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Verizon Embraces Google's Android
An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek has up an article on Verizon's decision to fully support Android. After passing on the iPhone, the company says they're going to open their network to more devices, move their network to GSM-based radio technology (LTE), and now support Android. 'In an open-access model, though, Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup. Though the company will insist on testing all phones developed to run on its network in the open-access program, Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices.'"
It's hard to tell what the long term future of IS-95/CDMA2000 (TIA standards) is. The 4G road map is a technology called Ultra Mobile Broadband, this is the TIA world's equivalent of LTE, but nobody has, thus far, expressed any interest in it.
Sprint is dabbling in WiMAX, though its deprecated its projects in that area of late. It did, at one point, experiment with a version of UMTS (GSM) called UMTS-TDD but ultimately rejected it in favor of WiMAX, so they're open-minded enough to consider things that fall outside of the narrow TIA systems.
Alltel, I believe, hasn't made any decisions or said anything about 4G. Between them, Alltel, Verizon, and Sprint are the three major CDMA2000 operators. As long as one of those operators remains tied to CDMA2000, it's unlikely the system will die completely.
Frequencies is an issue of local legislation and doesn't have much to do with standards. It's going to get worse in Europe too, as phones currently support GSM on 1800 and 900, and UMTS on 2100/1900, and are now going to have to support GSM on 450MHz and UMTS on 900 and 1800. As time goes by, the number of frequencies every handset supports is just going to go through the roof, even if the phone is only supposed to work in one region.
I think this is going to end up being a fight between WiMAX and LTE, with UMB getting relatively little support. While WiMAX is better known to geeks, it's no more open nor more efficient than LTE. LTE is arguably slightly better in supporting SIM cards, so ultimately if I had a choice, I'd prefer the latter to "win". But both are likely to have wide support across the world, it's unlikely that the same ideological differences that caused the CDMA vs GSM thing to be a mess will happen this time.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Verizon had to 'deal with it' because they insist on using non-standard firmware to disable features that circumvent their revenue stream model. Why do you think my Razr can't transfer images and ringtones via Bluetooth? Because that would get around their silly "Get It Now" storefront. Same for Java - no free apps; everything must go thru their store.
I don't blame the manufacturers one bit for punishing these clowns for crippling their phones - in fact, I'd love for the manufacturers to forbid resellers from ruining the manufacturers reputation by flashing sketchy custom firmware and still calling it a 'Company X, Brand Y' phone.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
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Not sure where you got that idea from. Android Media APIs and MotionEvent for handling "movement (mouse, pen, finger) events."
more of the same on Twitter.