2 - The far and away hottest phone on the planet for the last year and counting vs. no phone at all.
This is not a contest. *snip*
That's a poor analogy; the very same argument was used prior to the iPhone launch regarding it's competition with Windows Mobile. I'm not saying Android is going to be an iPhone killer, but we certainly won't know until it is finally available in the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rmacuser
I have been developing an Android application and I am very discouraged by Google's silence and lack of activity and communication. It feels like everything got very quiet... no more blogs... no more SDKs... forum traffic practically dead. Google definitely has lost my interest.
Oddly, even though I wish I had focused on the iPhone earlier, I don't think Apple has that much of a better reputation among developers. And Apple's strategy regarding Java is perplexing. They could effectively kill the weakened Android off completely by opening up the use of Java on the iPhone. All those Android developers could more easily jump to the iPhone now and not feel their previous efforts wasted. The same goes for the Symbian and JME developers using Java... Apple could gather that flock too. Very short-sightedness on Apple's part.
I agree with you on Android. The relative silence from Google is disturbing -- I would have to assume that they are just under enormous pressure and working around the clock with their partners to get the platform launched. I'm interested to see what they make of it, and hope it provides some good competition with Apple, but with the notorious history of most carriers and manufacturers, I'm not real confident that it will work out very well. I actually hoped Google will limit the influence of both on the software functionality and interface as we all know every carrier is going to attempt to embed their expensive, second-rate "premium media services" into their respective devices. For Americans, think of Verizon's deplorable "Get-It-Now" system of rip-off ringtones, games, and media downloads, but on a whole new level. Also, it is difficult to envision how application compatibility will function with so many different device configurations and profiles.
Regarding the java issue, although I've messed with C in the past, I mostly work with C# and Java so I too wasn't particularly enthused to have to learn the intricacies of Obj-C and Cocoa. I would love to see ANY alternative language on the iPhone with Cocoa bindings, but I doubt it will happen. Being a new Mac follower, I am trying to convince myself to dive in head first for both Mac and iPhone development, but after fiddling around with Obj-C and Cocoa for an hour, I realized it's going to be an uphill battle.
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
Meh. It's much simpler than that:
1 - 30m apps sold vs 0 apps sold.
2 - The far and away hottest phone on the planet for the last year and counting vs. no phone at all.
This is not a contest. *snip*
That's a poor analogy; the very same argument was used prior to the iPhone launch regarding it's competition with Windows Mobile. I'm not saying Android is going to be an iPhone killer, but we certainly won't know until it is finally available in the market.
I have been developing an Android application and I am very discouraged by Google's silence and lack of activity and communication. It feels like everything got very quiet... no more blogs... no more SDKs... forum traffic practically dead. Google definitely has lost my interest.
Oddly, even though I wish I had focused on the iPhone earlier, I don't think Apple has that much of a better reputation among developers. And Apple's strategy regarding Java is perplexing. They could effectively kill the weakened Android off completely by opening up the use of Java on the iPhone. All those Android developers could more easily jump to the iPhone now and not feel their previous efforts wasted. The same goes for the Symbian and JME developers using Java... Apple could gather that flock too. Very short-sightedness on Apple's part.
I agree with you on Android. The relative silence from Google is disturbing -- I would have to assume that they are just under enormous pressure and working around the clock with their partners to get the platform launched. I'm interested to see what they make of it, and hope it provides some good competition with Apple, but with the notorious history of most carriers and manufacturers, I'm not real confident that it will work out very well. I actually hoped Google will limit the influence of both on the software functionality and interface as we all know every carrier is going to attempt to embed their expensive, second-rate "premium media services" into their respective devices. For Americans, think of Verizon's deplorable "Get-It-Now" system of rip-off ringtones, games, and media downloads, but on a whole new level. Also, it is difficult to envision how application compatibility will function with so many different device configurations and profiles.
Regarding the java issue, although I've messed with C in the past, I mostly work with C# and Java so I too wasn't particularly enthused to have to learn the intricacies of Obj-C and Cocoa. I would love to see ANY alternative language on the iPhone with Cocoa bindings, but I doubt it will happen. Being a new Mac follower, I am trying to convince myself to dive in head first for both Mac and iPhone development, but after fiddling around with Obj-C and Cocoa for an hour, I realized it's going to be an uphill battle.
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.