First Look at Google's Android Mobile Platform

[gmanrique]

you wouldn't be surprised

and neither anybody else in this thread. When Apple announced the iPhone, they showed the product already working with the Google maps integration etc., and as you said, it takes months to develop.

Now, I am not saying that the whole idea of Google 'stealing' from Apple makes sense either. I am just commenting on a specific point of your post.

There have been rumours of this for months and months ( a gPhone). It takes time to develop something like this and I wouldn't be surprised if work had started long before the iPhone was announced.

Anyway, so what if Google chooses to get into the cell phone O/S business - I don't understand why people are getting so upset. People saying Google are copying Apple- its a bit two faced - because Apple have copied ideas on numerous times. Its OK for Apple to copy, but not others copying from Apple - if this really is the case?

Keep perspective...

Personally I find the UI similar to SE P800 - just by turning that task bar upside down....

 

[Aftershock]

I actually see this as both Apple and Google ganging up on M$. Think about it, Android is Linux based, iPhone is OSX, both *NIX variants. Apple provides Google "insights" for their Android platform. Google pays their 10M in developer "R&D" which fruits can be easily ported to iPhone. Exciting times!!

 

[blufire]

It would be nice if Apple incorporated the StreetView function in my iPhone. I found that was kind of cool.

Also, they showed their 3g speeds but did not show the phone using wifi. They also did not mention the battery life on the 3g network.

Street view: agreed. It's just a Google Maps feature, so I suspect it shouldn't be hard to incorporate.

They can't talk about battery life since they're not showing off any particular hardware; only the software capabilities. WiFi would also depend on the phone you're using.

 

[Cronikeys]

...so when does the Apple search engine come out?

Seriously though, I don't know how practical some of these features are... what's the battery life on this thing? Ten minutes?

Also, everyone is comparing this to 1.1.1 iPhones... by the time this reaches the mass public the iPhone OS will probably be 1.5 at least, not to mention the official software development kit.

As for the Quake demo, clearly we are missing who Google is really attacking with this: Nintendo! Ha ha...

 

[JackAxe]

Bleh, no PPC version of the SDK. I'll just have to use my PC for a few, which annoys me!

<]=)

 

[aLoC]

Show any computer user off the street that GUI and ask them who designed it. They will say Apple.

 

[Telp]

Seriously though, I don't know how practical some of these features are... what's the battery life on this thing? Ten minutes?

When the iPhone came out, everyone said the same thing. I understand you dont like it. I dont like it much either, but let them go along with it, and who knows maybe it will be a great sucess. Dont stoop to the levels of apple haters.

 

[incoherent1]

Exactly what do they mean by "open source?" Presumably because they're not building their own hardware, they're using phones that would otherwise run Windows Mobile (or Palm or something else), only erased that and installed Andriod.

Does that mean that I could erase WM6 from my smartphone and install this or would I have to buy a new phone with it installed?

I'd be happy to install it over WM6 (which sux), but I don't know that I'd pay money for it (I'd just buy an iPhone)...

 

[gmanrique]

I am surprised with this bit from the original post

"Despite early plans to keep the iPhone closed to 3rd party development..."

I still don't get this, and I though it was just a hardcore-hackers thing, oh and the admin guy from 9to5mac, but apparently the mods/admins in this sites also think that way.

If I remember correctly from January 2007 when the iPhone was announced, Apple said the iPhone will have web development offered since day 1, and that they were working on a secure way to provide proper or better tools for third party development. But now, it seems like a lot of mac-blogs readers think that the noise of a bunch of hackers complaining about their bricked phones is what made Apple to quickly come up with an SDK so these group would not be so upset. I mean, seriously, what's up with that? Do you really think a company like Apple will work that way?

 

[SiliconAddict]

Looks similar to the iphone.

Yah and the iPhone looks similar to the LG KE850 that came out first. What's your point?

"Despite early plans to keep the iPhone closed to 3rd party development..."

I still don't get this, and I though it was just a hardcore-hackers thing, oh and the admin guy from 9to5mac, but apparently the mods/admins in this sites also think that way.

If I remember correctly from January 2007 when the iPhone was announced, Apple said the iPhone will have web development offered since day 1, and that they were working on a secure way to provide proper or better tools for third party development. But now, it seems like a lot of mac-blogs readers think that the noise of a bunch of hackers complaining about their bricked phones is what made Apple to quickly come up with an SDK so these group would not be so upset. I mean, seriously, what's up with that? Do you really think a company like Apple will work that way?

Web development != real development tools and you dang well know that. Its a piss poor solution by Apple at best. They have backpedaled FAST on this though because its one of if not THE biggest complaint about the iCrap. However AFAIK they have yet to announce that they would be putting out real development tools for the iCrap. When that happens, and ONLY when that happens can someone claim that tools are on the horizon. Until then its vaporware.

 

[Cronikeys]

I dont like it much either, but let them go along with it, and who knows maybe it will be a great sucess. Dont stoop to the levels of apple haters.

Well I was actually just remembering the Game Gear... amazing graphics that totally blew away the Game Boy: color! back-lit! better processor! Meanwhile Game Boy still won the mobile gaming console war due to seven times the battery life... also the bulkiness of the Game Gear didn't help much either.

I love both Apple and Google... rather than competing or pirating, I see this as evolution through natural selection. May the best features triumph!

 

[Stella]

Exactly what do they mean by "open source?" Presumably because they're not building their own hardware, they're using phones that would otherwise run Windows Mobile (or Palm or something else), only erased that and installed Andriod.

Does that mean that I could erase WM6 from my smartphone and install this or would I have to buy a new phone with it installed?

I'd be happy to install it over WM6 (which sux), but I don't know that I'd pay money for it (I'd just buy an iPhone)...

