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T-Mobile Will Be First To Use Android
stoolpigeon writes to tell us that T-Mobile's upcoming phone will try to combine the best elements of many of the new smart phones, and will be using Google's Android software. "The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the 'dream,' will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video. The phone's release date depends on how soon the Federal Communications Commission certifies that the Google software and the HTC phone meet network standards. Executives at all three companies are hoping to announce the phone in September because they would benefit from holiday season sales."
From the summary:
Come on, link! I'm lazy!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
That sounds like a nice way of saying robot slavery! FREE OUR MECHANICAL BROTHERS!
The FCC has to certify software? That seem strange to anybody? Isn't regulation of the power and frequency enough, and everything else is between the carrier and the phone?
here
Linked. But only because you're lazy.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
this one
Here is a totally premature review and the video inline: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/15/first_google_android_phone_sighting_reveals_awkward_iphone_rival.html
Currently hooked on AMP
A mention of Android? Cue iPhone debate.
Ugh! What a horrible, low quality video. Was it made on a cellphone or something?
Shot with an iphone.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
We'll see. I'm guessing Google probably won't totally drop the ball on the software, but the hardware and integration between hardware and software will be interesting to see in the real world. Lots of companies make good hardware, and lots make good software, but Apple is usually better than most at integrating the two, which in a device like the iPhone or HTC "Dream" is pretty key.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
more limiting than objective-c?
I would say yes. I am a big fan of Java but on a small device like a phone I would think native code would be best for some applications. :) Seems like it could be good for some small screened devices that are a little bigger than a phone.
On the other hand I can see the logic to keeping applications on a JVM so that locking up the device is less of an issue.
I have not really looked at the SDK yet so maybe it is all that and a bag of chips.
What I don't like is that I can not use it outside of the emulator. I would like to try it out as a Netbook Distro
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Now that Google has a 'shipping' product I am excited about the future for these reasons:
1) Google can pull an Apple'ish move and push for carriers to open up the networks.
or (even better)
2) Google can open up all of that dark-fiber that it has bought in the past and become a telecommunications juggernaught.
Google already has data centers all over the planet, they can match these up with worldwide GSM coverage and beat the existing companies at their own game.
I currently pay $150 CDN per month for the 'privilege' of using my phone anywhere in North America to make phone calls. If I try to use any data features I get charged $0.05/kb + US Roaming + US Data Rates/kb. To view the /. home page costs me almost $1.00 without viewing any stories.
Canada has been crippled by our 3 colluding state-sponsored ogilopies and I am desperate for another option.
Googles' ability to offer North America a non-draconian cellular service coupled with content/location-based advertising would be a god-send.
Scenerio: Motorist stranded on side of the road; does a Google search via cell-phone for tow-truck. Built-in GPS can show you the closest mechanics, and contact info.
Google; please take my money and give an option to ditch the horrible choices that I currently have.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I would have preferred Apple had adopted Java back in the late 90's and done all of Cocoa in it, personally. That being said, yes, Java as it stands today is more limiting for writing rich client apps than Apple's Objective-C UIKit.
It's not about the language. It's about the libraries. And Apple is currently second-to-none in that department for user interaction.
And really, the amount of Objective-C specific stuff you have to know to write compelling content for the iPhone isn't that huge. The most popular apps seem to be either 90% Interface Builder work, or 90% OpenGL ES work.
E pluribus unum
Please, for the love of all that is good and holy,next time try this:
<a href="your url here (with the quotes)">some witty text here</a>
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
How unfortunate. Isn't t-mobile the smallest network in the US, with the least coverage, and no 3G/high-speed data whatsoever?
:(
It was bad enough when Apple locked the iphone to AT&T, but at least they have some 3G and good coverage (after acquiring Cingular.) But t-mobile? That's not going to be good for business
everything in moderation
Well, it would have been nice if NEXTStep (aka Cocoa) had been written in Java, except that development started about ten years before Java 1.0 was released.
Keep in mind that the Apple/NEXT reverse takeover occurred in 1996, about when Java was showing up in web applets.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Not good business? From which perspective?
I have no idea about which companies have better coverage than the next in the US, but if T-Mobile is indeed the smallest, then it makes a lot of sense for Google to partner up with them for their first(?) phone, the contracts are probably better than they would get from going with a bigger corporation, bit cheaper, not as much loss if it fails, and from T-Mobile's perspective, they can't really go wrong, since its already got them a lot of publicity, stocks probably went up, more website/store hits, etc...
