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Google Announces "Open Phone" Coalition, No gPhone [Updated]
Ponca City, We Love You writes "USA Today has an advance story on Google's plans to announce a new operating system, geared specifically for cellphones with partners that include Sprint, Motorola, Samsung and Japanese wireless giant NTT DoCoMo. Although details won't be released until later today the new G-system will be based on Linux overlaid with Java and Google hopes to have a branded device ready for worldwide shipment by spring. Mobile Web browsing is notoriously slow and Google plans to change that by providing easy access to the Internet at PC-type speeds. Google plans to basically give away the software developer tools, used by programmers to write new applications. "If you're a developer, you'll be able to develop (applications) for the new Google Phone very quickly," said Morgan Gillis of the LiMo Foundation. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are noticeably absent from the coalition not wanting to support a device that favors Google over other providers. Sprint, the No. 3 carrier, supports the coalition, but it hasn't formally agreed to make the Google Phone available to its 54 million subscribers." Update 1727 GMT by SM: It's official, Google is releasing the mobile "Android" OS in place of the Google branded mobile phone that many expected.
The game.
The new operating system will be called GNU/Goo/Do/Mo/SpriSamSun/Linux.
I, for one, welcome our new alliterative overlords.
So what version of Java? Micro Edition? or full blown Java?
Open Platform? Available to all? No hidden charges? It's official, Google is the polar opposite to Apple.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Ha - They must be pissed that gOS just got released... ;P
They'd better bring out chairs... Ballmer style...
Also... One caveat: You'll have to use Google for navigation Do no Evil, eh?
Or maybe someone needs to brush up on their punctuation.
Let me guess... they're going to offer it for free/at a reduced price in exchange for giving up all your privacy.
Y
The article states it will be linux-kernel + java, and of course it will be google servises as default for everyting. That is all fine.
But my question is; what if I want to use other services, will that be possible/difficult?
Isn't openMoko and others (something QT) developing an open platform mobile OS already? Why not just take what they've done and fork it or help out. What's the point in yet another open mobile platform when there are already people that have half finished implementations.
Oh I get it. This open platform would be closed from the public to tinker with and actually only be available to the mobile phone providers? Is that the idea?
The article is not clear, is the OS of the phone truely open source, or have they just opened up specifications for utilizing the OS?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
so what, now i have to code in java to contribute anything to the "G-phone"?
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
Code, content, physical layer. Those are the three layers that Larry Lessig uses to describe the Internet. His concern, as expressed in The Future of Ideas, is that our common global culture could be locked down if we don't work hard to keep the Internet open. So Free Software, Creative Commons, and now this Google initiative are going to start to move us away from our dependence on Microsoft, ATT, and Warner Brothers / Disney. Google isn't perfect, but I say this is a step in the right direction. Don't underestimate the importance of having devices with open code at the fringes of the Internet. Microsoft wants to force you to have non-Free software to access the Internet. This effort by Google is one step away from that kind of lock-down. You go, Googlers!
I'm a man, you insensitive clod!
which is totally what she said
What does this potentially mean for joe users like myself as far as interoperability with linux programs? Does this mean a platform that will be friendlier with syncing? Does it mean a competitive alternative to the WM phone OS? I ask because I really don't know. Any insights on this one?
For all who are getting a little weary of all those great "Open Phone" initiatives being touted here and there without seeing much practical (affordable, stable, educational, worthwile) upshot coming of them, here's my plan.
/. sells them for about $50 a pop)
1. Get a small (and I mean 'small', because it'll basically be the footprint of your phone-to-be), well-documented ARM development board, a small keyboard and a display.
2. Get one of them dirt-cheap GSM bugs (an online store recently mentioned on
3. Find out if it also supports a speaker-output, if and how programmable it is (some GSM bugs have an USB or serial interface on which you can send AT commands).
4. Hook it up to your board and test it.
5. Rig the OS for the board.
6. ???
7. Have Phun.
No brand tie-ins, undocumented hardware, binary blobs in the kernel, outdated development toolchains, whatever. Just dial and answer calls, damnit!
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
As the Motorola A910 Linux based box.
Finally a company that actually has a clue. We can rely on Google to produce what I know everyone really wants - a phone that only makes voice calls not fancy-nancy "interweb" rubbish.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
So when Google gets into WIFI hotspots will they call them G-spots?
to make Apple's iPhone SDK available for free... having 3 relatively open platforms (OpenMoko, Google, Apple(?)) available and competing for customers would be nice..
