Slashdot Mirror
Android Gathers Steam Among Open Source Developers
svonkie writes "Despite launching on the T-Mobile G1 with little mainstream fanfare, Google Inc.'s Android OS appears to have gained strong interest in the open source development community. According to a survey of Black Duck Software's Knowledge Base, Apple Inc.'s iPhone led the industry with 266 open source project releases during 2008, while Android followed in second place with 191 releases. Black Duck compiled the data after scouring through over 185,000 of open source projects across 4,000 Internet sites."
There still seems to be a serious lack of Blackberry love from Android. Why is that? Any suggestions/guides for going about getting Android on mine?
Bored at work? Play Game!
Of all the open source projects I've worked on or had interaction with the Google Android and Chrome teams have been by far the best. Most friendly, most competent, etc.
Not perfect of course, but an absolute pleasure. I can certainly see why Android would be popular with the rise of smartphones and the netbook and smaller category of devices.
Meanwhile, the iPhone is gathering billions of dollars.
Turn in your geek credentials, you phoney!
Little mainstream fanfare?!? You kidding, right? They poured as much, if not more, cash than Apple into pushing that Java architecture abortion that is Android.
Can you spell Parcelable?
It's such a shame that Sean Moss-Pultz is so full of sh-t, Android is what OpenMoko could've been if they'd pulled their fingers out. What's going to happen to it now? Will OpenMoko continue to develop and will it ultimately still bring out hardware?
ilovegeorgebush
I would think an android that gathered methane from would have more of a job to do, especially in the open source community.
This guy's the limit!
T-Mobile is a joke and all of the new Android phones are heading for service providers outside the US. Is Google serious about it's platform or not? I'd love and Android phone but we don't even have T-Mobile in the US midwest region.
Cheering about 70% as much OSS projects as on the "evil, non-open" iPhone - is that what they call "damning with faint praise"?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Two words. Steam Punk.
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
Sorry to interrupt a good rant; but Android is Apache v2.
I don't care about Android, because in no way does it work on Verizon.
I don't need another toy; I need a phone that works Wherever, Whenever.
Yeah, I find AT&T's 3G performance is spotty - but T-Mobile is about 30x worse.
At the danger of YHBT-YHL-HAND, here goes:
GPL: Ideology first, technology and practicality second. Constant paranoia that someone is using the code base in violation of not only the spirit of the license but the 'spirit'.
You realize you're talking about Linux (the kernel) here, right? Linus approves of Tivo (have a look at http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/2939.html)
BSD: Friendly environment
And here you're talking about Theo de Raadt. Whether you agree with him or not, whether you like him or not, you can't say he pulls his punches.
BSD: Focus on the code, not the license
That's why *BSD refuses to include the new bash licensed under GPLv3, right? Hint: it isn't ;-)
You may be right in the typical case. I just want to point to a few exceptions, hopefully preventing people from seeing the world as black-and-white as you do.
How the hell can you possibly be that out of touch from reality.
Android is competing with Microsoft's mobile phone OS and Symbian. And from the massive number of Android based phones coming out in 2009 and beyond they are easily going to become the dominant mobile phone OS.
So wake the fuck up. Google doesn't give a shit if someone like you can't get a G1 in some flyover state in the US. Google is focused on winning the five to ten year war over what the dominant mobile phone OS will be.
Go buy a fucking iPhone.
It should get a lot of traction since Android has a fantastic API, written by very smart developers for developers. I was playing with it briefly and was very impressed. The setup was breeze and tooling (Eclipse integration) is excellent! Do people who write Android apps for a living concur or there any issues in scaling?
To answer my own question, the G1, and lack of non-htc handsets on the horizon.
There's plenty to love as well. Android's flavor of JAVA is easy to pick up if you've done JAVA before. Active developer groups. Lots of code samples on the web. The API allows access to many of the phone's functions that other platforms block (you know who you are, Apple and RIM). Even the toolkit documentation is above average, and so is the emulator.
It's fun developing for Android, and it shows on the Android Market. I guess some of that is due to the gazillion bucks in prizes that Google put out for developers. But many of the developers are in it for the love. Just please, please, give us some choice in handsets.
As reported this week on Slashdot, some hackers have got X desktops (Gnome, KDE, LXDE, IceWM), "All Working On Android".
