This is in line with google's timeline, but who cares, let's all beat up on the GOOGster.
Why slam the UI/API when they are just getting off the ground. It will take time and hard work, but unlike Apple and Microsoft, this will be an open platform... I think it will be very cool but give it some freaking time, they are on track and noone should have assumed they would compete with the iPhone 3g's release.
Remember, people trashed the iPhone, and some continue to, but never dismiss a promising technology based on the current beta or release version. The API took forever... in fact in some ways iPhone is still barely off the ground.
I for one welcome Android and the competition it brings. However, the problems they are facing is what happens when there are too many players on the field. The handset makers and the Android software and the wireless carriers all want their hands in the cookie jar and it's making a mess of everything. This is the advantage that Apple has over the competition in that they control all aspects of the phone development. That's why the hardware/software combo works so smoothly. The wireless carriers just need to plug it into their network. Their only hope is that the quality of that handheld is enough to entice new subscribers onto their network and keep current customers satisfied.
Android has a lot of potential in theory. But like a lot of things in technology, some things just look better on paper than in reality.
Please please please everyone can we stop "welcoming" android to the mobile device market, or say we are welcoming the competition, or Android will be the greatest thing since MS Dos, Android will save us all and bring healthy competition!!!!
When Android actually does come to market then it can be touted as the new savior, but until it does, please refer to it as "possibly" android will be great! When and if android ever makes it to market it will be crap, it will be installed on crap phones and will be used by people who don't care if their phone is crap.
Google has a way way way up hill journey to get android to the level of the iphone. Just look, the iphone second generation will soon be released, by the time Android actually comes out the iphone could be in a third generation. The first generation of Android will for sure be complete crap, and be plagued with problems working on so many different types of hardware, it will be a few years after the initial release of Android before Android can update and work our all the kinks. So you're really looking at 2-3 years from now (if ever) at having a good version of Android. You think they'll be able to catch up to the iphone then?
Everyone is hyping Android like it's already here, works fine and is great! Google has 30 different partners on the project??? Are you kidding me!!! No way they will deliver on time with that kind of bureaucracy, no way. Expect further delays as well as a lack of features in the final product as a few of the developers will become upset with the difficulties and delays and pull out at the last minute and take their features with them. Let?s not praise that which does not yet exist.
Google is missing the point with Android. Mobile phones are not about the software along not the hardware alone. A successful phone is a phone with great hardware and software integration, that's why the iPhone succeeds. Don't expect Android applications to work on all Android phones. Different input methods and different screens will be just one of the problems. If I remember correctly, years back people said the same thing about Symbian and look what have happened.
I'm beginning to think that the whole Android strategy may have been planted in Eric Schmidt's mind by Steve Jobs. Jobs knew it would be a nearly impossible task to catch all phone manufacturers with one lariat... so now Steve just sits back and laughs and laughs and laughs...
This delay is unsurprising for two reasons. One, the mobile space is NOT where the PC space was when Microsoft burst onto the scene. Phones are on third generation and expectations of a next-generation solution are that it be better than existing solutions. When DOS rolled out there was a nascent market, a low bar and one vendor (IBM) with power to be King Maker.
If anything, the carriers that look to embrace Android are trying to make/keep themselves kings and figure to be largely selfish/demanding about their needs, forcing Google to care/feed them if they are going to put resources behind the project. Does Google take care of the big fish or focus on little fish disrupters?
Two, unlike the PC, mobile is incredibly performance sensitive/optimized, making all of these form factors, CPU, service, etc. non-trivial to support when you get to the world of taking devices from PC development environments to actual carrier supported deployments.
Hence, Google has their work cut out for them. Not to say that they won't get there. Just don't expect miracles in 1.0.
I would think Google would be very well served by partnering with Apple on it. Instead, they're alienating Apple and undermining that success. Google won't be hurt by it in the short term, but it doesn't seem like a very wise long-term strategy.
