I'm confused about this story. My gut says it's propaganda... There's a lot of accusation and whatnot in there, but what's with saying Android allows access to hardware? It uses a modified Java VM (this tends not to be conducive to hardware hackery), and the Android team have publicly stated that low-level access to hardware will not be allowed (at first anyway).
Admittedly this is a Linux OS, so my guess would be getting some C / C++ code running on there wouldn't be terribly hard, but there's no talk of officially granting Android devs full control over the hardware.
This story is high on speculation and FUD, and low on references for pretty much all of what's said. Google's OS has an awful lot of potential. Given the infrastructure of internet apps they have at their disposal, having all of those fully and seamlessly integrated into a mobile phone is a convergence wet-dream.
I'm really pleased with my recently purchased iPhone 3G, but Google and the hardware vendors leveraging their OS will bring very welcome competition to what strikes me as a refreshed mobile industry. Interesting times are ahead...
I'm confused about this story. My gut says it's propaganda... There's a lot of accusation and whatnot in there, but what's with saying Android allows access to hardware? It uses a modified Java VM (this tends not to be conducive to hardware hackery), and the Android team have publicly stated that low-level access to hardware will not be allowed (at first anyway).
Admittedly this is a Linux OS, so my guess would be getting some C / C++ code running on there wouldn't be terribly hard, but there's no talk of officially granting Android devs full control over the hardware.
This story is high on speculation and FUD, and low on references for pretty much all of what's said. Google's OS has an awful lot of potential. Given the infrastructure of internet apps they have at their disposal, having all of those fully and seamlessly integrated into a mobile phone is a convergence wet-dream.
I'm really pleased with my recently purchased iPhone 3G, but Google and the hardware vendors leveraging their OS will bring very welcome competition to what strikes me as a refreshed mobile industry. Interesting times are ahead...
Nothing you've said contradicts what is in the article. It's also been written elsewhere.
There is no reason why a Java VM can't access hardware through the OS.
But if the OS didn't allow hardware access, what would differenciate one phone from another?
Why would different manufacturers want to produce phones that had the same feature set as all other manufacturers? That wouldn't work from a marketing standpoint.
Nothing you've said contradicts what is in the article. It's also been written elsewhere.
Fair enough. My contention is that the article says very little of substance; there's very little to contradict. The lack of references is almost funny - "Google is thought by at least one developer as...". The great thing about this statement is that it's probably true; there's the guy cited in the article, and that's sufficient for 'at least one'. Brilliant! :-D
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
There is no reason why a Java VM can't access hardware through the OS.
If the VM couldn't access the hardware then it really wouldn't be able to do anything. What was implied in the article was that the Android devs have dangerously high levels of access to the hardware. I haven't started developing for the iPhone yet (I got my MBP a couple days ago - Mac fan since I was 6, finally a Mac owner. Woohoo! ), but I suspect it's just as easy / hard to bring the iPhone to it's knees through idiotic programming as it is to bring any machine running Java down. The difference, of course, is that Apple controls what's officially released for the iPhone, and thus hopefully filters the idiocy out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
But if the OS didn't allow hardware access, what would differenciate one phone from another?
I'm not sure I understand why this matters to the discussion, but the Android model (like Apple's afaik) offers high-level access to the handset's features. I just did a quick sniff around the Android homepage and found this:
This may not be what you meant. Other differentiating factors can be the handset's physical design, input devices, and even the appearance of the OS. I've seen the argument here a number of times that the open nature of Android means that phones bearing it will be complicated and clunky. This is very much down to the manufacturer and what they wish to do with the OS - it is undoubtedly possible to hide away most of the 'ugly' functionality in Android as Apple have done with iPhone. Open means choice. It's usually a very good thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Why would different manufacturers want to produce phones that had the same feature set as all other manufacturers? That wouldn't work from a marketing standpoint.
Why not? There are plenty of handsets out there from different manufacturers that have virtually identical features. It's the marketing department's job to brand the products differently somehow. That wasn't what I was arguing, however. This article is about the Android developers allegedly being unhappy with the direction of the platform. The argument was made that developers are, and I quote tfa:
Quote:
getting direct access to code that governs even basic hardware functions
I interpret this as implying that the hardware access is unmanaged and a bad thing, and this appears to be the way a number of other posters have understood it. I'm not sure that Android grants the developer any greater access to hardware than iPhone. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.