(scant reply to post below me)
:-) ) and go for a full-feature GSM/GPRS module.
If you want data too, skip the GSM bugs (well, maybe some have GPRS feature hidden in their firmware somewhere
These guys sell one (not affiliated with them, just an example). It's got all you could ask for. Just add an antenna and a battery to your board and you're set.
Add everything up and you will end up half the price of an iPhone. Best of all, it will run _Your Stuff_, and _Your Stuff_ Only. (_Your_ as in: only the stuff that you decide to put on, no crapola, undocumented "features" or government mandated remotely 'provisioned' (i.e. push-downloaded onto your set while you're not looking) snoop vectors).
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Unless 3rd parties get to develop in any available language and it's just that the GUI is in Java, what's to differentiate this from what Danger (Sidekick) does? What differentiates them from billions of other handsets that run Java apps at slow speeds?
A perpetual skeptic, I'll read the announcement for my real evidence. But it sounds like a Microsoft-type ploy may be in order, where first-party apps are fundamentally better than later apps (although they both suck) not by any difference or deficiencies in the goals or capabilities of the third-party developers, but because the apps are subject to different arbitrary rules. Or like the iPhone, where 3rd-party apps to date have been relegated to Javascript and an active Internet connection... Google's motto aside, be wary. Putting other people down to make yourself look good a practice that seems to have pay off for others.
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
So now after the i-Everything wave of names we'll browse from our g-Phones using g-Spots?
By fostering open development for their platform and making it a central part of their strategy, Google may one-up Apple.
They could call it OpenMoko and then a lot of the work would have been done for them already;
OpenMoko.org.
Sprint has invested heavily in 2.5 GHz spectrum, with 85% coverage of U.S. households. Predicted speeds are 2-4 Mbp/s down and 1 Mbps up. Sprint's partnership with Google was announced in July. Quote: " '[T]his is not a cellular model,' said Atish Gude, Sprint's senior vice president for mobile broadband operations." At about the same time, Sprint announced a partnership with Clearwire, the other big WiMax spectrum-holder.
This could really put competitive pressure on telcos, especially if applications development leads to truly useful products. (Instead of silly little widgets.) Who wants a phone that can do less but costs more?
I'd say that the absence of the #1 cell phone maker (while #2 and #3 is there) is more striking than some net providers missing.
It will be very interesting to see how well Google does the phone UI. The UI of their (main) search page is pretty clean, amazingly so for a company with as many products to promote as Google and as big as they are. But a Web UI and a phone UI are completely different and I'm wondering if they were able to resist the desktop paradigm.
;-)
It will be especially interesting to compare this to the iPhone.
I'm hopeful that we can see some additional progress on the phone UI front now that there are competitors to the "old school" mobile phone manufacturers. Maybe between the gPhone and iPhone, UI nirvana will be reached. But I'm not counting on it
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Everyone missed the follow-up article!
"Nigeria has declared it will buy 500,000 gphones in the first batch but have decided to install WM6 over the top. Of course, they'll still pay for support from gphone".
The follow-up follow-up was something about Balmer, leaving the nigerian embassy) saying he had nothing to do with it while carrying a copy of Mandriva under his arm.
Unless 3rd parties get to develop in any available language and it's just that the GUI is in Java, what's to differentiate this from what Danger (Sidekick) does? What differentiates them from billions of other handsets that run Java apps at slow speeds?
A product using many kinds of reciprocally licensed software (including the GPL and LGPL) can't be locked down into a "Walled Garden" like that. Linux is GPLed, so Google will have to release the code to their phone's kernel. If Google wanted to make a closed product like the iPhone they would have had to use a BSD core rather than a Linux one.
On their project page the following projects may also be relevant:
1. It were so simple a transaction of exchanging my activities on the device for some access provided by Google. You don't know how/what your data is being used for until it is waaay too late. If it were such a simple black-or-white transaction, I'd go along with you as the moderators have. But it isn't. Not even close.
2. There's a **huge** personal data industry in the U.S. despite a maze of privacy standards. That suggests your personal data is worth way more than a little data access. If you don't realize the astronomical value of your personal data, then Google and others will take continue to take full advantage of you.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
is the OS of the phone truely open source, or have they just opened up specifications for utilizing the OS?