If I can have an Android "phone" and seamlessly use "Android" apps alongside Linux apps (and use a Debian-style APT for installation/maintenance), I've got the first real 21st Century platform.
If someone hooks up Android with X features that let me "grab" my session from a desktop (or other PC with a big display), keep using it (but scaled/arranged for Android) as I leave with my "phone", then pop it over to a nearby PC (scaled back up) intact, I've finally got "mobile computing". If my VoIP phonecalls remain intact throughout the transfer, the "computer" will eventually disappear unnoticed, with only me and my "computing" session really mattering. We're going to have to come up with new words for these things, once they're just our constant virtualized telecoms companion.
--
make install -not war
There has been so much focus on iPhone, Android and Windows application development in the media the last few years. And yet no one as far as I can remember has ever mentioned that Nokia has a great open source development platform for their phones which runs on newer Symbian 60 called PyS60(Python for Symbian 60) http://wiki.opensource.nokia.com/projects/Installing_PyS60
With PyS60you have access to about every feature in the phone. Everything from SMS, to the accelerometer. Not to mention that programming in Python is fun, and if speed is an issue, you still have access to several Python C++ Extensions http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/C%2B%2B_Python_Extensions and there is support for developing your own c++ extensions. On the Nokia wiki there are several small easy to read examples of how to use all the technology in their phones http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Category:Python
Yet I don't understand why developers and media ignore this development platform. Isn't powerful applications that can be coded in less than hundred lines pure joy for a developer? There is a lot of people with Symbian 60 phones out there, more than Android and iPhone together(not sure about Windows though).
...and Apache v2 is an open source license.
There is a reason why the G1 felt incomplete.
Google was smart to skip development of certain applications and features.
Let the OSS community do it for free.
This is why there was no video player built-in and also why we have yet to see the infamous cupcake.
There is still no video recording and no bluetooth tethering support unless your phone is rooted.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I've been with them for about 8 years and they are consistently a solid performer. I get a really strong signal at work, at home and really anywhere i visit frequently.
Their customer service leaves verizon sitting in the dust.
Sure there are places that don't have a strong signal, but that's true of any cellular network.
"Despite launching on the T-Mobile G1 with little mainstream fanfare..."
Waddyamean little mainstream fanfare? Big coverage by the BBC on TV and Radio news (and news website) on it's launch as the 'iPhone killer'
Two words. Steam Punk.
er... that's FOUR words. ;P
(USA-centric post)
I've been using my trusty StarTAC on Verizon for many a year now (motto: if it's still working, keep using it) but now I want to take the plunge into mobile development. Does Verizon support any platforms that have geek cred i.e. open source, large developer base, few restrictions, decent tools, goddamn-this-is-a-great-phone etc. etc. Verizon's network has been 5x5 in my experience so I'm reluctant to switch. ("Perhaps the other networks are just as good, we don't know. Frankly, we don't want to know.") But it seems its reluctant to let any of the cool kids hang out there.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
There still seems to be a serious lack of Blackberry love from Android.
Android hasn't gotten its emotion chip yet.
Now, why it would need an old CPU from a Playstation 2 to understand love is beyond me, but I guess that's just how it works...
Bow-ties are cool.
My armchair understanding of the GPL issue is that a certain company would like to break some of the GPLed apps.
If the code within an app breaks it's own license how can they enforce it on others.
Or protect if from external attack?
Though I should mention I don't deal with em, I just use em(their apps I mean.).
Even ignoring the bit where Apple can veto your app with no recourse, the development platform costs a minimum of $1,500 or so, as you have to buy their hardware to use it.
The G1 has received little fanfare because it's not a good product. It's about as good as other smartphones from 5 years ago.
It's not revolutionary as far as a typical user is concerned. The GUI isn't well polished, the touch interface is similar to last generation palms. The trackball is not great. The included sd card is not big enough to hold a music collection and if you want to use headphones you need to use an adapter.
The biggest deal breaker is the 7 hour standby battery life, which I'm betting is related to its OS.
Thankfully, since it's open source, all of the software issues can be fixed and the OS can be placed on better hardware.