What? Undermining Apple? I don't think Android is really even competing with the iPhone. Android will be an excellent system for your average cellphone, and most likley will just kick Microsoft out of the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Underhill
It's possible the games already over before it's even begun.
Again, this is not a zero-sum game here with one "champion". There is a huge market, with plenty of room for multiple competitos. I'm sure Android will eventually be successful, but I don't see it as a direct competitor with the iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gee4orce
Android will be Google's Vista.
I am working on an application for iPhone, and a co-developer is working on the Android version. The iPhone app is nearly complete and looks slick. The Android version - well - isn't. It's not even partially complete, and probably a good six months away from actually being releasable, and, incredibly, Google's own APIs for their online services aren't compatible with Android !
Whilst my collegue is trying to figure out how to get a basic UI up and running that doesn't look like ass, I'm busy profiling my application in instruments and Shark to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of the iPhone. There are no tools remotely comparable to this on Android.
Android is a major work in progress, and it'll take time to get it right. For god sakes, Google started with just a basic linux distro, some libraries, and Eclipse and are trying to create a completely modern mobile operating system. Apple on the other hand not only has had a multi-year head start, but they started with an in-house, modern operating system, developer APIs, and mature development IDE and debugging tools.
Give it some time and I'm sure Android will at least be a magnitude better than the crap pile that's been coming from Redmond, WA. (Win Mobile)
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme
....And software for one Android phone will not work for another. And a developer who makes software for one company's Android phone does not have something they can sell for another company's phone: they'd have to rework and redesign it for the screen and controls of that other phone. And if they take the time to make their app as close to universal as possible, with controls that are the same whether you use numpad or touchscreen, then that app won't do either one WELL. ....
...Still, Android is a great tool to give some company(s) a head start on making their own great phone platform. One of them may succeed very well, and then it won't matter to them that other Android phones aren't compatible.
Understanding there will be interface and control challenges, isn't one of the primary features of Android going to be universal app compatibility? I doubt different manufacturers/carriers change the base system so much as to break app compatibility...
Quote:
Originally Posted by webhead
When Android actually does come to market then it can be touted as the new savior, but until it does, please refer to it as "possibly" android will be great!
...When and if android ever makes it to market it will be crap, it will be installed on crap phones and will be used by people who don't care if their phone is crap.
...The first generation of Android will for sure be complete crap, and be plagued with problems working on so many different types of hardware..
...So you're really looking at 2-3 years from now (if ever) at having a good version of Android.
...Expect further delays as well as a lack of features in the final product as a few of the developers will become upset with the difficulties and delays and pull out at the last minute and take their features with them.
Let’s not praise that which does not yet exist.
Talk about hypocrisy! You tell everyone to withhold judgment of the Android project until it is complete and actually shipping on a device, then you spend the rest of your post stating that it is sure to be crap! wtf?
They're banking the future on helping increase/pad their revenues with regards to Search, Data mining (and services related to data mining), extending the reach of their services (i.e. Youtube, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Apps., etc.) and Adsense and any other future web platform applications they seek to publish. You know, the various things Google does that generates them revenues and profits?
In this vain, iPhone is *NOT* the enemy since in many ways... Android and iPhone are using similar technologies. iPhone supports Google search, which you can bank that Android will as well. While Android competes with iPhone on cell phones, it is not it's *SOLE* purpose nor is iPhone in any way hurtful to Google, the company. Call it a win-win, not just for Google... but it increases Webkit's marketshare for every Android phone or internet device shipping (which is helpful to Apple, it means that applications written using web standards that Webkit supports will be compatible with iPhone, and the openness of Android could quite possibly lead to Android on iPhone API implementations if there is a need... I doubt it's a high priority but I could see it... the key is, those API's will be controlled on iPhone via Apple as necessary, it won't end up as a Gears-like plug-in that extends iPhone in ways Apple has no control/say in), and it also is a win-win for open source as Android, from the outset, is to be given to the public for free... meaning via a GPL or LGPL license. Given Google's belief in stuff like HTML 5 and the movement of making "the web" the platform, and Apple's intents to do much the same (HTML 5 support in Webkit/Safari, Sproutcore, anyone?), consider Google more of a parallel ally with their own intentions and agendas, but intentions and agendas that are more complimentary than cannibalizing of Apple's intentions and agendas. In other words... if you aren't going to buy an iPhone, then you're likely to buy one of another x # of potential phone platforms. Adding Android to the mix helps increase Apple's potential marketshare by increasing the # of available platforms. Call it, increased market dilution if you will.
