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18 Android Phones, In 3 Flavors, By Year's End
Hugh Pickens writes "Andy Rubin, senior director for Mobile Platforms for Google, has announced that by the end of the year there will be 18 to 20 phones using the Android OS made by 8 or 9 different manufacturers. Google will offer three different versions of Android OS: a completely free and generic flavor with no pre-loaded Google applications; a slightly customized version that comes pre-loaded with Google apps like Gmail and Google Calendar; and a completely 'Google-fied' Android OS bearing all sorts of Google branding and integration with Google's services. Will Park reports that the expectation is that 12 to 14 of the upcoming Android phones will use the slightly-customized version of Google's Android OS requiring the manufacturer to agree to a distribution deal with Google that would allow the handsets to come pre-installed with Google-ware. The remaining 5 or 6 Android phones will come to market completely decked out with 'The Google Experience' and a Google logo on the phone. This third option provides risk and reward opportunities because the openness of the store could be a hit with consumers, but could also lead to poorly constructed or offensive applications that could give Google a taint. When it comes to apps, Rubin says: 'We want to abide by the law, but not rule with an open fist.'" Yes, it seems he really said "open fist," though he probably meant "iron fist."
of posting to slashdot?
Personally I think google can either epically win or fail with this move. One thing I see as very important is making sure not all of the phones are smartphones. The article suggests that several service providers will be in on the deal (already a step above apple in my opinion), however, if every phone delivered is a smartphone, much of the market will be lost. Not everyone can afford the expenses of internet and email that come with a smartphone. I would get the phone simply because it was running Andriod even if it weren't a smartphone.
Maybe he was just trying to coin a new term. He was talking about bitch-slapping.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Google Home Basic
Google Home Premium
Google Business
Google-fied Ultimate
So they can try to bitch slap the iPhone!
Also - how does one 'pre-install' web based apps? I suppose you can have a special mobile client app, but all you need is a browser.
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
welcome our open fisted overlords.
please forgive me. :D
I own a G1 and it already is " ... pre-loaded with Google apps like Gmail and Google Calendar" so my first thought is are they going to try and sell what I already have for more money and sell one with less features for the price of mine? If so that won't go over well. I mean $300 is great for a open source phone that I can write my own apps for like I currently have. However, if they go changing the recipe too much then they might screw it up!
Alternatives to Apple's store are looking better and better. Sure, the company-branded software will be there, but being able to compete(!) gives Google a significant incentive to provide continually more functionality in its own software.
Comparing Apple(s) to (google) Oranges isn't always easy though... mostly because the gphones haven't been made publicly available. Time will tell, and it's my opinion that Google is going about this in a fairly well thought out manner.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
No doubt "baby shaker apps" and their ilk are in bad taste but deeming black humour immoral is a step too far. I thought it was funny and the reaction to it even more so. For me, the removal of that app and the NiN one from Apple's app store tainted Apple more than allowing them would have done.
I was looking at a Chinese iphone knockoff, thinking that the hardware seems decent, but I wouldn't trust the knockoff operating system. With Android, though, the cheap knockoff can legally have the very same operating system, since they don't have to pay license fees. This means that if Samsung or whoever come up with a neato handset that makes them lots of money, three months later a Chinese factory will be making identical-looking knockoffs with the same Google-made software. This might even be legal! If I were a handset manufacturer, I'd be very scared of the openness of Android, but as a consumer, I would seriously take a second look at those Chinese knockoffs that will soon come our way.
Heh... they said 'taint.
Yes, it seems he really said "open fist," ..."
What did the five fingers say to the face? SLAP! I'm Rick James, bitch!
It's obviously Italian, idiota!
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
when using an open fist near the taint!
Given the fact that Android updates (well, the one update) thus far have been free (the G1 update to Cupcake), how are the carriers going to encourage people to buy new handsets every 18 months? Obviously there can be things like improve cameras, sexier designs, bigger screens, faster processors etc, but I can see a lot of people sticking with what they've got for longer if the experience when using the phone is exactly the same. Obviously the carriers could also try rather artificial things like tying new services with new contracts etc, but I don't see that being so successful.
Beta.
Rubin says: 'We want to abide by the law, but not rule with an open fist.'
I think he does mean to rule with an iron fist.
what's a "smartphone"? It's one that has some "freedom" in its software (freedom with very small f), i.e. you can decide what apps to put on it, as in S60 or WindMobile or the jesus phone. Or Android. They're more expensive simply because an OS like that needs more silicon to run on. (err,that and the fact that people will pay more for it). So what's the point of an Android-powered dumb-phone? If it's underpowered and the UI gets slow, noone will want it as you'd be better of with your Nokia 3310.
