And the phone wars will continue. According to Andy Rubin, senior director for Mobile Platforms for Google (as well as being the head honcho for the Android OS), there will be a minimum of 18 and perhaps as many as 20 Android-based phones out by years’ end. He just disclosed the fact at a developers conference in San Francisco.

Obviously, these are not all going to be made by just one manufacturer, although Rubin would not say which companies will be making the phones, or for which wireless carriers. It was released that so far there will be 8 or 9 manufacturers. This number also doesn’t include any manufacturers which may be using a basic Android OS and haven’t informed Google of its use.

We can expect that the US will be slower than Europe to introduce the phones, given that the market here is so competitive and the the manufacturers want to make something that really sets them apart from all the others. Right now, there are two well known “Android-centric” phones out there. We’ve got the G1 from T-Mobile here in the States, and the HTC Magic in Europe.

Joining the “openness” bandwagon led by Google’s Android to remove the barriers in the mobile industry, AOL has announced at the Mobile World Congress its own AOL Open Mobile Platform.

It will basically enable outside developers to create innovative mobile applications that can run on major mobile device platforms such as BREW, Java, Linux, RIM, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. Here’s the technical version as explained by AOL: