Palm have problems. PalmOS cannot do data and talk at the same time (or some other basic deficiency that I forget because it's late) hence the two pronged OS strategy with Windows at the moment. Their own linux based OS is way overdue and is rumoured to not being deliverable. Of course they'd like to see Google do the work.
Yes, palm is a disaster, and I wouldn't hold my breath for their linux platform.
However, I think what you meant was that PalmOS can't do multi-tasking.. it actually has to start and close apps to switch between them.
About doing voice and data at the same time... unfortunately, although this is standard on many phones, the iPhone can not do this (unless it has been changed from a new update). If you are streaming data to the phone, your call will go to voicemail. Try it out.
Not to mention that its based on some flavor of Linux so its not really Google creating a new OS but borrowing from open source - I don't think Google could pull off a full OS like Apple has with OSX - they just don't have the expertise in this area.
You can't rag on Google for developing a platform based on GNU/LINUX and then in the same sentence giving props to Apple for pulling off a "full OS" ? You mean besides the fact that OSX/Darwin borrowed from FreeBSD, the Mach Kernel, other POSIX components, KDE for webkit, etc etc....
Don't get me wrong, Apple's engineers are much more experienced with building operating system components and user interface subsystems than Google, but they did not start from scratch.
Yes, that's exactly right! People customize their house by moving the silverware drawer to the bathroom, right? And they customize their vehicles by removing the wheels and super-gluing them to the roof, right?
Death to lazy analogies!
Exactly, like your horrid analogy above. Relating that type of customization to a phone would be like ripping out the ARM processor and squirting easy cheese on the RAM. The original poster's analogy of relating the fact that people like to customize everything they own that is a "status" symbol isn't far from the truth at all...
So how exactly is this different or better than lets say Maemo or Trolltech Qtopia?
People forget that people on macrumors are not really normal consumers.
Normal people just want an easy to use phone. Apple understands this to their very core.
and placing the call button 4 levels deep on tmobile phones and level 2 bottom right corner on verizon phones just ain't going to make for a great phone experience.
I think i figured out why we keep disagreeing. You must be over 30. No offense, but I just don't know how otherwise you'd be under the belief that people don't tend to love to customize what they own, especially cell phones.
Although I am not one to "gaudy" things I own with outrageous "aesthetic" customization, I do like to customize devices like computers and smartphones
for productivity. Who says Apple has any idea what I want on the home screen of Iphone? Would I *EVER* need a Youtube icon on the home screen for god sakes? NO. Weather? No. etc....
I think if made easy and intuitive, whether it's an iPhone or an "Android phone", people would like to and will customize the interface... backgrounds, icon moving/removing/adding, themes, ringtones, pictures for caller ID,etc
No. Not really. What Google has anounced is the core OS. Anyone who sells a phone based on this will need to write a user interface. and all the applications like mail and directory searching. Almost everything an end user sees is NOT in what Google announced.
What Apple does that makes them different is the user interfwce. Google's OS lacks a user interface. What I'd like to know is how it is different then just plain old Linux? Linux already runs on the ARM and is already inside some phones. What's different now?
Not to be an ass, but you should honestly read all the material. In the announcements they said that actually
"Android" DOES HAVE AN INTERFACE LAYER. It's not just a bare bones linux installation. This is a
fully-featured OS.
here's a comment from Rubin, the guy who is running this project at Google (also created of the Sidekick)
(Engadet) Q: "What will the look and feel of an Android-enabled phone be like? How's this platform going to make it easier for people to get content on their phone?"
Rubin: "It's an amazing UI -- it's interface is top-notch. BTW, the SDK is going to be available on an early-look, taking input from the community, interactively developing the interface and platform, Google will be providing some hosted services for 3rd party devs to distribute their apps or content. That will happen with direct connection like USB or memory card, or over the air..."
and about the apps, google is creating a WHOLE set of applications probably related to their existing applications but in a native format. And besides... most of the innovation always comes form 3rd party developers, not google or motorola or (especially) a carrier...
Heh. Well, at least I got one good laugh today. Thanks!
Okay, I learned my lesson -- I'll stop using sarcasm and multi-syllable words and spell it out for you. Yes, people customize their houses and cars, but most of that customization concerns aesthetics only! A large degree of functional familiarity is maintained no matter how much customization, such that I can walk into my neighbor's house and find the silverware drawer without searching the bathroom, and I can find the car stereo without searching the trunk. A roll-your-own UI eliminates familiarity, one of the most important aspects of ease-of-use.