Fair enough. My contention is that the article says very little of substance; there's very little to contradict. The lack of references is almost funny - "Google is thought by at least one developer as...". The great thing about this statement is that it's probably true; there's the guy cited in the article, and that's sufficient for 'at least one'. Brilliant! :-D
If the VM couldn't access the hardware then it really wouldn't be able to do anything. What was implied in the article was that the Android devs have dangerously high levels of access to the hardware. I haven't started developing for the iPhone yet (I got my MBP a couple days ago - Mac fan since I was 6, finally a Mac owner. Woohoo! ), but I suspect it's just as easy / hard to bring the iPhone to it's knees through idiotic programming as it is to bring any machine running Java down. The difference, of course, is that Apple controls what's officially released for the iPhone, and thus hopefully filters the idiocy out.
I'm not sure I understand why this matters to the discussion, but the Android model (like Apple's afaik) offers high-level access to the handset's features. I just did a quick sniff around the Android homepage and found this:
This may not be what you meant. Other differentiating factors can be the handset's physical design, input devices, and even the appearance of the OS. I've seen the argument here a number of times that the open nature of Android means that phones bearing it will be complicated and clunky. This is very much down to the manufacturer and what they wish to do with the OS - it is undoubtedly possible to hide away most of the 'ugly' functionality in Android as Apple have done with iPhone. Open means choice. It's usually a very good thing.
Why not? There are plenty of handsets out there from different manufacturers that have virtually identical features. It's the marketing department's job to brand the products differently somehow. That wasn't what I was arguing, however. This article is about the Android developers allegedly being unhappy with the direction of the platform. The argument was made that developers are, and I quote tfa:
I interpret this as implying that the hardware access is unmanaged and a bad thing, and this appears to be the way a number of other posters have understood it. I'm not sure that Android grants the developer any greater access to hardware than iPhone. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.
/drdaz
Good points.
It depends on how the phones are looked upon. If they are looked upon as Linux distro's look at them, then all hardware functions are on the table.
If they look at them the way MS allows with Windows, then it;s still pretty broad, but less than with Linux. If it's looked at the way Apple allows with OS X, and even more so with the iPhone, then there is little developers can get at directly.
The first is very much a Wild Wild West kind of thing. No rules.
Comments
Admittedly this is a Linux OS, so my guess would be getting some C / C++ code running on there wouldn't be terribly hard, but there's no talk of officially granting Android devs full control over the hardware.
This story is high on speculation and FUD, and low on references for pretty much all of what's said. Google's OS has an awful lot of potential. Given the infrastructure of internet apps they have at their disposal, having all of those fully and seamlessly integrated into a mobile phone is a convergence wet-dream.
I'm really pleased with my recently purchased iPhone 3G, but Google and the hardware vendors leveraging their OS will bring very welcome competition to what strikes me as a refreshed mobile industry. Interesting times are ahead...
I'm confused about this story. My gut says it's propaganda... There's a lot of accusation and whatnot in there, but what's with saying Android allows access to hardware? It uses a modified Java VM (this tends not to be conducive to hardware hackery), and the Android team have publicly stated that low-level access to hardware will not be allowed (at first anyway).
Admittedly this is a Linux OS, so my guess would be getting some C / C++ code running on there wouldn't be terribly hard, but there's no talk of officially granting Android devs full control over the hardware.
This story is high on speculation and FUD, and low on references for pretty much all of what's said. Google's OS has an awful lot of potential. Given the infrastructure of internet apps they have at their disposal, having all of those fully and seamlessly integrated into a mobile phone is a convergence wet-dream.
I'm really pleased with my recently purchased iPhone 3G, but Google and the hardware vendors leveraging their OS will bring very welcome competition to what strikes me as a refreshed mobile industry. Interesting times are ahead...
Nothing you've said contradicts what is in the article. It's also been written elsewhere.
There is no reason why a Java VM can't access hardware through the OS.
But if the OS didn't allow hardware access, what would differenciate one phone from another?
Why would different manufacturers want to produce phones that had the same feature set as all other manufacturers? That wouldn't work from a marketing standpoint.