I don't think there is anything wrong with those ideas above. The problem seems to me is a lack of focus. The only thing that stopped me from buying one is from reading the forums and seeing how unstable it was. I don't care about 99% of features, the only important thing is that it can make calls. Unfortunately this appears to be its main failing, with the handset falling over regularly and failing to lock onto carrier cells. I quote the following from the CEO:
"We tried to refocus the company around these ideas. This led to an application called Diversity. The basic idea is the following:
Neos talk to other Neos using a self-creating, self-healing, global free (WiFi) network. The software system, code named Diversity, consists of many clients (Neos) talking to servers and, at a later time, self-connecting, using mesh-like interactions."
http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td2103754|a2103754
It seems to me their priorities aren't really in order.
Philip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
7 hour standby? No, that's bullshit. I've gone several days without charging mine. I generally charge it overnight, but when I forget, it still works the next day.
How the fuck is it 'stealing' if it's explicitly allowed by the licenses involved? If you don't like GPL projects taking your code, then put a license provision explicitly forbidding relicensing the code to or deriving the code into a GPLv3 project.
Which is what BSD people love to complain about anyway. If you're a BSD project, stop complaining that you aren't GPL'd.
That said, RMS is a paranoid tosser that needs to stop whining when someone checks signatures on code or uses GCC to compile Java code, and start fighting copyright itself instead of trying to work around it.
Android based phones, just one of the many amazing things that exist in other lands, like that race of one legged people. Please post more stories about these rare and amazing beasts!
Loose lips lose spit.
The G1 has received little fanfare because it's not a good product.
Bullshit. The G1 actually has superior hardware to that of the iPhone. To say the G1 sucks is to say all smart phones suck.
It's about as good as other smartphones from 5 years ago.
Then it seems the iPhone 3G is "as good as other smartphones from 6 years ago." Bullshit.
It's not revolutionary as far as a typical user is concerned.
Please name any phone on the market which is "revolutionary.". There are none. Even the iPhone is evolutionary. So is the G1.
the touch interface is similar to last generation palms.
I assume you mean lack of multi-touch? If not, all phones, save for only the storm, fall into your description.
The included sd card is not big enough to hold a msic collection
It's expandable! 16G isn't enough? How about 32G when they come out? 1G is plenty for new users.
if you want to use headphones you need to use an adapter.
Or use a HTC headset.
The biggest deal breaker is the 7 hour standby battery life, which I'm betting is related to its OS.
Complete bullshit. Try turning off your WIFI and GPS. With those on, that is what you'll get, which is really pretty damn good.
I've gone several days, no problem, including phone calls and modest Internet use. If you have 7-hours "standby" you're not standing by. It really is that simple. And, you can get batteries which extend up to 2.5x what the stock battery provides. That means up to a week in standby.
In a nut shell, its rather obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.
I would've modded that funny...but my points expired yesterday.
Though it is loosely based on java, it's still a nice base to have as many developers know java and it's a very friendly design, especially with the previous standard for mobile development being J2ME. iPhone development is done in Objective-C, which is a little ugly compared to androids, but it's also only(without hacks) allowed on the Mac Platform, which is why a lot of linux/windows developers couldn't develop for the iPhone.
Personally I like my G1 and my only complaint is the battery, but android is an awesome OS because I got the source and recompiled the built-in E-mail program to better suit my needs.
They aren't. I'd go further and say that management have proven themselves to be less than competent.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Too bad you never touched one.
I know many people with that phone that go days between charging it.
everything you speak of means you never even touched one. the ONLY thing I cant stand about the G1 is that it feels like a toy. It really needs to be built of metal instead of plastic. It's actually a remarkable phone, you should actually touch and use one.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I owned the iPhone for a year and now the G1 for a couple of months, the G1 is comparable to the iPhone as far as being "good".
The battery life is worse, but the battery life doesn't drain in 7 hours of standby either.
The GUI is fine. Very intuitive, doesn't crash. I like the visual front phone LED that flashes on notifications as well as the notification top bar in the GUI interface. Works very well.
PF Voicemail is a great visual voicemail app.
The Marketplace lets you return apps within 24 hours for a full refund if you don't like them.
Google Apps integration is heads above what's available on the iPhone. I update my calendar and contacts on the web, it pushes to my phone. I never need to sync with a desktop.
The SD card is upgradeable. 16 gig ones cost, what, 50 bucks?
And the mini-USB slot looks like is going to be the standard on phones now for everything.
That doesn't mean the phone doesn't need some polish. I really think the new ones coming out will be more to be excited about. But the G1 is a solid product.
