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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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It'll be interesting to watch the clean, sleak and confined iPhone go against the more likely open and flexible Android.
Depends. It will be a short race if we're watching the clean, sleek and confined iPhone go against the clean, sleek, open and flexible Android....
Frankly tho', I'm surprised at the number of posters on this site who seem to believe we're going to be looking at a contest between Apple & Google for the smartphone king crown.
Is it American chauvinism that makes so many here discount RIM & Nokia?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
What makes people think that the mobile network operators, who have resisted this sort of openness in their handsets before, will embrace it now? Nothing in the Android license requires them to do so.
Apple had to struggle to find a single carrier willing to allow the iPhone. Google showed up with six. You don't get six times as many carriers by promising them less control.
Except the iPhone is not like the carefully cultivated gardens of botanical centers. It is like Monsanto(TM) corn that has been genetically modified to be sterile, and comes with a license agreement.
You totally missed the point. I wasn't saying that Android's an appstore killer because of homebrew development.
I didn't miss your point. I pointed out, there are many points.
The difference is that the ecosystem of paid, professional developers for Android will be able to do things like:
* Add copy/paste functionality (if missing)
* Develop an unrestricted skype / SIP phone application.
* Develop apps that run in the background.
* Allow applications to be installed without the vendor's approval.
* etc, etc etc.
And all those are great - for some people. But are not needed - for some people.
After all you're already splitting hairs with end users on many points in your bullet list - does an end user care new IM notifications come from an external server? No. Do they really care if they can't get incredibly sucky VOIP over 3G and find WiFi instead to use Skype, those 1% of users that actually will seek out other ways to talk using voice on a PHONE? No. Do end users care what a developer must do to get an application? No, they see the applications before them. And developers can run anything they like on a phone without any restriction whatsoever for just $99.
There are some people that demand all those things, and many people who would consider they have them with an iPhone already, or at least the ones they care about.
The whole copy paste thing is so tired. It was debunked the first day someone used an iPhone. Would it be handy sometimes? Sure. But the device is perfectly usable without it because many data channels where you would normally use cut&paste are wired to funnel data as you desire (like emailing a web page link).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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
If the iPhone were as open as Palm, Symbian, or Windows Mobile, every major carrier would be shipping it.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that the carriers rejected the iPhone because they thought its closed nature would make it unsuccessful in the market? Or maybe they were making a moral stand for consumer openness?
A more likely explanation is that the iPhone took control from the carriers and gave it to Apple. Consumers, empirically, ended up somewhat better off.
I mean, people have been unlocking the iPhone and using it on other carriers. The carriers didn't complain, Apple did.
Carriers complained bitterly about unlocking. It took a class action lawsuit and a visit to the Supreme Court to end AT&T's policies against unlocking. If they've been quiet about iPhone unlocking, it's only because they've lost that battle.
Apple has to make a good faith effort to prevent unlocking as part of their contract with AT&T. To Apple, an unlocked phone is another sale, and they have no reason to care if you do so.
Are you saying that the carriers rejected the iPhone because they thought its closed nature would make it unsuccessful in the market? Or maybe they were making a moral stand for consumer openness?
Carriers rejected the iPhone because Apple wanted a monthly revenue sharing agreement.
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
Remember when MSFT was the one promoting openness, as compared to the evil Apple and IBM empires?
No, I don't.
I do remember how they screwed over their suppliers (QDOS), partners (IBM with OS 2, Sun with Java, PlaysForSure etc), and customers though(WinME, PlaysForSure). Also how they steamrollered the industry into the near monopoly monoculture we have today (Contracts forbidding BeOS or Linux on OEM machines, binary formats etc). Nice job rewriting history though.
Worked out well for them till people got tired of being screwed over and paying for mediocre knock-offs of other people's ideas.
In addition, Android devices are only allowed to have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) resolution displays
This is completely incorrect. The emulator has always supported QVGA and HVGA displays. The current UI is designed for a touchable HVGA display. There is nothing in the system that prevents scaling up to even higher resolution displays (which is a lot easier than scaling down to lower resolution displays).
I was roaming around electronic shops in Singapore a few months back and I've seen hundredth of Chinese iphone copies. Some of them even added nice features like FM radio and TV tuners on top of an already 3G phone. Some of them look really decent from a physical point of view but in all of them the operating system and interface seemed clumsy and literally rushed out of the door when compared to a UIQ, Windows Mobile or Iphone.
It's not that difficult to put together a physical phone since most chipsets are fully integrated little marvel. Building an operating system and all the applications a user expects takes a while. Polishing them until they shine, ala apple, takes even longer.
Now I am just wondering what will happen, if Google keep its promises, when those manufacturers will get access to the Android system for free. I saw at least 5 or 6 iclones that I would gladly use if the system was decent. It could very well be a revolution.
Your crypto logic can be implemented in C/C++ just fine, using JNI to bridge into an Android application. While it is true that full applications cannot be written solely in C/C++, that doesn't mean you cannot use C/C++ outright. Admittedly, that FAQ entry is poorly written, but a simple search of the android-developers Google Group shows a fair bit of Android/JNI activity, including posts from Android core team members indicating that JNI is possible.
I have no idea where you got that idea. Heck, the Android emulators by default launch as 480x320 and support skins with 320x480 and 240x320 resolutions. It's even been hinted in some presentations that Android might run on devices without screens — not that I'm completely certain how that would work (voice recognition only?).
In the future, you will get more efficient responses to your questions by posting them on an Android Google Group, rather than ranting about them on /.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Is it American chauvinism that makes so many here discount RIM & Nokia?
How do people like this get modded insightful??
I can't speak about RIM but I have owned a dozen Nokia phones over the past 10 or so years and they sucked or were decent but nothing great. About six months ago I purchased an HTC tytn and it is leaps and bounds better than anything Nokia ever put out. I think the iphone is ridiculously overrated but I used one and it was still better than anything Nokia has put out yet. This has nothing to do with "American chauvanism" and it has everything to do with Nokia having a very long track record of putting out half ass products.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN