Google's 'Android Chorus' Smartphone Choir Is Awesome & Scary

Google-developed operating system Android is continuing its marketing push against the perceived lack of customisation on Apple devices — its "be together, not the same" campaign — with a new video featuring 300 smartphones and tablets with 300 different "Androidify" characters singing the same song, all in perfect time and harmony, dubbed the "Android Chorus".

We're not going to pretend to begin to understand the technical side of what went into making these phones sing a kind of electro-beatbox-a capella version of Ode To Joy in unison — although a brief preview is provided in the early stages of the clip showing a team of workers navigating about six kilometres of cabling and all sorts of complex-looking programming action before a time-lapse shows the truly gargantuan task of putting it all into place — but the payoff is pretty magical, albeit a marginally terrifying reminder of how versatile and advanced technology really is these days.

Android has also released another clip showing the Chorus in even trickier action, performing a four-song medley comprised of Haru No Ogawa (Springbrook), by Japanese songstress Yuko Sasama, US Civil War-era ballad My Grandfather's Clock, 19th-century French classic Le Temps Des Cerises and Plaisir d'Amour, also of France, from the 18th century. You can check the medley out over on YouTube.