If it's Linux, the kernel is open source. The article says it's Linux.
The bigger question is whether the specifications are open, or whether it's got binary blobs to talk to the hardware.
There is no "gPhone". There are many gPhones on the Android open platform.
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/
TODO - Insert Creative/Witty Signature
Also, please leave age/sex/location? Kthx.
As much as my employer hates to see Google doing well, I hope that this announcement has the altruistic effect of making cell phone service in the US suck less..
... no matter how good google makes something, once you start dealing with the US phone industry...it may be that not even google can make it worthwhile. GPhone changing the world was a much more credible idea when Google was going to own the airwaves. Partnering with existing cell companies means that we're going to get an almost-good, but ultimatly shitty product. However, I expect this will be a historical footnote that is used to trial/solve _some_ of the problems one encounters.. before google ultimately buys up that spectrum they're hoping to get and provides a mobile voice/data platform as a vertical market that they own completely.
but then, when i read the "pre-story" this weekend I almost posted a comment along the lines of what I'm posting now...
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Window Mobilers all just SHIT their pants ..... AGAIN !!
it's funny because it's true
I'm surprised that google is going the partner route. One thing that means is that the initiative is almost guaranteed to fail.
Why?
Because partners have their own agenda as to why they're partnering with Google.
Most carriers have long, and somewhat decent working relationships with their platform vendors. Apple comes out, and whacks all those relationships with a stick by producing a device that's arguably far superior to any US phone.
What are the other carriers to do? The phone OS's functionality is basically specified by the carrier, who picks and chooses various features depending on the phone's price point, how the phone will fit into the carrier's current phone mix, and the competition (not necessarily in that order). Google comes out with something that's "open" , and while it may be interesting, from a carrier point of view, that interest doesn't necessarily mean that it's going anywhere. Given how big Google is, the carriers may be on board just to sink the gPhone ship (welcome to corporate america).
Only time will tell. Will the gPhone be substantially better than Symbian etc?
The Google video about this (linked from TFA) is a bit all over the map, to put it mildly. It must be nice having so much frickin' money that you can wallow like that.
Discussion System prefs link: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
I CALLED IT!
Now all I have to do is setup a tech speculation blog and get some ads sponsored by Google.
Watch out Cringley I'm coming for your fan base!!
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Or will it join forces with the NSA Borg?
I'm not sure who tagged this "qtopia", but given that Trolltech is absent from the alliance, it's a pretty good bet that it's not Qtopia based.
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/press_110507.html
Well being open source I'm sure people will port it over to the 770, 800, 810 regardless of the lack of official support. At least I hope they do. :)
Oh I get it. This open platform
It's not just an "open" platform, it's an "open source platform". RTFA.
would be closed from the public to tinker with and actually only be available to the mobile phone providers? Is that the idea?
Quite to the contrary: the platform is clearly intended for people to develop software for easily. It's also intended for handset manufacturers to incorporate into their hardware easily. RTFA.
Isn't openMoko and others (something QT) developing an open platform mobile OS already?
OpenMoko started after Android and is probably far less complete. Trolltech's platform is GPL rather than LGPL or Apache 2, making it a much less attractive platform for manufacturers.
Google has always been in it for Google. Don't for a second Google isn't going to take advantage of every unfair and underhanded method to gain, keep and manipulate their users. They have turned 'searching' into a two tier system. They claim their organic searches are uninfluenced by how much you advertise with them, but rather the importance of your site. Then Google turns around and 'accidentally' crawls all the 'copies' of your ad on the tens of thousands (millions?) of sites that broker ads from Google, and "OOPS! Looks like your site just went up 1000 places in the organic search because hey look it's on all these sites that just happen to broker ads from us." Want to stop advertising with Google? It will cost you your organic ranking! "Oh well", you say, "let's just rely on our organic ranking on it's own merit?" Try telling that to all your competitors who are willing to give Google $1000 a week and push your organic ranking into obscurity. Google's search has 1% to do with ranking by importance or how many important sites link to your site and technical issues with the site and 99% to do with if you give Google money on a daily basis.