On a completely different subject, I never knew my eyes could roll that far back.
who said anything about a roll-your-own UI??
Wow!
Google, huge though it is, is continuing to be a force for Good.
Here's the pattern Google is following, in the case of OpenSocial and now Android:
1. Big product with major consumer cred launches in June of this year and gains significant buzz and impressive growth.
In one case, iPhone. In the other case, the facebook platform
2. Big product, perhaps understandably, keeps certain things proprietary and closed
Apple releases the infamous 1.1.1 update, wiping out third party applications and locking down the iPhone software.
(perhaps understandably because you really don't want malware infecting your phone)
Facebook's platform has its own proprietary markup language and API
(perhaps understandably because it helps apps easily match the site's look-and-feel)
3. Google quietly works on a way to open things up some more. Allows ridiculous amounts of buzz to build up
Gphone, "Maka Maka"
4. Google quietly gathers a large list of industry partners that have been left behind by the trailblazer, and convinces them that uniting behind an open standard will be great for them.
Today's list of phone companies, last week's list of social networks.
5. Google makes a big announcement. Not a new product, but a new standard and some new software.
Android, OpenSocial
right on the money with that one...
I'm surprised that Google's stock didn't tank after this announcement. A new open source software platform for phones? That's it, that's the big news? This is no iPhone killer. I think people were more thinking along the lines of some revolutionary VoIP phone, with Google announcing they were going to construct a network of radio towers and supply the world with cheap WiFi access for their Gphones or something.
When people step out of their over-hyped and unrealistic speculation-crazed perspective, its actually an incredible announcement.
The more details you read, the more you start to understand how this is going to accelerate the game-changing that Apple has started. Allowing a universal , open source, open development model on the cell phone industry will FINALLY allow mobile applications and location-based services to take off. when hundreds of millions of cell phones will be able to take advantage of the same software, it will really be an incredible market of software and service innovation. I actually think it could easily rival the run up of the Dot com boom again. Just think of all those cell phone users in the world, but no organization.. everyone is locked off into a different walled garden with no universal access or development... all created by the stranglehold the wireless carriers have kept...
And about other things google may do.. I have NO DOUBT in my mind that even if they don't sell a "gPhone" they will definitely work with one of the device manufacturers on new features and uses. I mean they even talked about how Google has been creating prototype devices. A journalist was describing one of them as Iphone-like in appearance, with a large touchscreen and slideout QWERTY with a great interface... they said HTC was even going to put it into production soon.
If you couple this happening at the same time that mobile phone components are just now getting small enough to actually enable fast, responsive interfaces with accelerated graphics and actual computation ability, It's very exciting to speculate what we may see down the road in a couple of years...
Its early to tell, but I dont see this as effecting Apple in any way. However, I do see this hurting everyone else. Here's why...
1. Apple's phone is attractive hardware. The software isn't necessarily the biggest draw (although its very significant)
2. This is not a gPhone! So far we dont know what hardware this ia running on. The iphone may get heat when the gPhone is announced, which leads me to #3...
3. By the time this is even released (end of 2008), imagine where the iphone will be! Third party apps will be available, obviously 3G with all the other stuff, with potentially major software improvements, and it will be cheap!!! This platform will just be starting off!
Conclusion: Every Linux freak will use it, not many others will.
A google-developed and financed, universal, open-source, mobile operating system enabling large scale 3rd party application development will be a formidable foe for the iPhone ecosystem.
One of the prototype devices that google created was described as very iphone like with a large touch interface and physical QWERTY keyboard with a great interface. HTC said they were probably going to start manufacturing it at some point. I think by the time we see this platform, it will have been long enough that excellent hardware will start to be coming out similar to the iphone (except without multitouch I would imagine.. not sure on the patent situation though with that.)
And no, not just "linux freaks" will use this phone. You are looking at the platform from an end user perspective, instead of from a developers perspective.
The average person doesn't care who makes the operating system or how open source it is, but they will
DEFINITELY CARE when they can have an advanced new phone with a great interface and a library of thousands of useful applications written by thousands of developers... especially for the people unable to be on AT&T or that have a business account, or live in a country not serviced by iPhone, etc etc etc
Everyone is forgetting one thing. This software that Google announced. It is NOT for end users. This software is for companies who want to build a phone. It is Open Source and can be changed but what we do NOT know is how it will be loaded into the phone. Maybe the phone will not even be programmable and the firmware will be permanently burned into the phone. Maybe all the executable programs will need to be signed. Or maybe the storage is encrypted? Linux allows all those possabilities. Technically they will have to make the source code available so you can read it andlearn how your phone works but the phone may not have any storage in it. Hack, one could use Linux to build a simple 12 button phone
The iPhone has BSD UNIX inside. Googles has Linux. Linux and BSD are so much alike that no many people can tell one from the other, You have to be a bit of an expert..
