RSSNo Gphone, But Google Announces 'Android' Mobile Platform
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 5, 2007, 12:00 PM
In a somewhat successful marketing ploy that shows Google has indeed learned something from Steve Jobs after all, the company lifted the veil on what was anticipated to be a cell phone with Google's logo on it. Instead, it's a software platform, which should not have been a surprise from a company that's in the business of making software platforms. What's more, it's an open source Linux kernel for cross-branded third-party apps...that omits the Google brand.
"Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices," stated Google's director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin, in a blog post this morning. "It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications - all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation."
A group of 34 companies, Google among them, is joining to form the Open Handset Alliance. Among them are manufacturers such as Motorola and HTC, carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile, technology suppliers such as Marvell and Qualcomm, and mobile applications providers such as Packet Video and SONiVOX.
An "early look" at the future Android SDK is being planned for November 12. A placeholder message on the OHA's download page currently reads, "We view Android as a "living" platform and look forward to working with the developer community to continuously enhance and enrich the platform."
Until then, there is one clear contradiction in today's set of announcements: Android is being described as a complete "software stack," including applications layered on top of an interface protocol, middleware, and Linux kernel, in that order. But with the SDK apparently in an embryonic state, Android is very likely far from complete.
"The Gphone is really this great moniker that the press has put onto Android," states Erick Tseng, a Google product manager identified in an OHA video as its Product Manager. In a series of successive cuts, an OHA engineer states, "But this is the Gphone," followed in three seconds by, "Okay, this is not the Gphone."
OHA Engineering Director Steve Horowitz is seen later in the video saying, "There is no such thing as a single Gphone...What we're doing is enabling an entire industry to create thousands of Gphones."
Kind of, because that won't be what they're called. And for now, at least, we won't know what such devices will contain.
For more: Google's Phone Platform: It's Not an OS, So What Is It?
| Charter members of the Open Handset Alliance, including one dog, discuss how the nucleus of the Open Handset Alliance came together, apparently over dinner. |
http://www.ohadev.org Given the recent news of the "g-phone" and the Open Handset Alliance. A new website has been launched to facilitate coordination between developers who intend to use the "Android SDK" from google.
please visit: http://www.ohadev.org
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|Android SDK:
Good news, but there is very few details about the platform itself.
I see 3 options for Android SDK on the table:
Option 1) it comes with a native open source JVM. This is the Blackberry approach and the best scenario. It will enable running existing J2ME applications (thousands exist today) and Google will provide more powerfull APIs for their integrationg with their application suite, like GMail, Google Maps and YouTube. GPS APIs would be great too. They will also provide a custom Java based UI toolkit to make applications consistent with the phone UI. IDEs will be Netbeans and Eclipse. The low level access to the underlying Linux OS would be hidden from the developer.
Option 2) The JVM is not part of Android, but available as a addon. This is Palm approach (IBM provides the JVM for Treos). In this case, Esmertec will likely provide a non open source JVM to run J2ME apps to each phone vendor. This is OK but not very good, as the JVM may or may not be present and they will be no integration with existing app or UI toolkit. Developer will have to code all apps running on Android with C or C++ APIs using Eclipse. the SDK will be very similar to the now defund Palm Foleo or the Nokia Linux Maemo platform.
Option 3) No JVM, but a powerfull mobile Web Browser ala Safari, based on the Safari WebKit, which is open source, to run local mobile AJAX apps written in Javascript and DHTML. Google would provide in the browser custom APIs as Javascript libraries to integrate with the platform and custon Javacript UI compomenents. This will be similar to the current iPhone development and also like the Google widget developement. This is ambitious and risky and will not work for mutimedia or game apps. This is not GREAT, but this is OK, specially if they can integrate some version of Google Gears, enabling mobile AJAX apps to run offline.
OR ... all 3 options ? Anyway we will know in 1 week time.
http://www.unyverse.com
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|I have a HTC phone and I must say I'm interested in checking this out, assuming it will run on current phones.
I think the best thing coming out of this however is the competition for the mobile software market. This is only the beginning and we will start to see some really good stuff from Windows mobile and Google over the next few years :)
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|As the last gen X er on the face of the planet to have never owned a cell I can't say this is swaying me.... unless it comes with a free Bender then I'll fold.
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|Hardly.
If you;re the last, I'm dead, and last I checked, dead people don't type. :p
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|Google knows where its at. *nix for life.
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|Google is the Devil.
(What happened to JD?)
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|I can't wait to see a HTC phone with this OS.
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|Do you even own an HTC product?
Beside this piece of news, there is virtually no information about this "platform". How many 3rd party applications will be available at launch. How stable is it? None. And yet, fanboys will come out say "I can't wait..." whatever.
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|But isn't the fact that it is the first open source platform for mobile devices enough to say that it's a start? Yes, they are lacking on the information front, but that is more of a marketing problem, is it not?
Not that I am a fanboy by any means, but, I'm looking forward to it simply to do away with all the restrictions that the mobile carriers place on my phone. I want to be able to customize it as I want to the same as I do my desktop OS.
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|Just FYI. If you haven't use a PPC before, you can customize your PPC the same way you customize your desktop. Of course, assume you have the technical expertise to do it. You must haven't see what custom ROM can do to a PPC, don't you? Ohh.. don't own a PDA?
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|I wouldn't call it the first OSS phone platform.
Take a look at http://www.openmoko.org/ for the first.. and probably quite a bit more advanced.
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|Thousands of rumors, all false.
I love blogs.
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|Google will never make a hardware device for the masses. They may market it to other companies (thus putting the burden of support elsewhere), but it will never be a "google" product.
The only hardware they will ever sell will be server appliances (barring new owners/management/philosophy).
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|... and what ever form it takes, it will constantly bombard you with advertizing. Google is evil!
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|I never see ads on google services. /nelson ha ha.
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|Sorry. Very few people consider hardly noticeable text ads taking up very little screen real-estate as "bombarding".
The flash and pop-up ads of the 80's weren't good to your, were they?
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|While I hate ads like everyone else, I have to say that this whole "google is evil because of ads" as rediculous. They provide free services. As such, those services have to be paid for in some manner. Advertising has always been a double-edged sword for companies and google is no exception. Yes, google is evil because of their information retention policies. I will give you that. But to say that google constantly bombards you with ads, that's rediculous. Let's look at the site you are on right now; I count 3 ad spaces alone here. Compared to google, that is 1.5 times as much as on a google search results page. So, does that make BN evil too?
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|google never has popups and the ads are not in my way at all , I think Google is one good company and until I see evidence of corupt doings I will give them the benefit of the doubt .
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