Android Engineers announced today on Twitter that the HTC G1 (aka Dream) would not support further updates. That means that I can stop fantasizing with Donut right now. The Sense UI? Yeah, sure.

I knew it from the beginning. Even before I bought it. The hardware left much to desire. The bulkiness never bothered me much. When I had my iPod I always used it with protective plates (god bless them). I soon as I got my G1 I ordered them (praise the faceplates) from OnlyG1.com. I would have probably totaled the phone by now without them. A workmate cracked her screen just by leaning on a counter. My G1 doesn’t have a single scratch, the shielding is messed up.

The software wasn’t as polished and slick as OSX but it could multitask, run apps in the backgrounds and customize ad to infinitum. I fell in love with the chubby chick. I still love it, but now I’m hearing that we were cut out. That we’ll watch from the sidewalks. Lately, every time I have an iPhone on my hands I look at it with both nostalgia and something that I can’t shake. I don’t forget my first thought when I saw the iPhone, “I’m gonna have one”. Still, I don’t want to bail out on Android. I’m uber happy with the OS. It’s flexibility is unparalleled and that’s why I still look at the iPhone with disdain when I check all the apps I’m running at the same time on the G1. What worries me, as MG Siegler from TechCrunch wrote here, is the fragmentation of the Android platform with different iterations of the OS coexisting. Devs will go crazy tailoring apps for each phone/OS. Some might run this app, some not. That’s something that hasn’t changed on Apple’s side since the iPhone appeared a couple of years ago. The latest iPhone apps still work on the oldest ones, and each new OS update has so far been compatible with the oldest model of the smartphone.

I can always root my phone, but I know the hardware won’t withstand more demanding operating systems. The G1 gets sluggish when too many apps are open at the same time, when not turned off for an extended period of time or when he’s not in the mood.

I was nowhere near of considering to upgrade my phone, I’m still not. But now I have a new item in my wish list (and I don’t yet know what it is).