As far as I am aware there is nothing keeping "Android" from also being used on any other phone that supports it (or vice versa), and that may happen more now if T-Mobile's attempt is even a moderate success.
Besides, its a little more demand for 3G/better networks, or at least more awareness of the need even if it does fail.
to lock their phones down tight and wipe out the OEM software in favor of their own crap, the chances of me ever getting to use it are close to nil. T-Mobile's coverage is spotty at best in the areas my wife & I frequent, even AT&T can get iffy, so we're stuck with Verizon.
It will be very interesting to watch the mobile computing space heat up. Can Android steal away the momentum the iPhone currently has on third-party development?
Considering the writer is a clear Apple fanboy who has never seen or tested the Android OS or the new device, it cant be called a review. It's simply the author hoping it doesnt burst his iPhone bubble.
I'd totally be interested in a version of Android for the iPhone. I like the hardware and Unix-based OS on the iPhone...I just don't like resorting to jailbraking it in order to utilize it the way I want.
You sure it's not this one?
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
How on earth do you end up spending that much? Does that include making all your calls + roaming + etc?
When I was in the U.S. for 3 months I got a Cingular prepaid SIM card - traveled all throughout the U.S. and could make calls just fine.. cost me $10. I'd imagine it'd work just fine in Canada as well on any GSM provider there. So I can't imagine the $CAD150/month being some flat fee just so you can actually use the phone on GSM networks.
Apple is better at integrating their own software and the hardware, but they have a tendency to put artificial restrictions in place to prevent that kind of integration between third-party apps and the hardware. Among other things, Apple's applications that come with the iPhone can run in the background and access the contents of the user's iPod...and those are just the two that you find out within 10 minutes of looking into what it would take to develop an app for the iPhone. When you dig deeper, there are quite a few artificial restrictions for app developers that go away when you decide to make your app non-official (i.e. require a jailbroken phone).
FWIW, I have an iPhone and generally love it. But all the apps I'd like to write for it (I've come up with 4 ideas so far) have run into some issue with an explicit decision Apple made in the SDK that makes them impossible. There's one app that I may end up writing using an undocumented work around, but I'm not sure I want to put in the effort because that API could change at any moment and there's a good chance Apple would refuse to distribute the app through the app store because of that.
If the Android SDK can focus on allowing third-party apps to have full access to the available hardware, the user experience will end up being better than on the iPhone. Initially, it will be worse since the basic apps that come with the phone won't feel as natural. But, over time, those apps will mature and third party apps will higher quality and more useful. I'm hoping that point in time is somewhere around the time my 2 year contract is up with AT&T because unless Apple opens up the SDK a lot more, I won't be getting another iPhone. As a developer, I'm not interested in any phone that prevents me from writing the kinds of apps that I want to write.
T-Mobile is rolling out 3g in the near future.
They're using their grammar skills there.
How unfortunate. Isn't t-mobile the smallest network in the US, with the least coverage, and no 3G/high-speed data whatsoever?
It was bad enough when Apple locked the iphone to AT&T, but at least they have some 3G and good coverage (after acquiring Cingular.) But t-mobile? That's not going to be good for business :(
T-Mobile works off of Sprint.
Which does have 3-G and was the first large service provider to offer it.
Uh WRONG, T-Mobile is a GSM provider like AT&T/Cingular is. They have roaming agreements with AT&T, and therefore have similar coverage. They're way behind on the 3G, but they've begun to roll it out to markets.
Verizon, Sprint and Alltel OTOH are CDMA, you could say Cricket "works off Sprint", as they are also CDMA.
grep -iw skynet
It's not about the language. It's about the libraries. And Apple is currently second-to-none in that department for user interaction.
Really? As demonstrated by what?
Looks to me Apple has the same pushbutton/scrollbar/slider stuff as anybody else. And Objective C with XCode seems clunky and outdated compared to Glade and Python, or C# and Stetic.
Erm.. Shouldn't it be "HTC will be first"?
Something must be seriously broken with the cell phone market in the US when $cell_carrier is considered more important than $phone_manufacturer.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Thank God They are partnering with T-mobile. T-mobile is the only cell company who was not in on the NSA wiretapping scandal. Yes I know Qwest was also not party, but they don't provide cell service as far as I know.
