android and the open handset alliance
Google's sure got their fingers in a lot of pies these days. I'm sure you've probably already heard about Android (or at least the rumours of a gPhone) but if you haven't, I'll take a moment to share my thoughts.
A quick runthrough - for months now, there has been gossip that Google was planning to enter the cellphone/mobile data industry. Bloggers quickly dubbed the ethereal mystery device gPhone, but that's all there were--rumours. On Guy Fawkes Day of this year, the Android Platform was announced.
Basically, google's not making a phone of their own, they're coordinating/leading the new Open Handset Alliance to develop what they call the Android Platform. Android is an open standard (s'posed to be licenced under Apache v2 if I'm not mistaken, though the members of the Open Handset Alliance apparently signed a Non-fragmentation agreement to keep code from forking in non-interoperable ways) for a mobile telecommunications platform.
Android uses a Linux kernel, a specialized Java virtual machine, and provides a library (with things like a/v codecs, etc.)--they've already released the first version of the SDK, so if you're a code monkey and you've got time to kill, please hit up http://code.google.com/android and then share your thoughts with us. The libraries support 3d hardware acceleration if you've got the hardware, and each piece of code is designed to be modular and interoperable. This means that anything within the software stack will be replaceable. Good times.
On the whole, this seems like exactly the kind of thing that mobile computing/communications needs. Open, modular, ubiquitous. In other words, it sounds good.
It just kind of makes me nervous that a consortium of corporate superpowers is in charge of this. There's definite promise here, but keep your eyes open. It almost sounds too good to be true.
Some further reading.....
http://code.google.com/android
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28mobile_phone_platform%29
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/13/1348233&from=rss
http://howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=b8452131b1bb436920fc3e988a970...- cidviscous's blog
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You make a good point. Trust but verify.
I hate to quote Reagan but the free and openness with any Google technology is tied to some kind of service integration that makes them all powerful.
I would like to eventually develop empowerthyself software for both the iPhone and Android platforms. First things first though. I'm back to working on the site!
initial thoughts
I took a look at it a while ago, but i really don't have the hardware to play around with the sdk. Though it is really easy. The eclipse plugin comes with an emulator and a hello world, so getting started is much easier than one would think.
The api is lean and sexy. The class hierarchy is clean and fresh and completely devoid of bloat. Don't be confused by the fact that you are running on a jvm. The standard java class library is not needed. repeated: NO ICKY NASTY JAVA LIBRARIES
Just about the only problem i have seen is that background applications are terminated. That is, if your program is pushed into the background, it has to serialize itself (and android makes serialization sexy) and then restore itself when it comes back to the foreground. I could be wrong on this, but it looks like there isn't a way for a gui app to keep running in the background. Thats fine on the low end devices, but not on anything iphone class or better.
Also, it is loaded with rediculously advanced features, such as gps support, voice to text and speach synth, to name a few.
Again, i have to say this with a disclaimer that i haven't actually used it on my own pc. I have just read some of the docs and a few guides and reviews.