What Android also does is help potentially open things up, not just for phones... but for rich internet media devices. True, many of these "rich internet media devices" will be nothing more than iPhones and other smart phones (i.e. Blackberry, Symbian, PalmOS, Windows Mobile/PocketPC, Mobile Linux, etc.) themselves. Yet they will not be the only options in this market, much as iPod Touch already shows this to be the case.
I fully expect, over time, with the eventual rollout of Wi-Max and services like Mobile Skype, that there is a full and real potential that mobile internet handsets could begin to creep into wireless telco's revenues simply by the amount of users that forego cell service for a Voice over IP telephony service on a device driven by Android on common hardware. The key there is there will be a need for national and/or international Wi-Fi support with a similar coverage area to existing wireless carriers, but the very real notion is that VOIP is coming to the handset sooner or later. It'll be up to the Verizon's, AT&T's, T-Mobiles, Sprint's (who has jumped on with their purchase of Clearwire) et al. to compete just as the wired telcos have had to with Vonage and Comcast and other VOIP providers. The reality here is, if you want VOIP on a mobile phone or internet device... it won't be an Apple phone at this time. Apple, as part of their SDK, and due to their strong contract with AT&T, prohibits the development of said software for the iPhone at this time.
In as far as Android being "the next MS-DOS", that's malarkey in itself. When Google finishes up the final featureset of Android and releases it openly via public license, Android will in effect become more like a mobile handheld Linux (what it's based on) than Windows. Developers from the major telcos and other hardware providers can embrace and extend the built-in featureset to make Android more robust and then, without the moving target of an unfinalized Android,... it'll be much easier to develop for if the API's themselves are more concrete. Unlike DOS/Windows where everything is half-shod proprietary in OS but open in hardware, Android will be more like Linux in that it's a completely open and accessible product and advances in relation to improving the various licensed pieces requires pushing the tech back into the open. Companies can hire engineering staffs to mold Android into their needs. They can harness increased support from the open-source community to increase the OS's platform independence, via core modifications and driver improvements. Moral of the story... I could even see technologies from Android, via GPL/LGPL, make their way into iPhone at somepoint (and vice-versa as a result of those licenses).
While the GUI of Android, thus far in the demos shown, is a bit kitschy and perhaps not entirely feature complete enough... it has tons of potential and it's primarily about flexibility in implementation. After all, Google has not committed to shipping a "G-phone" but have committed to releasing a platform others can make various phones and other devices from. What you see of Android on-stage at Google's IO conference, is not necessarily what the end products shipping from various providers will look like. The phones UI is flexible, whether using a touch-screen gesture based UI to a standard d-button pad based UI, and it'll likely only get more flexible in time.
Android... is about protecting and increasing Google's usable share with their internet apps. and services. It isn't about killing off iPhone. In fact, I'd argue that Android is as much an asset to Apple as it is Google, much as iPhone is an incredible asset to Google as well (which is why a Google exec. is on the board and why Google is shown just about everytime a Mac or iPhone product is launched). After all, Google isn't to profit from Android as a platform... merely profit from what the platform enables for their apps and services. iPhone can profit from further increase in the Webkit marketshare. Mobileme, in future variants, could even be compatible with Android in as much as it is iPhone and others, and each sale of a Mobileme license is a profit for Apple. It all benefits all of us as competition is always good.
