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.

Can you FIND me now?

[Jedi74]

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

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: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.

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.

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: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.