No.

Its up to manufacturers to build the phones that will run the Google OS. Its probably unlikely that your existing smartphone will run it.

 

[winterspan]

While some of this looks pretty cool being open source and all. The interface and the speed of the UI doesnt look nearly as fast as the iPhone. Hopefully it will encourage Apple to open up the iPhone a little more though .

There are a million comments like this on youtube too. What you are ALL MISSING is that they are showing prototype hardware running prototype software. I can guarantee if you saw a early iPhone, it would be NOWHERE NEAR as responsive or polished as it is now. Does no one understand the concept of a *PROTOTYPE* anymore?

 

[winterspan]

apple legal has some work to do in the next few months...
I wonder how this will effect their relationship

oh give me a break. It was hardly an iPhone ripoff. There are only so many ways to design a touch interface. I'm sure the android platform will be similar to the UI concepts found in iPhone, but to talk about lawyers and lawsuits? are you kidding?

 

[winterspan]

That dark dock with white outline looks suspiciously Leopard like. And the address book icon, and the browser is Webkit based. If not stolen then strongly-inspired.

hahaha. "the browser is WebKit based". Since when did Apple own WebKit?? Do you seriously know how many companies use a webkit based browser? The only other decent foundation is Opera, which is not open source.

 

[Compile 'em all]

No PPC support on OS X

The current Android SDK doesn't support PPC machines, only intel Macs

 

[winterspan]

I'm not getting upset, if you could see me you would see I'm cool as a cucumber. Merely pointing out that this is history repeating. Apple shared the Mac prototypes with Microsoft so that Microsoft could port their apps to it. Shortly after Microsoft came out with Windows - they had secretly copied everything they saw.

Now, with Google, Apple co-operated with them to get Google Maps and Gmail on to the iPhone. Probably Google have had iPhone prototypes for 2 years. Now they bring out their own Phone OS that looks very Apple-like in many respects. It is a very similar to what happened with Microsoft.

Yes, it's all a conspiracy to bury Apple. You better start a blog...

 

[dukeblue91]

I guess now we know why Apple is going to bring out the SDK for the iPhone.
Considering that one of the Google CEO's is sitting on the Apple board, I'm sure
Steve knew all about the feature set before it became public. If not Google may want to use that $10 Mil for lawyer fees.

 

[ChrisA]

Two things..

(1) I wanted to point that you (yes you) can play with this right now. They are calling it an SDK but it is more. It's the whole darn thing right on down the kernel level drivers. The whole system is downloadable from Google and it runs on most computers inside an emulator. You don't need any special phone hardware. So go get it and see for yourself, no need to look at these videos.

(2) For all those who would complain about the way it looks or the way it works. You have ALL of the code and the development system on your computer. You can fix it. No need to wait for "someone to please..." Just do it. OK maaybe most readers lask the technical skills but you could in theory make any change you can think of. And not just writting your own app like Apple will et yu do next year. With Andrios even the core features and the drivers that talk to the chips is all open

 

[dukeblue91]

Yah and the iPhone looks similar to the LG KE850 that came out first. What's your point?
Web development != real development tools and you dang well know that. Its a piss poor solution by Apple at best. They have backpedaled FAST on this though because its one of if not THE biggest complaint about the iCrap. However AFAIK they have yet to announce that they would be putting out real development tools for the iCrap. When that happens, and ONLY when that happens can someone claim that tools are on the horizon. Until then its vaporware.

Silicon,
What's up with that iCrap stuff?
Why so much hate for the iPhone?
The iPhone is still the best device out there for what it is, open or not.

 

[aLoC]

hahaha. "the browser is WebKit based". Since when did Apple own WebKit?? Do you seriously know how many companies use a webkit based browser? The only other decent foundation is Opera, which is not open source.

I think you are confusing WebKit and Mozilla. Mozilla is the most popular open source browser engine, used by Firefox. Apple decided to adopt KHTML, redeveloped it extensively, and renamed it WebKit.

So WebKit is very much Apple's baby.

 

[arn]

"Despite early plans to keep the iPhone closed to 3rd party development..."

I still don't get this, and I though it was just a hardcore-hackers thing, oh and the admin guy from 9to5mac, but apparently the mods/admins in this sites also think that way.

I don't necessarily think that Apple changed their plans because of the hacker community, but I do think Apple may change their plans due to Android.

Regardless, Apple official stance in January was that web-apps were the only way to go. There were some offhand comments by Jobs in interviews that there may be "limited" apps coming, but this was certainly not public company policy.

Right now the iPod has "limited" 3rd party apps available to it, but it would be a stretch to say that the iPod is open to 3rd party development.

arn

 

[hevaKmaI]

I think this will be big competition to the iPhone. You can see what kind of developer community sprouted up for the iPhone... I think with encouragement, a more massive one will easily appear for Android.

arn

I agree. I'm excited about this not because I want to get my hands on an android phone, but rather because I don't want to see Apple get too comfortable with the iPhone in its current state. This news, to me, is more exciting simply because it will be interesting to see what Apple will do to differentiate from the Android platform....and being Apple, you know they'll do it.

 

[Stella]

I think you are confusing WebKit and Mozilla. Mozilla is the most popular open source browser engine, used by Firefox. Apple decided to adopt KHTML, redeveloped it extensively, and renamed it WebKit.

So WebKit is very much Apple's baby.

WebKit is used by other companies as well, and now adopted by KDE - Konq ( which used KHTML).

 

[gkarris]

(watches "android" videos - snoozes)

Sorry, guys, just like the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison - if you're not the first, you're just one of many....

Windows Mobile, Prada, HTC Touch - join the iPhone copy crowd....