You should read up on how extensive the Android platform is. Everyone has this idea that it is a bare bones linux stack without an interface or applications. Which is absolutely wrong, supposedly the initial platform has a quite amazing interface, and the phone prototype that was demo'd by some writers was very iphone like except with a QWERTY keyboard. I think we shall see some very advanced phones from HTC that will be at least somewhat competitive to the iphone. IT all really depends on the interface implementation and who the developers get behind.
I'm not a Google fan by any means (I think their stances on privacy and data retention are invasive and deplorable, and I hate advertising businesses on principle) but I know the above statements are 100% wrong.
Google's expertise with operating systems and hardware integration is second-to-none. It has to be so to run the largest datacenters in the non-classified world. Google doen't buy its hardware off the rack - it has the racks custom made. Google is all about providing simple but powerful interfaces to enormously complex infrastructure (which itself can be managed with very few people).
That said, history is littered with the corpses of all-star teams and initiatives. Remember Taligent?
very good point. And what components of the process they don't have experience in , they will buy it with their cash. Just as they brought in the Danger Sidekick guy
Also, you make the same mistake as most companies these days -- believing that "functionality" exists in its own little world, apart from "design" or "how it looks." Computer companies slap together an all-in-one and proclaim the death of the iMac. Phone companies slap together a touch-screen model and proclaim the death of the iPhone. Puhlease.
I read the guy's post and I don't see anywhere where he is making an assumption about functionality being independent of the interface design....
He is simply stating that MANY consumers like to customize their products to suit their style, whether that be a car with tinted windows or a phone/computer with a different background, theme, adding, removing icons, etc.
This type of superficial personalization does not effect the form-function relationship at all. The interface cues will still be there, the consistency of UI elements will still be there, etc....
The event was surprisingly short on details and hence really bland. I was hoping to see some screenshots...but wait, there's no UI...every manufacturer can create their own. So much for consistency.
If the OHA is all about the software innards (i.e. purely a framework or SDK), then it's really too soon to get excited. Every SDK offers the potential to create good end-user products, but it's up to each developer to do so. Some will do a better job than others. For example, the Mac OS SDKs are available to all developers, but some create much better apps than others. So a danger here might be the possibility to see really good implementations and some really crappy ones.
I particularly like this quote from
Engadget:
I will be laughing at Symbian as it chokes out it's last gasps in the next year or two. At yes, for the eightieth time, the Android system has a full user interface / widget layer.
First of all this is good development for anyone who wants something cheap and that works okay. I don;t think that there is anything for apple with this. I mean if squirrel boy™ is on the board it's in his interest to not compete with the iPhone. I can see that one reason that it's going to be released mid '08 is because the iPhone sdk is coming out and they want to let apple make some good money.
As for the hacking of the iPhone I side with apple with this. When you hack it you exploit a hole in the security, so as a responsible company they have to break the hacks with each update. And if you do hack it DON"T UPDATE IT. WAIT FOR THE HACK and please don't complain about apple being anti consumer, if someone was using exploits in OS X, people would be majorly upset.
ALSO, THERE WILL BE NO IPHONE NANO. There's not really a point to an iphone without all the things that are on it now. Especially with Apple trying to trademark 'Multi-touch"
Maybe when flash prices fall enough, and the tech is made cheaper we'll see a cheaper version, but not a nano.
What are you rambling about? How did you get from Google's mobile platform to trolling about hacking the iphone to the possibility of an Iphone nano in two paragraphs??? jeeez.. slow down on the meth..
Because when Google started growing their cluster of commodity PCs, there was no operating system software that would do the things they needed it to do. It's true that they use Linux heavily, but I would not be surprised to learn that custom kernel modules have been added, as well as userlevel programs performing operating system-type services. They don't just download the latest images from debian.org and put applications on top.
Probably the best-known example of their custom operating system software is GFS (Google File System), which is what they use for their massive distributed storage requirements. More recently, Amazon has developed something similar for their S3 service.
This is not your typical server operating system software.
You mean to tell me google.com is not a php app running on ubuntu?
