Google's Open Source Mobile Platform

As expected, today Google took the wraps off of the gPhone (as the media have for months been referring to the rumored project). Google is "leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers," and will be licensing its software to all comers on an open source basis under the Apache license. (The Wall Street Journal's Ben Worthen demonstrates a miserable grasp of what "open source" means.) Google's US partners include Nextel and Sprint, but not AT&T nor Verizon. Phones will be available in the second half of 2008 — not the spring as earlier reports had speculated. News.com's analysis warns that Google won't take over the mobile market overnight, though they quote Forrester in the opinion that Google may be one of the three biggest mobile players after several years of shakeout.

Comments

Re:first psot!!!

[caffeinemessiah]

If anyone was interested in Ben Worthen's moronic grasp of open-source, its pasted below. E-mail your tirades to biztech@wsj.com, of which Ben Worthen is the lead writer, and ask him about how he got his job in the first place.

Information-technology departments will ban employees from connecting phones that run Google's operating system to their computers or the corporate network. The reason is that Google's operating system is open, meaning anyone can write software for it. That includes bad guys, who will doubtlessly develop viruses and other malicious code for these phones, which unsuspecting Google phones owners will download. Employees could spread the malicious code to the rest of the company when they synch their phones to their computers or use it to check email.

The way to combat this is to develop anti-virus and anti-malware software for phones and to develop security procedures similar to those that have evolved for PCs over the last several years. But that's going to take time and money - neither of which the average IT department has. So until then, expect Google phones to be persona non grata at companies.

DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me be the first to say DUPE.

Come ON! I guess Slashdot's speed at getting the original post on the front page threw you guys off. Usually these things come at least a day after everyone else.

(Not that I don't prefer Slashdot. I flame because I care.)

Re:first psot!!!

[emurphy42]

FWIW, he followed up with the following:

Update: I've read through the comments and most people seem to think I'm saying something I wasn't trying to say. That's my fault for writing sloppy. I don't think that Google's mobile operating system is a security problem because it's open source. I think that the phones that use it could become a security threat because if Google succeeds there are going to be a lot of applications for this phone and individuals are going to be able to download whichever ones they want to use. As this happens bad guys are going to start targeting these people with their own code, much the way they target PC users today.

The fact of the matter is that while most companies have anti-virus and anti-malware software on PCs, they don't do much of anything to secure phones. The point that I obviously didn't succeed at making originally is that if Google achieves its vision companies will realize that they have this weakness, and not knowing how to address it — companies would need to buy all sorts of security software and put in place all sorts of policies — their first instinct will be to ban the phones. Employees will get upset because, again if Google achieves its vision, these phones will be pretty darn cool and a pretty helpful business tool. Hence the conflict that I think it will cause. It has nothing to do with open source or Google per se, and everything to do with companies not being prepared for the phone as a dominant computing platform.

Re:Phone or Platform?

[m2943]

HTC, one of the partners, makes a ton of great phone hardware, currently held back by the crappy Windows Mobile software it's running; I'd expect that a lot of that hardware will run Android in the future.

Re:pictures

[Mr.Radar]

I don't have any experience with Sprint but T-Mobile is probably the best in terms of being "open" of the big four mobile operators in the US. For example, until a few years ago you could get free web browsing through them by exploiting a hole in their free WAP access service. Instead of just shutting the hole and ignoring the people who didn't want to pay for a full Internet plan, they decided to shut it while transitioning to tiered Internet plans so people who didn't need to tether could still get the full web on their phones at a reduced price. Most phones also apparently will still let you tether with their cheap service, though T-Mobile will cut off your access if you use too much bandwidth while doing this.

They use GSM which is a big plus if you want to buy your own phone. I haven't yet needed to because, while all of their phones that I've owned were locked and had T-Mobile logos and "premium services" everywhere, none of them were in any way crippled like Verizon is infamous for doing. I even added a custom ringtone to one of my phones using only a standard USB cable and the manufacturer's ringtone transfer software. Their coverage is pretty good, the only time I've had trouble with it was when I was traveling through West Virginia which is a hard area to cover with cell phone service anyways. Their biggest problem is that they don't yet have any 3G service available anywhere (they're waiting for the spectrum they bought for it to become available for their use) and their customer service is nothing to write home about, but that's pretty much par for the course in this industry.

open but for who?

[siddesu]

Google have been running (on a small scale) something conceptually similar in Japan with one of the major carriers -- KDDI -- for a while now. KDDI have integrated google search as the default search system, and google mail as one of the "official" mail options for that service. In effect there is a KDDI co-branded Google.

As far as I see it, Google mobile platform is the same thing inside an OS package. The platform will be "open" to carriers and makers who are participants of the Google alliance. However, nowhere in the Google materials have i seen a commitment to make the phone open to the outside developers. Nor does it make any sense for them to open it.

Depending on how it is rolled out, we may see some sources, but likely we'll never have a chance to apply a patch to the OS actually in the device, or build an application outside of whatever sandbox they put in the OS. There will likely be APIs and widgets tied to the google servers and services, but hardly much freedom beyond that.

Obviously that is very good for google, if they pull it off. It is less obviously good for the carriers or the makers, but the carriers will eventually agree to this in exchange for revenue-sharing, and because they have nowhere to go, and the makers will be arm-twisted by the carriers. The end result may be that only the "google internet" will be available on the mobile phones that use android. Sorta like an enhanced WAP, imode or EZ web.