The recent announcement in relation to Symbian is likely of similar benefit to Apple, as Nokia's use of Symbian relies on a variant of Webkit as the browser of choice. Nokia, to try and stay competitive with Android and LiMo and iPhone is going to buy up Symbian and make the OS open source.
None of this is *ANYTHING* like Microsoft which has a feudal, almost downright allergic reaction to anything that's not created internally and isn't a proprietary answer to a question that often is best answered already (by another open source or standardized technology).
Comments
Why slam the UI/API when they are just getting off the ground. It will take time and hard work, but unlike Apple and Microsoft, this will be an open platform... I think it will be very cool but give it some freaking time, they are on track and noone should have assumed they would compete with the iPhone 3g's release.
Remember, people trashed the iPhone, and some continue to, but never dismiss a promising technology based on the current beta or release version. The API took forever... in fact in some ways iPhone is still barely off the ground.
disclosures: very long AAPL and GOOG
Android has a lot of potential in theory. But like a lot of things in technology, some things just look better on paper than in reality.
When Android actually does come to market then it can be touted as the new savior, but until it does, please refer to it as "possibly" android will be great! When and if android ever makes it to market it will be crap, it will be installed on crap phones and will be used by people who don't care if their phone is crap.
Google has a way way way up hill journey to get android to the level of the iphone. Just look, the iphone second generation will soon be released, by the time Android actually comes out the iphone could be in a third generation. The first generation of Android will for sure be complete crap, and be plagued with problems working on so many different types of hardware, it will be a few years after the initial release of Android before Android can update and work our all the kinks. So you're really looking at 2-3 years from now (if ever) at having a good version of Android. You think they'll be able to catch up to the iphone then?
Everyone is hyping Android like it's already here, works fine and is great! Google has 30 different partners on the project??? Are you kidding me!!! No way they will deliver on time with that kind of bureaucracy, no way. Expect further delays as well as a lack of features in the final product as a few of the developers will become upset with the difficulties and delays and pull out at the last minute and take their features with them. Let?s not praise that which does not yet exist.
I'm beginning to think that the whole Android strategy may have been planted in Eric Schmidt's mind by Steve Jobs. Jobs knew it would be a nearly impossible task to catch all phone manufacturers with one lariat... so now Steve just sits back and laughs and laughs and laughs...
This delay is unsurprising for two reasons. One, the mobile space is NOT where the PC space was when Microsoft burst onto the scene. Phones are on third generation and expectations of a next-generation solution are that it be better than existing solutions. When DOS rolled out there was a nascent market, a low bar and one vendor (IBM) with power to be King Maker.
If anything, the carriers that look to embrace Android are trying to make/keep themselves kings and figure to be largely selfish/demanding about their needs, forcing Google to care/feed them if they are going to put resources behind the project. Does Google take care of the big fish or focus on little fish disrupters?
Two, unlike the PC, mobile is incredibly performance sensitive/optimized, making all of these form factors, CPU, service, etc. non-trivial to support when you get to the world of taking devices from PC development environments to actual carrier supported deployments.
Hence, Google has their work cut out for them. Not to say that they won't get there. Just don't expect miracles in 1.0.
Mark
I would think Google would be very well served by partnering with Apple on it. Instead, they're alienating Apple and undermining that success. Google won't be hurt by it in the short term, but it doesn't seem like a very wise long-term strategy.
What? Undermining Apple? I don't think Android is really even competing with the iPhone. Android will be an excellent system for your average cellphone, and most likley will just kick Microsoft out of the market.
It's possible the games already over before it's even begun.
Again, this is not a zero-sum game here with one "champion". There is a huge market, with plenty of room for multiple competitos. I'm sure Android will eventually be successful, but I don't see it as a direct competitor with the iPhone.
Android will be Google's Vista.