If you think this rather cool sounding phone is anything but a huge vector for Google to make a lot more dishonest money than you're living in la-la land. If MS was doing something like this it would be front page news, but since it's Google I'm probably the only one who thinks it's a bad thing. I'm not stupid though, so the companies I work for give lots of $$$ to Google every day just so we can show up in a search. I'm sure their phone will be very much the same, less a phone and more a conduit through which Google can serve up ads or their special 'search results' or whatever they are pushing with it, and you can be sure whoever gives Google the most money will be the ones who show up first in your searches using the phone.
What's this lead to? You search for 'pizza' and even though there are three or four places CLOSER and CHEEPER and MORE POPULAR, this other pizza place gave Google some money so guess which one shows up on top of the list? Searching for an attorney? How about a new car? Hope you don't need to search for "Google phone replacement". Google is USING EVERYONE LIKE A TOOL! I'm not sure how I feel about that but it's the truth that will set you free. Spread the word that Google = 2 tier plutocracy.
From the video, it sounds like it's going to run X11, Gtk, Python, and all that good stuff.
... I just want to know whether they're paranoid.
something clever
From the video, referring to the UNIX command line, "five people reading slashdot will be all over this"...
Look at the actual partners list:
Aplix (www.aplixcorp.com), Ascender Corporation (www.ascendercorp.com), Audience (www.audience.com), Broadcom (www.broadcom.com), China Mobile (www.chinamobile.com), eBay (www.ebay.com), Esmertec (www.esmertec.com), Google (www.google.com), HTC (www.htc.com), Intel (www.intel.com), KDDI (www.kddi.com), Living Image (www.livingimage.jp), LG (www.lge.com), Marvell (www.marvell.com), Motorola (www.motorola.com), NMS Communications (www.nmscommunications.com), Noser (www.noser.com), NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (www.nttdocomo.com), Nuance (www.nuance.com), Nvidia (www.nvidia.com), PacketVideo (www.packetvideo.com), Qualcomm (www.qualcomm.com), Samsung (www.samsung.com), SiRF (www.sirf.com), SkyPop (www.skypop.com), SONiVOX (www.sonivoxrocks.com), Sprint Nextel (www.sprint.com), Synaptics (www.synaptics.com), TAT - The Astonishing Tribe (www.tat.se), Telecom Italia (www.telecomitalia.com), Telefónica (www.telefonica.es), Texas Instruments (www.ti.com), T-Mobile (www.t-mobile.com), Wind River (www.windriver.com)
Some of them, e.g. Broadcom, Wind River or NVIDIA, are known for being hostile towards a fully open Linux. I don't know what this platform will look like hardware-wise, but these people don't make it bode well for the software side.
I thought Google wanted to free my phone as in cost. It seems to serve them better if I can get on the net more, so I'll be interested to see how the price models vary for phones under the (G)OP Coalition vary verse a standard closed phone. If I can afford to use cellular internet, texting, email, etc. Then I would spend more time around Google products and ads making them money. So is Google dropping money to have Android places and if they are will I see some savings?
does anyone else think this could be a mistake for google? i think the odds are *at least* 70-30 against
I bought thisinstead.
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
over the years we've seen all kinds of industry consortia that never resulted in products and delivered more hype than what was promised. Since each vendor and then the carriers are likely to have the final say in what gets shipped and what level of openness is available, discount the hype here and wait for results. For example, the 2 Japanese carriers listed are also part of a different mobile Linux consortium. They may only be concerned about compatibility of the Linux kernels and libraries and have no interest in the rest of the stack.
Ignore hype and wait for real results.
Wow!
Google, huge though it is, is continuing to be a force for Good.
Here's the pattern Google is following, in the case of OpenSocial and now Android:
1. Big product with major consumer cred launches in June of this year and gains significant buzz and impressive growth.
In one case, iPhone. In the other case, the facebook platform
2. Big product, perhaps understandably, keeps certain things proprietary and closed
Apple releases the infamous 1.1.1 update, wiping out third party applications and locking down the iPhone software.
(perhaps understandably because you really don't want malware infecting your phone)
Facebook's platform has its own proprietary markup language and API
(perhaps understandably because it helps apps easily match the site's look-and-feel)
3. Google quietly works on a way to open things up some more. Allows ridiculous amounts of buzz to build up
Gphone, "Maka Maka"
4. Google quietly gathers a large list of industry partners that have been left behind by the trailblazer, and convinces them that uniting behind an open standard will be great for them.
