SPEAK UP: What Do You Think of Android So Far?
Written by AndroidGuys • May 30th, 2008 • Category: Related News, Speak Up!After watching the video from Google I/O, what are your thoughts about Android?
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I commented before, the “Compass Mode” completely blew me away. Personally I get lost all the time, being able to get a sense of “place” ( physically move my body left, right, forward, back ) and “pre-visualize” a destination would be immensely helpful to me. I can barely wrap my head around what a Second Life type game would be like with “Compass Mode”, or the potential for the Real Estate Market would be.
Ultimately though, after watching the video I had a sense of satisfaction. My hopes for Android were not misplaced and that all the speculation and hype about the G-phone ( which started in 2005 ) have actually been exceeded by the reality of the I/O video. We truly are on the verge of a revolution in personal communications / computing.
Even though I am a little worried there will be one last desperate ( ultimately unsuccessful ) attempts by the carriers to stop the release of Android, most likely in the form of them using all the congressmen they have in their pocket, it will happen, we Consumers will win.
( I can see it now, carriers got to court to stop Android, but lose, then appeal again and again. Getting desperate they begin to behave like the RIAA and start equating Android with criminality and terrorism via their highly paid lobbyists. The C-SPAN broadcast on the House floor: “…Mr. Speaker Android is the biggest threat to National Security since the Inter Tubes were made available to the pubic! It must be stopped! Al Quida uses Android phones! Think of the children! …etc. )
After seeing the demonstration of Android, I am now convinced that it is possible to have a provocative and innovative platform other than the iPhone. In terms of web browsing, it is evident that there are better ways of navigating and reading regular webpages without pinching-in and pinching-out repeatedly; the magnifying window seems much more efficient. The compass-driven street-view application is another provocative feature. When the Android phones go on resale, I will be very likely to pick one up. Now, it just comes to price advantage between various models.
@Peter
“…it just comes to price advantage between various models.”
Android is $0.00, you pick your own hardware/handset. 3G iPhone won’t be anything less than $500.00+ anytime soon.
Android is great !
But, what about worldwide handset rollout ?
How will we developers outside the US get our hands on the 1st Android devices ?
Hopefully NOT through the carriers (T-Mobile etc) but direct from OEMs (HTC etc)
Any thoughts ?
You shouldn’t have much of a problem picking up Android handsets on Amazon or other web based resellers, and given Amazon’s track record the handset will probably be unlocked as well.
I liked the video…I didn’t count on seeing too many innovative and mind-blowing treats because it’s just a sneak peak - but what they showed was pretty darn cool in itself.
I’ve always thought the whole “gphone vs iphone” thing is kind of petty because I’m just happy to have multiple cool phones out there (look at how Palm’s OS has never really evolved since the Treo 650…THE SIX-FIFTYYY!!!) that drive each other to raising their game. Google probably doesn’t like it being called teh “gPhone” simply because of the similarity to “iPhone” and the competition that it riles up…but I still like to call it the gPhone
Anyways, yeah. This just makes me more excited about picking one of these bad boys up come Christmas. I’ve NEVER been one of those fools standing in line for 5 days to get or see something - but this may be the exception
I’ve been following android through your site, helloandroid.com and google news since november last year.
I was very much excited by the idea of an open platform for mobile devices and thought it would give complete control over the mobile experience in the consumer’s hands rather than control freak network providers. But it turns out that this may not be the case after all. Google just want every mobile user to have a complete web enabled browser in pocket. That is their only goal.
Apple showed that if provided a stunning interface and a powerful browser, people will actually use internet on mobiles in a serious way. This was last incentive that Google needed to push itself in to the mobile arena. They wanted people to have access to these complete web enabled browsers. So that more the people surfing the internet… more likely they will use Google search….and the more Google will make money through ads. Google’s only aim in anything they do is this and this alone. Google’s every move if you notice carefully is directed at making people spend more time on net and making desktop less relevant (cloud computing?). But Apple’s business model is such that it will not meet the Google’s goal of mass market penetration of these browsers. So they have taken matters into their own hands through android.
It does’t matter to Google if it is Apple’s iPhone or Android that will have 70 or 80 % of smartphone market share or for that matter even if it is Symbian… They don’t care as long as people are using internet on mobiles in a big way. Even Google’s own Mobile Development team (which is different from android team) doesn’t give preferential treatment to android. It is just another platform for them.
Now when Android is released later this year under Apache license, every mobile manufacturer and every network provider will be able to modify it to suit their own needs, and lock certain parts of the android OS so that consumers are not able to change or install their preferred applications and are forced to use that which is bundled with their phone (they have done it in the past and there is no reason why they will not do it now with android). Applications created for android platform may not work on all android devices depending on the changes made to android OS by these companies which invariably every company would make going by their history. And since they are under Apache license, they need not contribute the changes they made back to the community.
This will lead to more fragmentation and we may end up having HTC’s version of android, T-mobile’s android, Samsung’s android, AT&T’s android…. an application on one may not run on another. Google is not at all concerned about this because they know, no matter what changes these companies make to the android OS, the browser part will be left untouched and that is all that is necessary for it to meet its own goals. They don’t give a damn about consumers. Infact they expect this fragmentation to happen (Google has already said they will provide developers with tools to test whether their application is compatible with various android versions).
Now what if it was released under GPL V2 license…… Under GPL V2 license they would be forced to contribute the changes back to the community. That would mean a single unfragmented platform just like we have Linux OS today. An application written for Linux OS runs on any flavor no matter what. Consumers will have complete control over what their phone does. Google was forced to go for Apache because none of these companies were ready to be a part of OHA under GPL V2 ( ‘lose complete control? No way… I’m not jumping on board’). Google wouldn’t lose anything by it. Only loser here is the consumer and may be developers.
So where is the choice/control for consumers as promised or had we taken it for granted. Nothing really changes for consumers. What it does is provide these networks with more control and more ways to squeeze money out of clueless consumers.
Have you noticed that almost all applications that won in ADC I use internet in one way or another. Was there not even one application or a game, in the challenge out of 1700 odd entrants that just works on the phone without using internet. Or were they carefully and purposefully sidelined because neither Google nor Network providers can make money out of it. I think now I get the idea behind all this fuss about android, its openness and stuff. It really doesn’t provide any choice/control to consumers. It just divides and confuses developers in a field that is already a mess with fragmentations.
In the end…Google makes money, Networks make more money (without losing the control!), thats all.
Fortunately I’m from India where network providers do not have as much control over phones as in american countries.
If you don’t believe me….checkout the following links and see for yourself where android is headed. Read each statement carefully and analyze and you will realize what is actually going to happen.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/06/lefty_and_google/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=590
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/android_browser_wild_west.php
Hope this will throw some light on how ‘open’ android is going to be.
It needs a couple of things
1) to be released as soon as possible to help compete against iphone 2.0
2) business apps right out of the box
3) be available from carriers and buying handsets outright
Then it be a well rounded OS.