T-Mobile To Launch Android Tablet

nandemoari writes "T-Mobile is planning to use Google's open source operating system 'Android' on devices that blur the line between cellphone and home PC. In addition, Samsung says they will also produce Android phones, but need to work out the kinks first. Both announcements come shortly after HP revealed that it is investigating the idea of using Android to power some of its low-cost netbook computers in place of Windows."

Comments

Why Not Existing Phones? Am I Missing Something?

[eldavojohn]

It's my understanding that Android is a mobile OS based in Linux so why do we need to feature new phones? Can't we take an already popular model (like the Chocolate or Razr or whatever the devil it is the kids consume these days) and just compile it down to match the architecture and write the drivers for the devices on the phone?

I mean, I've got Linux running on my Nintendo DS from a community effort and it seems to support much of the DS' devices like the touch screen. You're telling me Google or Samsung or interested parties couldn't do the same for an existing phone? Am I missing something regarding hardware requirements? I mean, I know it uses Java libraries for the applications but a lot of existing phones should be beefy enough for that, right?

Re:hmmmm

[binarylarry]

No, nobody is as lame as Verizon.

Re:Why Not Existing Phones? Am I Missing Something

[tknd]

why do we need to feature new phones?

Because the phone manufacturers and networks would love you to buy a new phone and sign a new 2 year contract. If they allowed you to upgrade your software, the only company that wins is Google.

Orthogonal

[Pentalon]

> ... that blur the line between cellphone and home PC.

I always wanted a desktop cellphone.

Re:Orthogonal

[Deag]

Well verizon are selling something like that

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/vzhub/overview.jsp

Is this a good idea?

[MBCook]

...blur the line between cellphone and home PC.

This doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong if they make something great, but this just strikes me as a device that we don't need.

A cell phone (I've got an iPhone) is designed to be portable. I'm just not going to use a portable 8" tablet all the time. A cell phone should be small, but it's portable so I can whip it out at any time to look something up.

Something larger, a home PC, is too big. Even if we take something like a netbook, it's bigger than something I want to carry around all the time. I don't think there are enough people who will want to carry something that size around all the time.

I'd expect battery life to be a problem, at least if you want to keep it light.

There may be a reason that people aren't rushing to buy stuff bigger than Nokia 810s. As other cell phones get more powerful and easier to use for the web, there doesn't seem to be a big reason to carry something bigger. You quickly get to the point where a netbook would fit you better.

But something between a netbook and a cell phone? I'm skeptical of the size of that market.

Re:Why Not Existing Phones? Am I Missing Something

[Red Flayer]

Can't we take an already popular model (like the Chocolate or Razr or whatever the devil it is the kids consume these days) and just compile it down to match the architecture and write the drivers for the devices on the phone?

1. Joe Sixpack is gonna use whatever OS is on the device they buy.

2. Commercial driver support is needed for this to avoid the hell that linux drivers can become.

People using Android on a phone do not want to mess with the OS on their appliance. For adoption to happen, people must have a smooth transition, and a cobbled-together Android distro for $HARDWARE will turn off a lot of potential users.

That said, do you really want an Android with a Razor? What could it possible need to shave?!.

Or an Android with a Chocolate, or a Blackberry? My wife would leave me in a second for a robot that takes orders and comes bearing sweets.

Marketing is not technology

[xzvf]

A more important question is why Android? To answer my own question, it is marketing and the value of attaching Google to the phone. Doesn't matter that the phone runs Linux, what matters is the phone is attached to Google. It is an interesting shift in ownership of mobile phones. The iPhone is an Apple product, not an AT&T phone. Will Google follow the MS PC model and like Windows PC by Dell will become Android phone by Samsung?

Re:Marketing is not technology

[Locutus]

I'm not sure the phone/OS being attached to Google is a big deal or game changer. What we're seeing is not phone vendors selling phones to the public but Telco's still selling phones tied to their networks. Apple controls the iPhone OS much like Microsoft controls the OS for some phones. but, the difference with Android is that vendors are allowed to take Android outside its basic design. For instance, Microsoft, for over a decade would not let vendors change the desktop UI phone users saw on their WindowsCE/PocketPC/Mobile phones. Only late last year after much complaining from one vendor did Microsoft allow the vendor to define what the UI looked like for the customer. Microsoft also dictated the screen resolution. Android give alot of power/control to the device or telco vendor and also provides alot of backend stuff with the application store end of it. Unfortunately, we're finding out that the Telco's are still given ways to block apps so Android is not yet the "user" friendly phone platform. Telco's like a massive amount of control and they are still getting it.

LoB

Re:Marketing is not technology

[the_macman]

You've touched on something I've been trying to understand for a while. I'm a big proponent of OSS. When I first heard about Android I figured it would be similar to Linux except on my cellphone. From what I've seen it's the same old bullshit as usual. Tied to certain carriers, certain apps are blocked, etc.
 
Would someone with an android phone or maybe an android dev explain what exactly is open source about it?

Re:I still haven't purchased an Android Phone...

[calmofthestorm]

which seems counter-intuitive to the concept of an open platform

Not at all. Android can't have drivers for a technology if there's no way for its authors to get their hands on specs, short of reverse engineering each piece of hardware which is prohibitively time intensive.

WTF are you talking about????

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Because the phone manufacturers and networks would love you to buy a new phone and sign a new 2 year contract. If they allowed you to upgrade your software, the only company that wins is Google."

Android is Open Source . Did you miss the memo?

Google only wins if we win. It is a symbiotic, and very healthy relationship type known as interdependence, which you may want to read about here.

Oh yeah, and one final thing. Google already won. We already won. I have a G1 running Linux with root access and the ability to cross-compile whatever kernel, libraries, and applications I want and install, boot, and use them.