I see no problem with this if one is very-very happy about storing their data on a google server and accessing it via the google phone OS. But I wouldn't call it free in any of the senses of that word we're accustomed to on /.

But I guess we'll see what it really is when they release the SDK.

Re:open but for who?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I see it, Google mobile platform is the same thing inside an OS package. The platform will be "open" to carriers and makers who are participants of the Google alliance. However, nowhere in the Google materials have i seen a commitment to make the phone open to the outside developers. Nor does it make any sense for them to open it.

Depending on how it is rolled out, we may see some sources, but likely we'll never have a chance to apply a patch to the OS actually in the device, or build an application outside of whatever sandbox they put in the OS. There will likely be APIs and widgets tied to the google servers and services, but hardly much freedom beyond that.

Finding details has been frustrating, but it looks like they're going to open up the complete SDK to everyone, as open source.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-my-gphone.html
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html

Wait until Nov 12 I guess.

Re:open but for who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html says:

All applications are created equal
Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services. With devices built on the Android Platform, users will be able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favorite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos.

My understanding is that anyone will be able to write applications for Android and use them, without requiring any blessing.

Nor does it make any sense for them to open it.

I think it makes a lot of sense for Google to open it (ie. to allow third party developers like yourself to write software for Android), as it will make the platform far far more attractive than it would be otherwise, and I think Google really understands this.

Disclaimer: I work for Google.

ATT is OK

[dookiesan]

There is so much complaining about cell carriers, I feel that anyone who is happy with theirs must speak up for the sake of balance and perspective.

I signed on with Cingular maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I make phone calls and text messages with my phone and I've never had a problem with the company. I'm on my third phone and they've all worked very well and have nice interfaces (I admit the verizon interfaces look like sh*t though).

Whenever I've called with a problem customer service has been pretty helpful. I've never had a billing issue though I don't change my damn plan every other month either. I even broke my phone halfway through my contract due to my own fault (threw it against the wall), and they gave me a new one as long as I renewed.

What the F should I be doing with my phone? Somehow everyone here hates their cell carrier, but I've completely missed out on this bitchfest...and it would be great to join. You might complain about how expensive ringtones are, but how pathetic is it to even _want_ a custom ringtone ?! I wish that no one could even turn the ringer ON. (I can upload my own ringtones to the phone for free, btw). I might complain about how much they charge to send pictures (I can download those off the phone for free too), but it doesn't come up since I don't feel the need to constantly verify to my friends that I'm still ugly. Unfortunately coverage has actually improved quite a bit, so I can't complain about that as much either.

Re:Creativity

[SnowZero]

Google has never called it the "gPhone"; Bloggers and press came up with that name since they needed to call it something. Google's name for the platform is Android.

Minor Correction

[Comatose51]

"Google's US partners include Nextel and Sprint..."

Sprint and Nextel is one company. Sprint acquired Nextel.

Re:Second half of 2008 great for vapor phones

[Achromatic1978]

Yeah, because Nokia - well, everyone knows they can't build a phone to save their life, right? Let's see. Camera: iPhone, 2MP, N95, 5MP. Storage: 8GB apiece. Web: iPhone, Safari. N95, based on Mozilla. Accelerometer (that 'gee whiz, doesn't every device need this' that fanboys rave about)? iPhone, check. N95, check. Display? iPhone, 320x480, touch sensitive, N95, 320x240, no touch.

Shall we continue? 3G? iPhone, uhh, no. N95, UMTS, HSDPA. GPS? iPhone, no, N95, yes. MMS? PTT? Ability to use your music as ringtone without paying money to the empire? Java? iPhone, no no no no no. N95, yes yes yes yes yes.

A few other neat features of my N95. Tethering? Oh so cool. Especially when your phone can act as a wireless access point. OpenGL hardware acceleration? Yes, you read me right.

But no mind, you just go on being a raving, frothing at the mouth Apple fanboy, oblivious to the RDF.

That platform won't be open

[BESTouff]

Sure, the platform will be open for the partners, but not for the developers.
First, look at the guys forming the "alliance": Broadcom, NVIDIA, Wind River, who are all acting towards closing linux (Wind River was even a vocal opponent to linux some times ago). Furthermore, look at why they choose Android's licence:

Why did you pick the Apache v2 open source license? Apache is a commercial-friendly open-source license. The Apache license allows manufacturers and mobile operators to innovate using the platform without the requirement to contribute those innovations back to the open-source community. Because these innovations and differentiated features can be kept proprietary, manufacturers and mobile operators are protected from the "viral infection" problem often associated with other licenses.

There. You can dream all you want about an open platform, like your traditional Fedora or Ubuntu desktop, but that won't be it. Go for Openmoko instead.

Speculation or research?

[Simon Brooke]

OK, OK, I know we're only supposed to speculate here without actually knowing anything. But if you want to know about it, it's here. It does use a Linux kernel (how then can it be 'Apache Licence'?). Above the kernel it is running a custom virtual machine, which doesn't seem to be a JVM. 'Android', as well as being the name of the project, is the name of a company bought by Google last year which specialised in PDA operating systems; The SDK will be ready for download on 12th November.

Before they were Android, the people behind the product were Danger, and produced a phone/PDA called HipTop, which was largely Java based.