for the iPhone will be joining in.