I am working on an application for iPhone, and a co-developer is working on the Android version. The iPhone app is nearly complete and looks slick. The Android version - well - isn't. It's not even partially complete, and probably a good six months away from actually being releasable, and, incredibly, Google's own APIs for their online services aren't compatible with Android !
Whilst my collegue is trying to figure out how to get a basic UI up and running that doesn't look like ass, I'm busy profiling my application in instruments and Shark to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of the iPhone. There are no tools remotely comparable to this on Android.
Android is a major work in progress, and it'll take time to get it right. For god sakes, Google started with just a basic linux distro, some libraries, and Eclipse and are trying to create a completely modern mobile operating system. Apple on the other hand not only has had a multi-year head start, but they started with an in-house, modern operating system, developer APIs, and mature development IDE and debugging tools.
Give it some time and I'm sure Android will at least be a magnitude better than the crap pile that's been coming from Redmond, WA. (Win Mobile)
....And software for one Android phone will not work for another. And a developer who makes software for one company's Android phone does not have something they can sell for another company's phone: they'd have to rework and redesign it for the screen and controls of that other phone. And if they take the time to make their app as close to universal as possible, with controls that are the same whether you use numpad or touchscreen, then that app won't do either one WELL. ....
...Still, Android is a great tool to give some company(s) a head start on making their own great phone platform. One of them may succeed very well, and then it won't matter to them that other Android phones aren't compatible.
Understanding there will be interface and control challenges, isn't one of the primary features of Android going to be universal app compatibility? I doubt different manufacturers/carriers change the base system so much as to break app compatibility...
When Android actually does come to market then it can be touted as the new savior, but until it does, please refer to it as "possibly" android will be great!
...When and if android ever makes it to market it will be crap, it will be installed on crap phones and will be used by people who don't care if their phone is crap.
...The first generation of Android will for sure be complete crap, and be plagued with problems working on so many different types of hardware..
...So you're really looking at 2-3 years from now (if ever) at having a good version of Android.
...Expect further delays as well as a lack of features in the final product as a few of the developers will become upset with the difficulties and delays and pull out at the last minute and take their features with them.
Let’s not praise that which does not yet exist.
Talk about hypocrisy! You tell everyone to withhold judgment of the Android project until it is complete and actually shipping on a device, then you spend the rest of your post stating that it is sure to be crap! wtf?
Simple.
They're banking the future on helping increase/pad their revenues with regards to Search, Data mining (and services related to data mining), extending the reach of their services (i.e. Youtube, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Apps., etc.) and Adsense and any other future web platform applications they seek to publish. You know, the various things Google does that generates them revenues and profits?
In this vain, iPhone is *NOT* the enemy since in many ways... Android and iPhone are using similar technologies. iPhone supports Google search, which you can bank that Android will as well. While Android competes with iPhone on cell phones, it is not it's *SOLE* purpose nor is iPhone in any way hurtful to Google, the company. Call it a win-win, not just for Google... but it increases Webkit's marketshare for every Android phone or internet device shipping (which is helpful to Apple, it means that applications written using web standards that Webkit supports will be compatible with iPhone, and the openness of Android could quite possibly lead to Android on iPhone API implementations if there is a need... I doubt it's a high priority but I could see it... the key is, those API's will be controlled on iPhone via Apple as necessary, it won't end up as a Gears-like plug-in that extends iPhone in ways Apple has no control/say in), and it also is a win-win for open source as Android, from the outset, is to be given to the public for free... meaning via a GPL or LGPL license. Given Google's belief in stuff like HTML 5 and the movement of making "the web" the platform, and Apple's intents to do much the same (HTML 5 support in Webkit/Safari, Sproutcore, anyone?), consider Google more of a parallel ally with their own intentions and agendas, but intentions and agendas that are more complimentary than cannibalizing of Apple's intentions and agendas. In other words... if you aren't going to buy an iPhone, then you're likely to buy one of another x # of potential phone platforms. Adding Android to the mix helps increase Apple's potential marketshare by increasing the # of available platforms. Call it, increased market dilution if you will.
