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."

Comments

iPhone appstore killer.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Compare the iPhone's walled garden approach to this:

All applications are equal

Android does not differentiate between the phone's basic and third-party applications -- even the dialer or home screen can be replaced.

I think this stuff should all be spun off

[jacquesm]

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.

A gate vs. nothing

[SuperKendall]

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?

Re:Android will only run low res Java apps

[Cycon]

Consider the iPhone, which despite being so crippled, a developer can still create and compile some native application for it, and install it via iTunes store or jailbreak. Google has decided TO BAN ALL NATIVE APPLICATIONS for its Android phones, and only allow Java.

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.