Okay, I do genuinely realize that flavor in this context is actually being used as a synonym for "version", but considering the general shape and size of cell phones these days, did anyone else think that the notion of cell phones having flavors might be just a little bit... ummm.... kinky?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Now if only Sprint would get off their butt and release their phone. I really want an Android phone but not willing to switch over to T-Mobile just for the phone.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
'We want to abide by the law, but not rule with an open fist.'
It's good to know that the Goog abides.
(Score:0, Flamebait)
Really? I got a good laugh out of your post, and I agree with the point you've made. Those with mod points must be having a bad week.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Whos your daddy?
HTTP/1.1 400
For years I upgraded the OS on my HTC Blue Angel. WM2003 -> WM5 -> WM6 -> WM6.1. When I upgraded from my still working perfectly Blue Angel to HTC Diamond, it was to get the built in GPS and the same power in a much smaller form factor.
The reason Sprint's taking their sweet time releasing an Android phone is that Sprint's Android phone is going to be WiMAX-only.
Which currently limits you to Baltimore and Portland.
So if all you ever do is travel between Baltimore and Portland, then a Sprint Android phone may be for you!
If you live anywhere else, forget it. And given that Sprint currently has no active plans to expand their network given that they're hemorrhaging cash - you probably shouldn't hold your breath for it to make it to your area.
Also note that this means that, yet again, if you decide to go with a Sprint Android phone you're locked in to Sprint, since WiMAX doesn't have a SIM-card analog.
...announced that by the end of the year there will be 18 to 20 phones using the Android OS...
Doesn't sound like awfully lot to me. That's like about 2 phones sold per month.
How about you google it. (Hint: It already exists, see for example http://cdtdoug.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-android-time.html)
Android supports native code through the Java Native Interface. Thats how quake and doom http://code.google.com/p/doom-for-android/downloads/detail?name=Doom.for.Android.apk are running on the G1.
http://davanum.wordpress.com/2007/12/09/android-invoke-jni-based-methods-bridging-cc-and-java/
DOOM for example is a standard Android ("Java") app which loads a native library, which in turn is nothing else than PRBOOM http://prboom.sourceforge.net/ compiled as a shared library.
A few years back I bought an unlocked Nokia E70 and that provided all this functionality, but T-Mobile kept breaking the data plan so I couldn't use the phone with my notebook. This rendered the data plan pretty much worthless, since doing anything on its postage-stamp-sized screen pretty much sucked. The battery life also wasn't that great, though you're never going to get awesome battery life doing what I was doing with it.
An unlocked Android phone would be capable of doing all that stuff but probably not on a 3G network. Nokia's E90 communicator also has all the features I want, a bigger screen than the E70 and a beefed up battery. I'd probably have to import one again, though. And I'd need to find a provider the phone is compatible with who allows tethering.
A good half of my cell phone woes are due to cell company suckage here in the states. The features I'm after have been widely available in Europe for ages now and we can't even manage them here even with the iPhone forcing things forward.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There's an app for that!
Pros:
Cons:
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Can't be, he made a negative comment about Obama. I don't know of any Apple freaks that speak ill of Obama.
Rush Limbaugh has been a long time Apple user and he pretty much does nothing but badmouth Obama and the Democrats.
Great, maybe we can now get the answer to what an android experince when it goes into sleep mode. :P
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Its true that nearly all the carriers, with varying amounts of enforceability, require "smartphones" be on data plans that costs twice as much as even "featurephones", phones that also have touch screens, do email, web, calendar, etc. Typical (e.g. Verizon, Sprint) charge $30/mo for "smartphone" data versus $15/mo for featurephone data. It is of course a totally ridiculous "artificial market barrier", since a featurephone streaming music or video can easily use more data than a smartphone user that is disinterested in streaming media. Presumably the underlying notion then is that "people who buy expensive phones can afford to pay more for data"...
Anyways, the question here is: How can you construct an Android phone such that it would meet whatever flimsy rationale carriers use to declare a phone eligible for non-smartphone data plans, yet retain most of Android's functionality?
Maybe you'll have to give up the name Android, since another rule-of-thumb is that "if you're able to advertise/identify the phone's OS by name, then its a smartphone".
Maybe it can be done "virally": out of the box, the phone is pretty dumb, but a download or two transforms it into fully blown Android.
Someday, I think, the carriers will have to dissolve this stupid market barrier, but for now, it makes a different of $200/YEAR, which matters to many...
I made a poor decision not to return my G1 within the 2 week "trial period". Now I'm stuck in a two-year T-Mobile contract with an Android-specific data plan. I could cancel, but thus far, I'm not annoyed enough to shell out $400 for the privilege of changing to another phone with another carrier that will no doubt annoy me too.
While I've adapted to the phone's limitations, my initial experience has really soured me on this particular piece of hardware, even though I think the Android OS is decent enough for my purposes. So I wonder, will I be able to purchase one of these other Android-enabled phones and just switch the SIM card? Would T-Mobile even know that I had done so? Would they care?