What Android also does is help potentially open things up, not just for phones... but for rich internet media devices. True, many of these "rich internet media devices" will be nothing more than iPhones and other smart phones (i.e. Blackberry, Symbian, PalmOS, Windows Mobile/PocketPC, Mobile Linux, etc.) themselves. Yet they will not be the only options in this market, much as iPod Touch already shows this to be the case.
I fully expect, over time, with the eventual rollout of Wi-Max and services like Mobile Skype, that there is a full and real potential that mobile internet handsets could begin to creep into wireless telco's revenues simply by the amount of users that forego cell service for a Voice over IP telephony service on a device driven by Android on common hardware. The key there is there will be a need for national and/or international Wi-Fi support with a similar coverage area to existing wireless carriers, but the very real notion is that VOIP is coming to the handset sooner or later. It'll be up to the Verizon's, AT&T's, T-Mobiles, Sprint's (who has jumped on with their purchase of Clearwire) et al. to compete just as the wired telcos have had to with Vonage and Comcast and other VOIP providers. The reality here is, if you want VOIP on a mobile phone or internet device... it won't be an Apple phone at this time. Apple, as part of their SDK, and due to their strong contract with AT&T, prohibits the development of said software for the iPhone at this time.
In as far as Android being "the next MS-DOS", that's malarkey in itself. When Google finishes up the final featureset of Android and releases it openly via public license, Android will in effect become more like a mobile handheld Linux (what it's based on) than Windows. Developers from the major telcos and other hardware providers can embrace and extend the built-in featureset to make Android more robust and then, without the moving target of an unfinalized Android,... it'll be much easier to develop for if the API's themselves are more concrete. Unlike DOS/Windows where everything is half-shod proprietary in OS but open in hardware, Android will be more like Linux in that it's a completely open and accessible product and advances in relation to improving the various licensed pieces requires pushing the tech back into the open. Companies can hire engineering staffs to mold Android into their needs. They can harness increased support from the open-source community to increase the OS's platform independence, via core modifications and driver improvements. Moral of the story... I could even see technologies from Android, via GPL/LGPL, make their way into iPhone at somepoint (and vice-versa as a result of those licenses).
http://code.google.com/android/kb/licensingandoss.html
While the GUI of Android, thus far in the demos shown, is a bit kitschy and perhaps not entirely feature complete enough... it has tons of potential and it's primarily about flexibility in implementation. After all, Google has not committed to shipping a "G-phone" but have committed to releasing a platform others can make various phones and other devices from. What you see of Android on-stage at Google's IO conference, is not necessarily what the end products shipping from various providers will look like. The phones UI is flexible, whether using a touch-screen gesture based UI to a standard d-button pad based UI, and it'll likely only get more flexible in time.
Android... is about protecting and increasing Google's usable share with their internet apps. and services. It isn't about killing off iPhone. In fact, I'd argue that Android is as much an asset to Apple as it is Google, much as iPhone is an incredible asset to Google as well (which is why a Google exec. is on the board and why Google is shown just about everytime a Mac or iPhone product is launched). After all, Google isn't to profit from Android as a platform... merely profit from what the platform enables for their apps and services. iPhone can profit from further increase in the Webkit marketshare. Mobileme, in future variants, could even be compatible with Android in as much as it is iPhone and others, and each sale of a Mobileme license is a profit for Apple. It all benefits all of us as competition is always good.
The recent announcement in relation to Symbian is likely of similar benefit to Apple, as Nokia's use of Symbian relies on a variant of Webkit as the browser of choice. Nokia, to try and stay competitive with Android and LiMo and iPhone is going to buy up Symbian and make the OS open source.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1341...a_symbian.html
None of this is *ANYTHING* like Microsoft which has a feudal, almost downright allergic reaction to anything that's not created internally and isn't a proprietary answer to a question that often is best answered already (by another open source or standardized technology).