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First Sight of Google Android
CorinneI writes "At the Mobile World Congress show, four mobile processor vendors demoed pre-production devices running versions of Google's Android OS — a Linux-based, open operating system for mobile phones that will sport Google applications. The biggest surprise of the demos was how well Android runs on slow devices. 'TI showed Android on a Motorola Q-like QWERTY handheld with its 200 Mhz OMAP 850 platform, where the user interface felt smooth and fast, even with little Apple-like animated transitions between screens.' HTC, Motorola, LG, and Samsung all belong to Google's Open Handset Alliance"
I don't know why that would be so surprising. Google has quite a bevy of talented people at all levels. All products that come out of Google seem to have something to do with advertising and Android will be just such a vehicle for them. It's how most everything in cyberspace gets funded. You get something for free (a video, a song, a game) and an advertiser pays.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I'm also stoked that I FINALLY got to use one of those phrases!
That's the disadvantage for the iPhone in Japan: fantastic phones already being present. Even though the interface doesn't compare with the iPhone, Japanese cell phones have long since been about style, and even on a bad day, they make "fantastic" American phones look pretty sad indeed.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Since when was 200MHz slow? My old Visor Edge has a 16MHz processor and it feels quite peppy. It does everything I would expect a smartphone to do (other than the fact that it can't make phone calls), and it's easy to use. Have we gotten so used to bloat and poorly optimized code that a 200MHz processor in a phone seems slow? It's a *phone* for Pete's sake.
Having talked to some people around here (UK) it seems to me that Apple would sell many more Iphones by ditching the carrier lock-in it is plagued with currently. Seriously. I can get any phone on the market without having to sign any contracts - except for the Iphone.
Now, O2 is not a particularly bad carrier, but I travel a lot and I would really like to be able to use my phone abroad without paying the quite extortionate roaming fees.
Also, no 3G (yet).
The UI was smooth and fast on my 486/33 running Windows 3.11. It's still quite capable running a no-frills X window manager and Pentium Overdrive. The Apple ][GS was reasonably snappy when it didn't have to access a drive. The only reason why a multi-hundred MHz device could be slow is programmer laziness.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I often browse Facebook on my phone. It's a Sony Ericsson K800i - high end 18 months ago, nowadays it's getting to be the standard issue free-with-cheap-contract phone that everyone in the world seems to have. Certainly it doesn't compete with the iPhone as a web browser, but it's capable enough, and Facebook has a perfectly good mobile-optimised site. And you can always install Opera Mini.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Are you trying to say the iPhone won't do well because it isn't stylish enough? I don't see the Japanese phones being more stylish than an expensive, globally buzzworthy product that has a sleek physical design and ubercool user interface. If anything the iPhone will do well because of its association with style and the status that comes with it. I think Apple products in general have an extra sense of style because of their computer designs and the success of the iPod. I can't tell you how many Japanese people look at my powerbook and go, "Makku? Coooru."
Just use Google!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=android%20open%20source
Then you find:
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html
"Android will be open source; it can be liberally extended to incorporate new cutting edge technologies as they emerge. The platform will continue to evolve as the developer community works together to build innovative mobile applications."
As others have posted, 200MHz is nothing to sniff at (unless you're throwing it away with bloatware). If Windows 3.11 could run snappily on a 50MHz 486 then there is no good reason for slow software on a 200MHz ARM.
One of the interesting outcomes of the speed difference is that this means Android based devices should have far better power figures than equivalent Windows CE devices.
Efficiency is something you have to design in early. The idea that you caan make a bloaty architecture efficient is broken. You don't get a gazzelle by shaving an elephant's legs.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You can also read (here) that