Today's list of phone companies, last week's list of social networks.
5. Google makes a big announcement. Not a new product, but a new standard and some new software.
Android, OpenSocial
If this is what it looks like to have big bad Google exerting its influence on this industry, I wouldn't mind much, much more of the same. Compare this to how Microsoft acted when they were on top. Good for Google!
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Where are all the big ideas? Is this /.? .......gasp...... making money.
Can't we just hope for the best and plan for the worst? Can it get any worse?
Why is everyone so eager for Google to go full on eVIL just so they can jump up and down screaming "I told you so!" Personally I think the real Ace in Google's hand is the fact that in the future the laptop and "PC" market as we know it is going the way of the mainframe. For the majority of Americans, Email, Chat, Word Processing, Internet and Media playback is all they ever use a PC (read Microsoft) for. Why do we need all that wonderful bloat that is embodied by Vista and alluded to by XP? My PC today doesn't do significantly (though it suffers more problems) more for me today than it did back in the days of 95 or even 3.1 for that matter. So here comes Android, which is an OS for "Phones" (which are quickly becoming ubiquitous for mobile computing platforms with always on data connections)
Did Google create its search engine to build an advertising business on? Is it possible that there is one company out there who is not completely motivated by their bottom line? It's not like their motto is "Do no evil" and even if it were it's only to misdirect and distract you from their evil purpose of
My current phone is an iPhone. That's fine, I like my iPhone.
But assuming this goes well, my next phone will be one of these Android phones.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Your snarky aside that Google doesn't live up to its motto "do no evil" ignores that thst isn't even Google's motto. You're clearly mistaking them for the fourth (and largest) monkey in the see/hear/speak series.
Whether they're living up to "Don't be evil" is an open, but entirely different, question.
Openness does not necessarily make for a better product. Yet another "open" platform in a highly fragmented market does not help the industry.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The absence reminds me of this Robot Chicken clip: http://consumerist.com/consumer/videos/veringular-were-dropping-your-calls-and-there-isnt--you-can-do-about-it-314260.php
It's more like, they won't support a device that favors any other company over the one they already have an agreement with. If the iPhone switched to the google OS, then it might be a viable idea.
If Android OS permit user to install not signed applications it will win hands down. Symbian OS require manufacturer approval for some capabilities. Small, freeware and hobby developers will flock to Android OS in that case.
Now please give us an android update ROM for your previous phones (universal, blueangel etc.) so we can all rid ourselves of the brain-leakingly-bad windows mobile.
Bonus quote of the day
Did anyone watch the http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gphone/googles-android-team-introduces-the-gphone-318878.php?autoplay=truedev movie?
I quote
To run X, To run GTK, To run a bunch of Unix command line software. I'm sure there's a good 5 people out there who read Slashdot who'll be all over thatSlashdot - we're in your phonez, and they know it!
Nope, that's not any sort of hidden charge. You pay Apple $400 for the phone, and you pay AT&T each month of your contract for service (the same amount as for other plans).
Those are the only charges you're paying. The payments that AT&T makes to Apple are between the two of them--they're not charges to you in any veridical sense of the term. That's just AT&T choosing to take a hit from its iPhone contracts in order to secure exclusivity on a perceivedly one-of-a-kind phone.
Are you adequate?
So, no actual cool GPS iPhone-killer phone? Oh the unimaginable disappointment!
You just got troll'd!
;) EOF
This could really put competitive pressure on telcos
My current Sprint phone (a HTC Hermes) gets 1 Mbps down and around 400K upload on a good day (sometimes half that on a bad day) using EVDO. It also tethers and works as a modem for the PC. Unlimited data for $30/month (includes voice). It works great with Skype, meaning I don't actually need the voice minutes at all if I choose. On the whole, I'd have to say I'm pleased with Sprint -- it seems that being the perpetual underdog has made it more eager to deliver good products.
Da Blog
...you buy a SIM card for your favourite network, you put it in the phone. Job done. Other than subsidising handsets, what influence do the network have on your choice of phone?
This is dead long before it even starts. It's retarded. Why in the world would would a cellphone manufacture stick a third-party OS on their phones, tossing whatever work they've already done, with no support whatsoever? I guess Google assumes that manufacturers will build around it, but what's the incentive? This is a Linux hack, and there are already Linux hacks with a longer track record.