Today, mobile phones in the US are completely "locked-in," not only with regards to content distribution, but also creation of applications. The process of creating a program that will run on a reasonable number of mobile phones is so needlessly complicated, that entire companies are built around technologies that translate between platforms in a semi-automated way (see JavaGrounds, for example).
Although Android won't break open mobile phones on the distribution side of things, it *will* make development a WHOLE lot easier for those of us who enjoy making games for fun, not for profit.
Comparisons between industries in other companies can often inform one of the problems or idiosyncrasies of a particular national industry, and it seems like mobile phone applications in the US are an example of that. See an interesting post on OHADev comparing the state of mobile phone gaming in the US and Japan, for example.
Will Android change the way mobile games and applications are distributed? Will it "open up" the seriously hierarchical mobile services infrastructure? Will it make the world a Much Better Place? Probably not. But, here's hoping that at least in some small way, it will twist open the nozzle, allowing community collaboration and indie developers to forge ahead into the mobile world.
The link goes to the "canonical" Google Code project page, but it appears that Google has set up a "special" page for the Android project. Note that if you try to use that format for a "normal" Google Code project, (such as my own PhyloWidget: correct, incorrect) you get an invalid URL error.
Furthermore, I was disappointed to see that the Android project's SVN browser page turns up blank. Come on, we want Source Code!
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This is what excites me the most about Android: OpenGL ES compatible Graphics API.
Today, mobile phones in the US are completely "locked-in," not only with regards to content distribution, but also creation of applications. The process of creating a program that will run on a reasonable number of mobile phones is so needlessly complicated, that entire companies are built around technologies that translate between platforms in a semi-automated way (see JavaGrounds, for example).
Although Android won't break open mobile phones on the distribution side of things, it *will* make development a WHOLE lot easier for those of us who enjoy making games for fun, not for profit.
Comparisons between industries in other companies can often inform one of the problems or idiosyncrasies of a particular national industry, and it seems like mobile phone applications in the US are an example of that. See an interesting post on OHADev comparing the state of mobile phone gaming in the US and Japan, for example.
Will Android change the way mobile games and applications are distributed? Will it "open up" the seriously hierarchical mobile services infrastructure? Will it make the world a Much Better Place? Probably not. But, here's hoping that at least in some small way, it will twist open the nozzle, allowing community collaboration and indie developers to forge ahead into the mobile world.
Cheers,
greg
The link goes to the "canonical" Google Code project page, but it appears that Google has set up a "special" page for the Android project. Note that if you try to use that format for a "normal" Google Code project, (such as my own PhyloWidget: correct, incorrect) you get an invalid URL error.
Furthermore, I was disappointed to see that the Android project's SVN browser page turns up blank. Come on, we want Source Code!
greg
OHADev