In another news, google rewards users with G1 developer phones by blocking paid apps for them. http://www.macworld.com/article/139045/2009/02/google_g1.html
I must say... I've been working with XCode to write some iPhone apps lately and all I can keep saying to myself is, "What the hell were they thinking when they created this?" The iPhone may be one sweet device but the dev tools really suck. I'm yet to try out Android but I'm hoping for a nicer experience...
-Frustrated
reciprocating stirling engine charging the iPhone's battery?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
To quote Bender: " I have it, it just has not descended yet".
I second that emotion!
Or you wouldn't be posting here in the first place.
Even with Windows Mobile, I could just run Windows in a VM on my Linux or OS X desktop. No need for new hardware.
There's absolutely no technical reason Apple couldn't release a multiplatform devel kit, even if it were just OS X in a VM.
Well, and obviously they did not put nearly as many resources as needed to get this thing going right. And they went ahead and sold faulty hardware to those that were hoping they would get something that at least would turn into something decent (i.e. me). They really pissed me off. Can ya tell?
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Not even close to being true!! I get several days standby with mine.
Plus I had an iPhone and the interface is no worse or better.
It really depends on how you use it. If you use it to make occassional phone calls, and to check your email once in a while, then you'll easily get a full day or more out of the battery.
If you sit down and use it like a laptop, browing the web, playing games, etc - well, then it will be dead in two hours.
I had a lot of trouble with mine when it was new - but that was because I'd just tinker with it all day on a weekend. Once I settled down to real life use I haven't had any problems with it.
Sure, I'd like more battery life. It is still weaker than I'd like it to be. However, it isn't a reason not to get the phone.
So, how many Android phones exist in the world compared to iPhones and iPod touch, and symbian?
In all fairness, I'd like to see Android succeed, but google are going to have to do more than this. Just tossing a phone OS out and hoping that some one will use it isn't enough. You need top brand manufactures, like Nokia or Sony Ericsson on board. It's been how many years? and we only have two clunky PDA phones to show for it.
You can download a free version here.
1967 "The Miracles" reference, very nice. =)
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Even ignoring the bit where Apple can veto your app with no recourse
You always have recourse, it's called releasing to the jailbreak market. And of course you can deploy apps to your own phone all day long if you are in the program... but of course the truth is the people getting blocked are a small percentage of the apps going out. And as noted, there are more open source projects for the iPhone than Android.
the development platform costs a minimum of $1,500 or so
Ahh, the Apple Hater Inflation factor - about a 3x multiple of the REAL cost since you can easily use an intel mac mini for development (around $400-$500, less refurb or used).
Of course since most of us own computers anyway the real cost is essentially free, you just need to adjust what you buy when you upgrade.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've used a lot of different IDE's before, but I find XCode is actually really good when you get used to it - it's nice to have a powerful GUI wrapped around GDB but have GDB there when I need something advanced. I really like the way the interface builder GUI development integration is done, to me that is the best model I have seen for how GUI development tools should work in the whole application development cycle.
And, I also really like the myriad ways you can quickly get to the documentation for something, which is very useful.
I'd look into figuring out the shortcuts because once you are used to the system as a whole it's really nice.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The biggest deal breaker is the 7 hour standby battery life, which I'm betting is related to its OS.
What the Hell are you talking about? I own one of these and I charge it every 48 hours. Not great, but not the end of the world.
What I'm not doing is using apps that run the GPS receiver every 3 seconds, and I only turn on the antennas I'm using. That means that I don't have my 802.11 enabled unless I plan on using a wireless network instead of 3G.
There are plenty of things not to like about the G1, but this kind of blatant overstatement isn't one of them.
It's the constant changing direction that got to me.
Were you affected by the GSM buzz problem (when you say faulty hardware) ?
I was lucky enough not to get that. Only hardware problem I have is that they screwed up the cap values on the headphone output so there's zero bass.
If you still have the phone then you might want to check out android, in a few weeks/couple of months when the port gets more stable.
The G1 is probably the most easy to use phone around: you turn it on, you enter your Google account info, and it all just works after that.
The G1 has some minor hardware and software issues, but for the first release, it's great.
The WIFI/GPS is enabled by default. If the phone is incapable of operating with an expected battery life with these enabled, why would be enabled by default? Other smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, etc) seem to be capable of having these features enabled or toggled on as needed without killing the battery.
