The Excitement Of Android

I read a lot last week about Google’s new mobile phone initiative – Android. It’s not an actual phone, that much is perfectly clear. Instead, phones will be built on Android.

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

My current Samsung Blackjack runs on Windows Mobile 5. Android would perform that same function. There are many similar, though different, phones using WM5. I expect the same thing with Android.

Does the world need another mobile platform? Maybe not. But what makes Android so exciting and different is, it’s open source. That puts it in the same category as Linux, MySQL and Apache&#185.

In a video (see below), Google co-founder Sergey Brin makes it perfectly clear he wants Android to be supported by the same type of free software tools he used to get Google going! This time, in his role as super rich guy, he gets to be the one who pays to have them developed, then set free.

To that end, the Android SDK (Software Developers Kit) is open and free. The SDK is the tool with which Android applications will be developed. SDKs for platforms are pretty commonplace. Having them be open and free is not.

Finally, Google has offered a $10,000,000 bounty for Android software developers. That might not be enough to excite Microsoft or Motorola, but it will spark many propeller head geeks into action. That’s big money if you can write a killer app all by yourself, or in a small partnership.

This open source phone talk can’t be pleasing my cell carrier, at&t, or any of the other incumbent carriers. Their business model is predicated on control of both the network and the hardware you buy. Right now, they decide what you phone can do, not you.

Understand, this isn’t a perfect solution. Free and open software can lead to ‘crashed’ cellphones, with no one to take responsibility. Still, it’s a very exciting concept.

My limited time with the Blackjack has shown me the potential in the mobile platform. We’re barely out of the stone age. My hope is, Android takes it to the next step.

For someone like me, who still fancies himself a bit of a hacker, it’s pretty exciting. There’s a lot of upside potential here. This is actually better than if Google had just gone ahead and announced a phone!

&#185 – Even if Linux, MySQL and Apache mean nothing to you, understand that much of the Internet would stop running immediately without them! That includes Google, EBay, and a gaziilion other sites… including geofffox.com


3 thoughts on “The Excitement Of Android”

  1. I’m completely with you on the excitement of this announcement. The other part that I think is cool is that there will be 6+ months of community application development before the handsets hit the market. This means that the phones will do lots and lots from the start. It also means that it will be a less risky move to buy one. That’s good for the consumers, but also for the handset manufacturers and the carriers too.

    Meanwhile, Apple and AT&T are promising details of an SDK 8 months after the launch of the iPhone (and the actual release date of the SDK is yet to be announced). They continue to bank on the older model locking users into hardware, software and service contract. I just don’t see that model winning against Android.

    Oh, and speaking of the carriers, AT&T might not like it, but T-Mobile, Sprint and a few more international carriers are partners with Google on this via the Open Handset Alliance (partner list)

  2. I’m completely with you on the excitement of this announcement. The other part that I think is cool is that there will be 6+ months of community application development before the handsets hit the market. This means that the phones will do lots and lots from the start. It also means that it will be a less risky move to buy one. That’s good for the consumers, but also for the handset manufacturers and the carriers too.

    Meanwhile, Apple and AT&T are promising details of an SDK 8 months after the launch of the iPhone (and the actual release date of the SDK is yet to be announced). They continue to bank on the older model locking users into hardware, software and service contract. I just don’t see that model winning against Android.

    Oh, and speaking of the carriers, AT&T might not like it, but T-Mobile, Sprint and a few more international carriers are partners with Google on this via the Open Handset Alliance (partner list)

  3. Sorry for the dupe. The server hung waiting for response from post. I hit preview again and saw that it was posted twice.

    Please feel free to delete the dupe (and this comment).

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