Among other things, Apple's applications that come with the iPhone can run in the background and access the contents of the user's iPod...
If the Android SDK can focus on allowing third-party apps to have full access to the available hardware,
But, what you're asking for is full access to all the software. I don't think you're even going to get this on Android (or any phone in the near future).. your code all runs in a VM doesn't it? Hell, we don't even have full access to everything on OS X or Windows systems, just lots of clever work arounds that break in the next SP/release, right? Right now, how do you modify the iTunes DB without iTunes? Look what happened to anti-virus developers and Vista. Even Linux, about as open a system as you can get, doesn't go out of its way to let you do what you want with it. Give me a stable driver API.. errm, now, and for 5+ years? And can we get ZFS support merged please? Anyway, I think "being able to do something" isn't the same as "designed to allow you to do something". It's one notch higher than "designed not to allow you.." though :\
How about we focus more on functional software that helps us do useful things, rather than software that fucks around with our systems for the sake of it?
I know, I know, there are going to be many cases where a legitimate piece of functionality is held back because of artificial restrictions or real software limitations, but it just seems like most software is part of a big feedback loop, and when you step back, look at how it improves your life/business... wow... what are computers for again? Programming and fixing?
That's the only thing I really care about any platform, what are it's capabilities, what can it do, what DOES it do for me? In that light, both the iPhone and Android based systems seem to have equal potential to affect our lives, by making a few things a bit easier for us. But only one of them DOES much right now. They're both still just phones, and at best, PDAs :\
Hmm... I clicked 'watch in high quality' but it didn't help.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Holy crap, I wish I had sprayed milk out my nose.. But I'm eating chili :(
Right. Because there's no way an open source product is going to have an awkward or otherwise clunky interface. This must be editorial bias, no other explanation is possible.
I know someone (who shall remain nameless) who got a pre-production HTC handset like this from their (nameless) employer. :) and they've made it dead simple to download $999.99 useless apps. It all works together well.
To prove I've played with it: the friend's phone had a mode where unlocking it required connecting a grid of dots in a particular order. This may exist on other phones but I'd never seen it before. Cute gimmick.
Unless HTC and Google sort out the HW and UI it's a non-starter as an iphone competitor.
This may change in production but the touchscreen is simply horrible. It's unresponsive and inaccurate. This is plainly visible in this video of the device. Apart from that, the device is big and fat. I did not get a chance to test call quality or battery life.
The UI itself is not as simple as the iPhone's. It's yet another spin on the usual icons in windows maze that invariably leave you lost.
Apple's "secret" sauce is execution. Their phone is pretty, their HW works with the software (the touchscreen anyway, not the 3G issues...
Shipping Android on subpar HW, such as the example I saw, will doom it to being yet another of the "other" phones.
It's more than just hope, unfortunately. Apple needs competition, but from what I've seen so far, Android doesn't (yet) seem to be that competition. The UI seems disjointed, inconsistent and slow-ish, and the third-party applications I've seen so far use whatever ugly UI style the developers devised, ignoring what the main OS is doing. Worse, they are obviously made to run inside the emulator, with small buttons that can never work on a touch screen phone.
Part of the issue is probably that Android targets different types of handsets with different screens and input mechanisms, while the iPhone's OS is made for the iPhone's form factor. Part of it is probably that Android isn't finished yet. Part of it is that there's no interface guidelines, but perhaps Google will change its mind on this and produce some. So there's still hope.
But as of now, the people who are hoping are the ones who want Android to succeed, not the ones who want it to fail.
Apple's applications that come with the iPhone can run in the background and access the contents of the user's iPod
How about we focus more on functional software that helps us do useful things, rather than software that fucks around with our systems for the sake of it? (...) That's the only thing I really care about any platform, what are it's capabilities, what can it do, what DOES it do for me?
But the GP's two restrictions restrict the iPhone's capabilities.
Here's a few things useful the iPhone can't do for you, but could if it allowed background processes and access to the iTunes library:
And a ton more. These are a few of the things the iPhone doesn't do for you as a result of Apple's restrictions. And none of them are "software that fucks around with our systems for the sake of it."
For the record, I own an iPhone.
...it comes with skype. Can someone please tell me why Skype isn't available for the iPhone? Because of background processes? I want skype on my bloody phone. Fvck Apple and the telecoms. Does that resonate with anyone?