Everyone I know with a G1 carries a charger with them.
My problems with the touch interface have to do with more than just the lack of multi-touch. The touch interface simply isn't polished. Have you ever used the date selector when creating an appointment? You can't see the number when you're tapping the up arrow, it's covered by your finger. Event PalmOS had this figured out years ago. The entire calendar is a little clunky as well.
The geek in me really wanted to like this phone, but the platform just isn't quite there yet.
If it were, we could just say using a hackintosh solves the issue. Most of us don't want to be in a constant fight with vendors.
$1,500 is a fair, even low ball price point for a decent development system. Mac minis are toys.
I won't be upgrading any time soon, but even if I were Apple simply isn't interested in my business. I spent $1,200 a year ago on a workstation, and the closest comparable thing Apple has available comes in at $3,000.
Yeah, I'd call that hostile.
I don't own a Mac. I'm not going to buy a Mac. Therefor Apple won't let me develop for the iPhone.
There's no valid reason couldn't release a dev kit for Linux at least if not Windows. The only reasonable explanation for not doing so is hostility to non-Mac developers.
$10 Windows license vs $600 fantasy OS X licence?
Where can I get a $10 windows license in the US?
Or did you mean, if I spend several hundreds of dollars I can get a Windows license bundled (and per the EULA tied to that specific bundled hardware) for $10 more than the same machine with no OS... (although that doesn't factor in the shovelware 3rd parties pay to have pre-installed on the windows licenced hardware (effectively partially subsidizing it).
Its you that are having a fantasy. A copy of windows at full retail that isn't crippled or eula restricted to not being run in a VM or moved to new hardware... runs $300 to $400.
Just grab the sticker off an old, dead laptop. I've never had trouble using those licenses for VMs.
BSD people don't like it when someone takes their code, puts it under a more restrictive license, then argues that the license is less restrictive since it forbids people from converting the code (with more-restrictive changes) back into a BSD license.
In short: if the code is BSD-licensed, the and you GPL it, you're saying "I will share these changes with my own community, not with the community who I got the code from in the first place". Which is just a bit of an asshole thing to do.
The WIFI/GPS is enabled by default.
That's technically true, but you are misleading people. Yes, the GPS is enabled by default, but it isn't actually used unless you have an application open that accesses your location. That setting might be on, but it's not using any power unless you're actively using a location-aware application, in which case your claims about standby time go right out the window.
I have Wi-Fi and GPS enabled on my G1. I get much more than 7 hours battery life, well over a day, and that's real-world use, standby time would be even longer. You are simply not telling the truth. And I say this as somebody who has a public review up on the T-Mobile site complaining about the battery life.
Other smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, etc) seem to be capable of having these features enabled or toggled on as needed without killing the battery.
Emphasis mine. You're holding the G1 to different standards than the other phones. You can have those other features off on the G1 and toggle them on as needed too. Those other phones suck up power when you're using those features too.
Everyone I know with a G1 carries a charger with them.
I don't believe you've set eyes on a G1, much less know anybody that owns one. If you did, you wouldn't be making stupid claims like it's five years behind. Five years is a long, long time in the phone world and the technology has come a long way.
None of the other smartphone platforms require superfluous hardware purchases.
That the US carriers often seem to cripple the phones. Nokia have phones that are available in Europe and elsewhere but when they come to the US, the carriers have made them remove/disable features (front facing cameras for video calls since the US carriers seem to hate video calls for some reason, GPS functionality because US carriers want to charge thru the nose for navigation, WiFi etc) either because the carriers dont like those features or possibly (as in the case of removing actual hardware) because removing the feature lowers the cost of the phone.
OpenMoko did the Frerrunner on a shoestring budget, and had to create their own production workflow within other workflows. That's unlike everyone else with million to used and even fabs (with mass production workflows) to tap. Hence in order to get something out the door, they made a compromise on parts--no 3G, cheap graphics chip, cheap GSM module. If they were going state of the art (they should be), it would require lots of time and money, and I'm sure we'd still be waiting for the Freerunner today.
OpenMoko to Android is like Gentoo to Ubuntu.
And yes, I agree on he phone call problems, my freerunner always drops calls, but the WiFi appears to be solid, hence their direction.
G1 needs a firmware update on the WiFi module. WiFi is sucking too much power. Backgrounding apps don't help too. Guess what? the iPhone has similar problems.