Even one manufacturer would have that problem.
Nothing you've said contradicts what is in the article. It's also been written elsewhere.
Fair enough. My contention is that the article says very little of substance; there's very little to contradict. The lack of references is almost funny - "Google is thought by at least one developer as...". The great thing about this statement is that it's probably true; there's the guy cited in the article, and that's sufficient for 'at least one'. Brilliant! :-D
There is no reason why a Java VM can't access hardware through the OS.
If the VM couldn't access the hardware then it really wouldn't be able to do anything. What was implied in the article was that the Android devs have dangerously high levels of access to the hardware. I haven't started developing for the iPhone yet (I got my MBP a couple days ago - Mac fan since I was 6, finally a Mac owner. Woohoo!
But if the OS didn't allow hardware access, what would differenciate one phone from another?
I'm not sure I understand why this matters to the discussion, but the Android model (like Apple's afaik) offers high-level access to the handset's features. I just did a quick sniff around the Android homepage and found this:
http://code.google.com/android/refer...e-summary.html
This may not be what you meant. Other differentiating factors can be the handset's physical design, input devices, and even the appearance of the OS. I've seen the argument here a number of times that the open nature of Android means that phones bearing it will be complicated and clunky. This is very much down to the manufacturer and what they wish to do with the OS - it is undoubtedly possible to hide away most of the 'ugly' functionality in Android as Apple have done with iPhone. Open means choice. It's usually a very good thing.
Why would different manufacturers want to produce phones that had the same feature set as all other manufacturers? That wouldn't work from a marketing standpoint.
Why not? There are plenty of handsets out there from different manufacturers that have virtually identical features. It's the marketing department's job to brand the products differently somehow. That wasn't what I was arguing, however. This article is about the Android developers allegedly being unhappy with the direction of the platform. The argument was made that developers are, and I quote tfa:
getting direct access to code that governs even basic hardware functions
I interpret this as implying that the hardware access is unmanaged and a bad thing, and this appears to be the way a number of other posters have understood it. I'm not sure that Android grants the developer any greater access to hardware than iPhone. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.
/drdaz
Fair enough. My contention is that the article says very little of substance; there's very little to contradict. The lack of references is almost funny - "Google is thought by at least one developer as...". The great thing about this statement is that it's probably true; there's the guy cited in the article, and that's sufficient for 'at least one'. Brilliant! :-D
If the VM couldn't access the hardware then it really wouldn't be able to do anything. What was implied in the article was that the Android devs have dangerously high levels of access to the hardware. I haven't started developing for the iPhone yet (I got my MBP a couple days ago - Mac fan since I was 6, finally a Mac owner. Woohoo!
I'm not sure I understand why this matters to the discussion, but the Android model (like Apple's afaik) offers high-level access to the handset's features. I just did a quick sniff around the Android homepage and found this:
http://code.google.com/android/refer...e-summary.html
This may not be what you meant. Other differentiating factors can be the handset's physical design, input devices, and even the appearance of the OS. I've seen the argument here a number of times that the open nature of Android means that phones bearing it will be complicated and clunky. This is very much down to the manufacturer and what they wish to do with the OS - it is undoubtedly possible to hide away most of the 'ugly' functionality in Android as Apple have done with iPhone. Open means choice. It's usually a very good thing.
Why not? There are plenty of handsets out there from different manufacturers that have virtually identical features. It's the marketing department's job to brand the products differently somehow. That wasn't what I was arguing, however. This article is about the Android developers allegedly being unhappy with the direction of the platform. The argument was made that developers are, and I quote tfa:
I interpret this as implying that the hardware access is unmanaged and a bad thing, and this appears to be the way a number of other posters have understood it. I'm not sure that Android grants the developer any greater access to hardware than iPhone. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.
/drdaz
Good points.
It depends on how the phones are looked upon. If they are looked upon as Linux distro's look at them, then all hardware functions are on the table.
If they look at them the way MS allows with Windows, then it;s still pretty broad, but less than with Linux. If it's looked at the way Apple allows with OS X, and even more so with the iPhone, then there is little developers can get at directly.
The first is very much a Wild Wild West kind of thing. No rules.