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.

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[goaliemn]

It will download the data along your route, so you're good if you loose connectivity while going to your destination.

Its not the entire google database, but its a nice start.

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is already using their own map data (at least for US). They dropped TeleAtlas recently and NAVTEQ a year ago. In any case, they are well positioned to be a strong competitors to traditional navigation companies as well as cellphone manufacturers (NOKIA).

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[Sparr0]

There are already PDA map applications that pre-download google maps at multiple zoom levels along your planned route.

http://fragostech.com/MaemoMapper/

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[BrokenHalo]

Google is already using their own map data (at least for US).

I don't know where Google Maps gets its data for Australia, but when I recently tried a GPS device "powered" by Whereis, I found the latter sadly inferior. All it was able to accomplish was a latitude/longitude reference in many locations where Google Maps offers a reasonably complete map. Fortunately the device was on loan, so it wasn't the result of an expensive mistake.

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[Serious Callers Only]

There are already PDA map applications that pre-download google maps at multiple zoom levels along your planned route.

Doesn't that violate Google's terms of service? You are not allowed direct access to tiles on Google's servers so far as I know.

Certainly possible with map tiles from openstreetmap.org though.

Re:Search on your route is a great feature

[should_be_linear]

always up-to-date maps, sounds good for free product. If enough people are using it (it will), they could even "see" traffic congestion in streets (average speed) and influence route planning for other people in real time.

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:Looks like a great platform to develop for

[LiquidCoooled]

I am going to open an app-store-store.

Can you FIND me now?

[Jedi74]

A game of hide-and-go-seek will never be the same =)

droid will be mine

[SoupGuru]

I can use my new-every-two starting tomorrow. I've been eying the Droid for a while now and I think I can wait another week to get it.

It's looking like a mighty nice phone.

This GPS stuff is really cool and I'm wondering how a $300 stand-alone GPS unit can compete with it.

Re:droid will be mine

[Hadlock]

Once you've used google maps (not even the full Navigation app) on your cell phone, it's hard to justify $100+ for a stand alone unit. Google street view being integrated into google maps is invaluable in the urban core area of cities, where you're trying to find a tiny shop tucked away on a street. I think the standalone GPS market is about to implode as all this gets ported to cell phones which have roughly the same sized screens. You'd have to get a data plan for your GPS unit to compete with what you already get for free on cell phones.

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:droid will be mine

[Zerth]

You just need somebody to port GPSdrive or one of the other linux GPS programs and precache the maps along your route.

I don't have a linux-based phone, but I've done that on my EEE for all the regions in nearby that have crappy signal.

Re:droid will be mine

[virtualXTC]

This has already been done in the AndNav1 project. Unfortunately, due to licensing terms google forced them to stop development. Now they are useing open street map instead.

Re:droid will be mine

[InakaBoyJoe]

In Japan, phones have been capable of turn-by-turn navigation for a long time. When those apps first came out, there was a lot of speculation about whether mobile phone navi would kill the standalone / built-in navigation market. The car navi folks rushed to add mobile data connectivity, so they could download the latest maps and service info to compete with the "live" services offered by the mobile phones. Accessories for mounting your phone in the car in a visible position also became available.

In the end, both devices are co-existing in the market and very few people use the phone as the primary navigation device. Reasons are: (1) Inconvenience of having to launch the app, mount the phone in the car (or kill your phone's battery), and the fact that you can't use your phone. (2) Screen size. Unlike the tiny screens on North American GPS navi units, almost all units in Japan have a 5" or 7" screen. (3) The fact that most cars already have it built in anyway.

So I predict that in North America, the GPS navi units will evolve to: (1) Larger screens, (2) Data connectivity for live updates, and (3) More specialized features and improved service quality. The competition will be good. But the standalone / built-in navi devices won't just disappear.

Not releasing?

[Aladrin]

"This puts to bed concerns about Google not releasing the SDK" - There should be a warning on this link: Warning, text does not refer to linked information.

Seriously. The 'concerns' were that Google hadn't released it -yet-, not that they weren't going to release it. There is only a month until some of the new devices come out with SDK 2.0 and devs were concerned they wouldn't have enough time to fix any bugs in their apps. Since other SDKs have come out -way- ahead of time, I'm sure Google was doing their best here and just had some issues.

Re:Not releasing?

[stoolpigeon]

This line from the article, "There is some speculation that Google has made an Android 2.0 exclusivity agreement of some kind with Verizon." seemed to me to imply that the sdk was not coming out because Verizon would have exclusive rights to 2.0. This seems to be supported by the fact that they now note the release of the sdk immediately after that line in the article.

I bumped across that article while reading comments yesterday in the Maemo vs. Android thread.

Hardware requirements for 2.0

[LWATCDR]

I wonder how well 2.0 will run on say a G1, HTC Hero, ,Moto Clik or the Samsung Moment.
And will updates be made available?

Re:Hardware requirements for 2.0

[darthyoshiboy]

The guys at XDA seem pretty convinced that 2.0 will run on these devices no sweat. I'm pretty confident that if no OTA update happens, XDA will have my back.

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!

Send route from computer to phone?

[sab39]

The feature I've always wanted from a GPS is the ability to go to google maps on my computer, come up with a route on there, and then send it to the device. This looks like it could easily offer that ability but curiously it's not mentioned in any of the blurbs that I've seen. Anyone know if it's supported?

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:Send route from computer to phone?

[virtualXTC]

This is available via AndNav and OpenStreet Maps via Open Route Service. Sadly, development for USA navigation has been slow or non-existent despite my donation to the project.

Multi-touch for developers but not for end users

[Martin Soto]

The good news are that they seem to finally have added the long-awaited support for multi-touch. As listed in their relese notes:

MotionEvent can now report simultaneous-touch information for devices that support it. Up to three pointers can be tracked simultaneously.

The bad news are that, apart from some improvements to the on-screen keyboard, the GUI doesn't seem to be making use of it at all. So, those of us hoping to impress our acquaintances by zooming web pages in and out iPhone-style will probably have to wait until 2.1...

Bad for Garmin and TomTom

[ICLKennyG]

Tough day to be Garmin or TomTom, Wall Street is surely impressed with Droid's free GPS functionality. Garmin and TomTom are each down 15%+ today! http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/the-game-has-changed/

iPhone

[scorp1us]

So no google maps navigation for the iPhone?

Pardon me, but part of the appeal of the iPhone is it was best-of-breed Apple and Google. With the recent split, and if this continues, I see my next phone will be an Android device, and on the superior Verizon network.

I've been an iPhone fan boy for about 3 years, but I see a lot of delicious crow coming my way.

Re:Can I get the emulator without the SDK?

[BOFslime]

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

Open Handset Alliance

[Enderandrew]

Google does not control Android. Google can't singularly hold back an Android release. Google can't sign an exclusive deal where only one carrier gets an Android release.

Android is FOSS that is owned by the Open Handset Alliance.

Google offers various versions of Android to carriers with differing levels of Google branding, but given that the entire trunk is open to developers, AT&T has the same capability of obtaining Android code as Verizon, or any theoretical carrier.

Re:G1 owners left out in the cold

[Tumbleweed]

There's a lot of speculation that T-Mobile G1 owners might not get the update, which would suck.

Well, they're _already_ T-Mo customers - they must be used to suckage by now, right?