Solution for now: get the 1380mah battery.
And the mini-USB slot looks like is going to be the standard on phones now for everything. Yep. EVERYONE is going to mini-USB charging. Well except the proprietary iPhone...
.
The old-Palm-ish i/f is there cause it's efficient, just like www.google.com. It follows google's philosophy. Also, to the OP, don't worry, the Palm Pre pretty much end up with a similar desktop i/f (acocrding to the videos) and power issues.
.
And from that note, I disagree to the disagree. It's more efficient to just program in vim/emacs and have the C99 tool at your finger tips. The way objective-C is laid out just becomes cumbersome to do simple things. Compared to Java IDEs, Eclipse, and VS.NET--Xcode doesn't come close.
Compared to Java IDEs, Eclipse, and VS.NET--Xcode doesn't come close.
Having used all sorts of IDE's (mostly Eclipse/VS.Net/Netbeans), I am dubious of this claim. What exactly are you thinking of here? Again, I think you are just not familiar with the full extent of just what XCode can do. I also heartily disagree that Visual Studio has a better GUI development approach than XCode.
I do agree that I find typing in Emacs to be faster sometimes which is why I break out to that editor here and there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In short: if the code is BSD-licensed, the and you GPL it, you're saying "I will share these changes with my own community, not with the community who I got the code from in the first place". Which is just a bit of an asshole thing to do.
The most important difference between the BSD license and the GPL is that the BSD license doesn't require you to share your changes with anybody. If you've got a problem with someone not giving back to the community, then you shouldn't be using the BSD license in the first place.
Support SETI@home
You're effectively paying an $1,800 ransom, that they can hike or jerk around however they like. Is that really something you want to tie yourself to?
Microsoft doesn't interfere with it technically. Apple does.
Three words: Steam punk sucks.
Yeah, that's right, I said it. Bring it Doctorow.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I, too, owned the iPhone for a year and now the G1 for a couple months. I, however, came to the apposite conclusion - I've found the G1 to be an inferior device. I'll address each of your points with my own take.
The battery life is *awful*. I have to charge multiple times a day, and am seriously considering buying an extended battery so I'm not constantly worried about my phone dying just as I need it. The standby time is lousy, and actually *talking* on your phone decimates it.
The GUI is *not* fine. It's inconsistent and lacking polish. No spell-checking, clickable labels behaving differently from application to application, the UI mishmash of using either the touch pad or the mouse, inconsistent and random application of physical back button... And the UI *does* crash - I've had to force my phone off on a couple of occasions to work around a UI lockup. Heck, most of the time the screen doesn't even wake up when I get a phone call, forcing me to deal with even more buttons just to answer the phone.
As for the visual LED that flashes on notifications - perhaps it'd be useful, but the notification system isn't used well by some of the applications and ends up compromising it. Take the IMAP client, for example - if I read the message on another machine (like, say, my home computer), the notification on the G1 isn't updated - the dead entries just sit there. It's hard to trust the notifications when you can't be sure if it's spurious or not.
PF Voicemail a great visual voicemail app? Meh. My iPhone was unlocked and running on T-Mobile, so I never played with it's visual voicemail application. Hence, I can't make a direct comparison. That said, if the iPhone's visual voicemail application is as lackluster as PF Voicemail, it's a shame. The UI in PF is uninspired and feels inconsistent with the rest of the phone. Deleting messages doesn't actually remove them from the main listing - it just flags them red, which makes them seem *more* visually important (compared this to read messages, which are grayed out). Having to remove the messages by navigating to the menu and empty the trash is hockey. And, because it uses an incoming SMS message to update the client, you get junk SMS notifications (since PF apparently can't eat the message).
The Marketplace may let you return apps within 24 hours... but that presumes you can actually buy them. My phone's an unlocked developer edition (ADP1), a device which Google's apparently decided to ban from making purchases from the App Store.
Maybe Google Apps are well integrated - I can't really tell. You see, I use multiple Google accounts - my personal account, my public account (junkmail, shopping, etc), and my work account. And in this case, it works poorly - there's no integration between the multiple accounts, no ability to sign out of one to log into another. Google employees have resorted to installing Maverick, a 3rd party IM client, just so they can at least run an IM that's on a different account. Having integration is of course better then not, so I'm sure the G1 has the upper hand here. But given it doesn't work well for me, I can't claim any personal benefit. And I can't imagine I'm the only person suffering from this particular circumstance.