Google starter -which would be exactly the same as all of the others except with most of the features locked down and the restriction that you can only do one thing at once. So you could ring somebody else up and talk to them, but you wouldn't be able to hear anything back unless you hung up and let them call you back. This edition would be marketed at 'third-world' countries as it is intended to be cheaper but instead serves as nothing but a pointless annoyance and inconvenience.
I've had an iPhone for nearly a year now and I've recently gotten my hands on an Android device.
Android has an amateurish summer project feel to it when compared to the polished iPhone OS. You can argue the technical merits of an open platform and hackability till you are blue in the face. It doesn't change the fact that Android is like the Linux desktop experience compared to the Windows or Mac desktop experience - it's an experience only a geek could love simply because he's willing to overlook the warts and horrendous usability because he can tinker.
Most people don't care about the underpinnings of the device. They want it to work well, be easy to use and be shiny. The Android OS offers none of that.
The big difference between Apple of today and the Apple that lost against Microsoft is price. Apple's handheld devices are very aggressively priced and it is Apple that is setting the price for the entire market.
Android does not have the merits and it does not have the price advantage to compete.
Unless google starts drastically improving it, Android is as good as dead.
You might need to buy a dev phone if you want to do kernel development, but hey, that's much better than just about any other platform I've seen. {...} But you can still do that with the dev phone if you really need to.
OpenMoko (and Koolu - the Android-based version of the same FreeRunner hardware) don't need to have a separate "dev" phone. Everything is doable on the main phone.
So yes, indeed, you can always find "more free" elsewhere.
---
Though thankfully, the business model in sereval European country (including here in Switzerland) make it so you don't need a locked phone. You don't actually buy a subsidized phone *from* a service provider.
You go to any supermarket or store which sells phones. There you buy or extend a previous service plan with a provider of your choice and the service provider gives you a rebate (amount variable depending on the service) you can use to buy any phone of your choice in the same store. The phone isn't locked. You can pretty much do anything you want with it and the provider doesn't give a damn about it. You can keep the phone and use it with the service you just bought. You can give the phone away as a present to your girlfriend and let her use it with her service or pre-paid SIM. As long as you pay the monthly subscription of your service, the provider is happy with this.
Thus, you can find computer shops happy to sell you the service you want with a non-locked Android phone. Be it the HTC Dream, the HTC Magic or the Samsung I7500 (I didn't know about that one until I found it in the shop's catalog).
In fact in several jurisdiction, selling a phone tied and locked to a unique provider is illegal under monopoly laws (France was mentioned on /. some time ago).
This will help getting non-locked phone faster over there I hope. And I hope most Android-based phone maker will be intelligent enough to release non-locked phone which can also be developed on. i.e.:
- a special USA edition with everything locked on
- a special dev (sold in EU too) edition with nothing locked on
(and not a seperate third EU edition without service provider lock BUT kernel upgrades still locked).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I remember the rumors last year that HTC had a prototype for the G2 with a high resolution screen that was supposed to launch in January of 2009. When it didn't, HTC said the hardware was ready, but Google's software was holding it up, and we'd see a launch in April of 2009. My cell contract is up, and I really need to switch, but I'm holding out for a decent Android phone. When can I honestly expect to see one?
And given that HTC does make a phone with a high resolution screen, and all the rumors LAST YEAR were that both the new G-phone and iPhone would use higher resolution OLED screens, how come we're not seeing them?
http://www.htc.com/www/product/touchhd/overview.html
I've talked to reps from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint and all have said they have zero idea when they might get Android phones. If I have to wait another six months or more, I might suck it up and go with the Blackberry Storm because I need to replace my damned phone.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I currently have a T-mobile phone from Nokia that can make calls via wifi. It isn't a great phone, but it works as advertised. Looking at the G1, I couldn't believe they didn't enable the same feature, since obviously it has wifi hardware. WTF?
1) buy featurephone and plan
2) move SIM to Android
I am not 100% sure this will work though, but I believe the communication the android does is not with the network so it wouldn't know.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
kdawson, what does expectationi mean?
I wish I was so smart that one little typo was enough to prevent me from understanding what a word is.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Can anyone find what the requirements actually say? This is the best I've found. What's the Difference Between Android and Google? And Why Does it Matter?
Until one of the categories requires that the end user has root access and the ability to reload all the software on the phone possibly modified by themselves, none of them are going to resemble the desktop computer. Until then it would be like buying a Packard Bell computer that was locked down to only allow loading Packard Bell's bloated branded version of windows, checked by BIOS, and when they go out of business you will never be able to upgrade. That's not open, that's lock down, I don't see the open category.
Even if there was a open category that allowed the user to control their software, there's still no X windows. Without X windows you can't run anything not designed for Android. What's the point if in the future phone gets to be as powerful as today's desktop if it can't run today's software?