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Google Revs Android, FCC Approves First Phone
Cycon writes "Google has announced, 'We're releasing a beta SDK. You can read about the new Android 0.9 SDK beta at the Android Developers' Site, or if you want to get straight to the bits, you can visit the download page.' A new Development Roadmap has also been released to help developers understand the direction the software is taking (as this is still only a Beta release). In addition, the FCC has approved the HTC Dream, and it is believed Google and T-Mobile will launch the phone in the US on November 10, since a confidentiality request attached to the application asks the FCC to keep details secret until that date."
Compare the iPhone's walled garden approach to this:
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Google is becoming more and more like a christmas tree, the main trunk of which seems to be interconnecting information about all the users they've got in their various services.
Pretty soon they'll know your current location, what you've been searching for all your life, who you've been talking to and what you had for breakfast, as well as the contents of your email and your various documents.
That much information in the hands of one party is asking for trouble, either because they'll have a breach sooner or later (hopefully later) or because they find new 'creative' uses for all that data about you.
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Remember when MSFT was the one promoting openness, as compared to the evil Apple and IBM empires?
I wouldn't be surprised to see a repeat, but with Google in the role of the open system, ala Android. It'll be interesting to watch the clean, sleak and confined iPhone go against the more likely open and flexible Android.
If history is any indication, I think Google wins.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
You realize that there's been several security holes in the iPhone that give the attacker root access?
There will always be ways around security defenses. You can climb over a gate, yet people still install them. Why?
It's because it's foolish to do nothing and invite the worst.
Thankfully of course Android does do something in terms of app sandboxing. So the real question is have they struck the right balance by being more open to start with?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This about linux is truth, indeed. I was shocked myself some month ago.
Point of most common choice being best is definitely wrong taken. You BEST developers, not quantity of them from all sides.
I bought new laptop without OS preinstalled. Because of some timeline issues I booted up Ubuntu linux and in 15 minutes I had fully operational PC, including function keys, wireless (802.11n!) and LAN, OpenOffice and Firefox out of the box. I did not touch any settings when it booted up. 15 MINS!
Then after few days I decided it's time to go to.. Vista, it took me 7-8 hours effectively to install, find all drivers and make everything working normally.
Surely we will end up seeing "jailbroken" Android phones. If you are willing to consider a jailbroken iPhone as a legitimate target platform, you should know that people are already working on (and have met some success with) building and executing C and C++ applications on the Android emulator.
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
There are several things in the system that will make it difficult to scale up to higher resolution displays. One example is Android's use of integer pixel coordinates, instead of abstract floating point coordinates. By tying Android to pixels, Google ensures that application elements will appear smaller (and so less usable) on higher res displays.