Sure, the SD card is upgradeable. But what are you going to put on it? You can't install applications to it. Caches aren't written to it. There's no integrated handling of common files like PDFs or ZIPs. And it's not like there's a reasonable media player on there. The darn thing can't even play videos out of the box. I was planning on ordering a larger SD card for the phone, but held-off until I played with it a bit. I'm glad I made that decision - I've barely used 100mbs of the SD card's space. And coupled with the poor battery life, using the phone as a media player would be a awful idea.
As for the mini-USB slot looking like the standard on phones from now on - oh golly, I hope not. Being forced to use an adapter so I can plug in headphones? Terrible
BSD troll invades again...
Yet I bet you wouldn't have a problem with me putting your code in a closed source app. Hypocrite.
This is something I've never understood. Why the hell do the "BSD people" choose the BSD license if they are really expecting other people to behave as if license was something like GPL. That is, give back to the original project. Why not just write this requirement in the license if that's what is expected anyway?
I don't see how it's any better when someone takes BSD licensed code and makes a closed source commercial product out of it, and never gives anything back. Or is it just that when you don't see the code improvements you could potentially have had in your BSD-licensed project, you don't care?
Battery Life: The battery life isn't too bad. I get about 3 hours constant use, with gps and screen on (brightness up for daytime use), on 3g, running turn by turn gps (telenav). Standby lasts a long time -- if you're not logged into IM, twitter, and facebook, and exchange mail client, all checking constantly for updates (which I do). My wife has a very light use profile (just voice, email, and calendar), and gets 3-4 days of standby. So I have to plug in at night, and depending on what I'm doing, plug in during the day. BFD.
GUI: I've had no GUI issues. The real downside here compared to say the iPhone, is there's no UI standards. There's conventions to be sure, but no rules. RC33 did introduce an issue with incoming calls (rings for too long before you can actually answer), but I wouldn't classify it as a UI issue.
Notifications: I don't have an issue here, outside of some apps (non-stock ones) not performing notifications as advertised. As much as you don't like it works, there is a logic behind it. You get notified, hear the sound, but don't check your phone. You check your mail and read your message. You remember you have a notification on your phone. You go to check it, but WTF, there's not notification! In my opinion disappearing notifications would be a much worse user experience.
Visual Voicemail: Don't use it, so I can't really say. I have a Grand Central account, and there's an app for that, so I've been thinking about using it. If you have issues with PF Voicemail, you could always write your own (You have a "dev" phone, you must be a developer right?). Or send the developer a friendly email with your suggestions.
Market: I have to admin, Google has REALLY screwed the pooch with the market. I mean, a hidden folder for copy protection? I think andappstore.com has gotten it right, and it will work with dev phones.
Google Apps integration: They're very well integrated, assuming you're a *NORMAL* user, and have only one account. You're not the only person "suffering" from this problem, but you're probably less than 1/10th of 1%. There's a fairly simple solution. Create a meta account. Have that account pull your mails from all your other accounts, and share all your calendars with that account.
SD Card: Music & Photos. Pictorial (by the authors of Maverick & Hello AIM!) is good if you use picasaweb (google's picasa app has some limitations pictorial doesn't). Video's work too, but lack of good encoding instructions is a problem. TuneWiki (also on the iPhone) is a very capable alternative to the built in media player.
Mini USB: The adapter isn't that bad. My phone shipped with one. It has a button to let you answer calls (and a microphone). The "standard" though is just for charging.
Potential: I can see your point. It is by no means a perfect platform. But I also don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be -- the iPhone isn't perfect either. "Cupcake" features have been a long time coming -- I want bluetooth stereo support (bye-bye adapter), and better video support.
Actually, there is a video recording app out (in the market), and it works.
Tethering is something that will probably never be permitted without a hack.
Well, with me everybody just says that my voice is really quiet (with lots of noise). Even when I turn mic volume all the way up. I am still planning on using it, if I can get it working like a real phone. But right now I'm sticking with my crappy little Sony Ericson phone.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Sony Ericcson T303? I got one of those when the OM pissed me off to the point of extreme anger once too many times and I couldn't face using it again.
Give the Android effort a couple of months. I'd be surprised if OM *ever* get anything together, but the Android effort is looking very good.