Android 2.0 SDK Released, Google Maps Navigation Announced

stoolpigeon writes "The Android 2.0 SDK is now available from Google. This puts to bed concerns about Google not releasing the SDK or perhaps being in some kind of exclusivity deal with Verizon around 2.0. The release notes give a nice overview of what is there. Those who already have the SDK can grab the updated tools as SDK components; everyone else will pick up everything when downloading the new SDK." Relatedly, reader riffzifnab reports that Google has also announced Google Maps Navigation, a GPS application for Android 2.0 that takes voice input and integrates with internet searches and Street View.

Comments

Search on your route is a great feature

[elcid73]

Search on your radius and end point destinations are not very useful- on your route is great feature to have (gas stations, rest stops etc)

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[manekineko2]

I'm really excited to have a GPS (someday, I'm not on Android yet, though hopefully Google will eventually release this to other platforms) that integrates satellite view and street view like Google Maps Navigation does.

Only downside (and it's a big one) is that I doubt Google will ever let you download the whole maps database for caching to your device. I love the freedom of having maps to everywhere I could conceivably ever want to drive already preloaded onto my GPS. Of course, I imagine with the satellite images and street view images that the size of the map database could be a few orders of magnitude larger than with traditional GPS databases.

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd be modestly surprised if they were to do it for free(whoever they buy the map data from would want money for an offline offering, and Google's ability to wring adsense out of offline users would be pretty limited); but I don't see any particular strategic or philosophical reason why google wouldn't, at some point, kick out an offline offering as a paid thing.

In the case of Gmail, google eventually offered POP3/IMAP, even though they'd presumably rather have people using their webapp. Presumably, they wanted to appeal to a die-hard "local client only" group and were confident that the ease of their web interface would keep most users on that side.

For GPS map data, I'd suspect that a similar situation would exist. There is a subset of the market that simply will not bite without local maps, even if they only rely on local maps part of the time. Google presumably wants their business(if only because people who haven't just spent $200 on a GPS are more likely to buy a nicer phone). At the same time, though, there are plenty of things, both obvious and subtle, that google can do to make a connected GPS experience much more convenient and pleasant than a pure local one.

My guess would be that Google will, eventually, either put out their own local map offering at a price more or less dictated by what their data provider charges or make it possible for 3rd party local GPS map apps to integrate with the google GPS UI. This will be largely to appease the people who think that offline use is essential, it won't mean any sort of major push into disconnected devices. For connected devices, they'll continue to do more or less what they do now, as well as offering the layer of connected features on top of offline material when the offline capable device is actually online.

Looks like a great platform to develop for

[MarkWatson]

Many years ago, I did to J2ME projects for customers. I have played with the iPhone dev tools, but don't really like the platform or the constraints of the AppStore.

The Android plugins for Eclipse really make this a nice "coders platform." I expect to see more web portals to provide customized rich clients (perhaps for free) to make for easier mobile access. ANyway, getting more into the Android platform has been on my short list for a while.

BTW, a little off topic, but the rumors are that Google is going to open an app store for Google Wave plugins. Nice addition to an app store for Android aps.

Re:Send route from computer to phone?

[elcid73]

Seems mindnumbingly simple to implement using a google account. I always email the link to myself and then pull it up on my phone.

Re:droid will be mine

[elcid73]

Their only saving grace are those that try to precariously do 10 million things on their phone while driving- flipping back and forth from music player, to phone, to GPS to...heaven forbid, text messaging, all that requires UI navigation- then reseting back to GPS functions. I think stand alone makers are fighting a losing battle, but they can bank a little bit on the notion of dedicated functions in automobiles.... ie, driving/moving user interfaces are NOT the place to converge functionalities and abstract them with menus and navigation. Dedicated UIs have a reasonable place in autos.

Re:Potential!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, hey, great. Just what we need.

Me: "Did you see the new Action Man movie?"
Android: "I have local listings for Action Man."
Friend: "Shut up, Android. Yeah, but it wasn't as cool as Explodicon II."
Android: "I have local listings for Explodicon II."
Me: "Shut up, Android. True. I wish I had one of those Feranzi sports cars, though."
Android: "Feranzi dealership: 7.5 kilometers."
Both: "Shut up, Android."

Re:Can I get the emulator without the SDK?

[BOFslime]

huh?... the emulator is included with the SDK, always has been.

Re:Hardware requirements for 2.0

[Rennt]

I wonder how well 2.0 will run on say a G1, HTC Hero, ,Moto Clik or the Samsung Moment.

Me too, everything indicates better performance than 1.6, but we don't really know yet.

And will updates be made available?

The freaking SOURCE CODE is made available, you don't have to wait for updates from the networks. I had 1.5 and 1.6 on my G1 before any phones running them were released - I don't expect 2.0 will be different.

Mad props go out to Cyanogen BTW - Android's first rockstar!