To date, in consumer-grade devices, Android can come in any screen size you want, so long as it is HVGA (320x480). That, my friends, is going to change, and soon: Read more
Perhaps the weakest link in the Android chain is the Android Market. Frankly, it is uninspiring: limited searching, limited descriptions, limited dialogue between developers and customers, limited customer service to developers from the Market managers. Moreover, since it is proprietary and closed up tight as a clamshell, there is no effective way for the community to help make the Market better. Yet, we need a powerful app market for Android to be a long-term success. Read more
Michael Tan of CNET Asia argues that with Android shortly being available for MIPS, that there will be little green robots everywhere. After all, the MIPS CPU is ubiquitous in consumer electronics gear, from set-top boxes to classic PDAs to game consoles. Read more
Back in January 2009, I wrote a post entitled Pre-Conceived Notions, about the probable success of the Palm Pre and WebOS, based upon their strategy versus that of Google/OHA and Android. Now that the Pre is out and about, let's revisit some of those “notions” and see where the Pre may go from here. Read more
Symbian recently started allowing anyone into their developer portal. On the whole, it looks much as one might expect from a brand-new portal: wide but shallow. There are many topics to be discussed, but little material behind each.
That being said, here are some things that I find interesting about Symbian's developer site, in contrast to the way Android has theirs: Read more
Last week in San Francisco, Google held its developer conference, Google I/O 2009. The bulk of the Android presence came in the form of the individual sessions, covering everything from application optimization and debugging to accessibility. Most of the ones I attended were fairly valuable, with a clunker or two in for balance. Most were fairly well attended, in particular Dan Morrill's presentation covering bits about native C coding for Android. Read more
Android is a modern, capable, perhaps even "sexy", mobile operating system. However, you can say the same thing about iPhone and Palm's upcoming WebOS. What distinguishes Android from those two is being open source. In theory, Android should be able to add more capabilities more quickly via having more people contributing to its development.
In practice, contributing to Android is far from easy. The simple things (e.g., contributing to documentation) are hard, and the hard things (e.g., overhauling built-in applications like the media player) are byzantine.
Read more
Google I/O is scheduled for late May, not late December. That being said, it's time for a wish list, of the things I would like to see that will make Android that much more compelling to the public, to developers, and to people like me who are into the whole "free as in speech" concept.
I want...
...a consumer Android device not tied to a carrier, or even related to a carrier, that one can use with any (GSM) carrier via prepaid plans, or with no carrier via VOIP
Read more
A lot of the focus on making money off of Android is focused on writing applications for distribution through the Android Market. Given the huge wave of publicity surrounding the iPhone App Store and authors' successes there, this fixation is not surprising. However, it does leave out other possibilities, particularly ones both old (OEMs) and new (remixes) that are more in line with Android's abilities and objectives. Read more
For the first time, a significantly different Android device has hit the market. The HTC Magic, being distributed already, runs Android 1.5 (before any other devices) and lacks a hardware keyboard.
Those changes are not dramatic, and will be less so as Android 1.5 is made available to T-Mobile G1 owners. However, we are also hearing rumors of other Android handsets, Android netbooks, and the like, and some of the changes necessitated by those devices will be far more substantial. For example, an Android netbook would likely run at a higher resolution than 480x320.
Read more
About one month ago, Dan Morrill wrote about the second Android Developer Challenge (ADC), "The second ADC will definitely not be a clone of the first ADC. We expect to have all this finalized and announce rules within a couple months. The event itself will likely run in the second half of the year."
Read more
It is always fun to see what areas garner innovative attention on a new platform. Right now, for Android, one such area is the home screen - what you would think of as your "desktop" on a regular PC.
Android ships with a home screen application, cunningly named "Home", that offers just a few basic features: shortcuts to applications and a search box, spread over three screens (swipe left and right to move between them). It also offers the launcher, the drawer that slides out from the bottom of the screen to display all launchable applications. It works, and until recently, it was pretty much the only game in town.
Not any more. Read more
The Monetizing 'Droids series of posts are ways of thinking about the identifying, pricing, marketing, and selling Android applications, blending what has worked in other areas with the subtle nuances that Android imposes. Read more
If, four years ago, you would have told me that both Google and Nokia were going to release mobile device operating systems as open source, and would have asked me which was more likely to "get the whole open source thing", I would have chosen Google. While many of the Google open source projects we see today (e.g., GWT) were nascent at best, there was definitely a spirit of open source around Google. Conversely, four years ago, Nokia had, in my humble opinion, less of an open source track record.
Nokia, you've come a long way, baby. Read more
In my meanderings through our favorite series of tubes, I ran across a blog post that called into question the analyst report projecting Android will outsell iPhone by 2012. In particular, the author asks:
"...please tell me, what are the special, unique selling ponts of Android devices that will see these overtake iPhone?" Read more
The Monetizing 'Droids series of posts are ways of thinking about the identifying, pricing, marketing, and selling Android applications, blending what has worked in other areas with the subtle nuances that Android imposes.
As developers are quickly realizing, there is no free lunch in the Android Market - applications do not necessarily "sell themselves". For that matter, there is no free lunch in the iPhone App Store, such as this well-regarded game averaging ~5 sales per day at $3.50 gross profit per sale. Read more
It seems sad to have to continue this theme another week, but it is certainly the most pressing topic du jour...
The ADP1 developer phone lacks the firmware update to allow it to see priced applications in the Android Market. Read more
Last week, the Android Market opened for priced applications. Immediately thereafter, the problem reports started rolling in to the developer support group:
Nobody quite knew who was supposed to be able to see what in the Market when, since the phased rollout was inadequately documented as to how long the process would take and when people would likely get the Market updates.
Read more
Android applications, when they are installed from any source other than a local USB cable, will prompt the user with a list of the permissions the application requests via its manifest. The user must agree to allow the application to have those permissions; otherwise, the installation is abandoned.
Some applications will ask for many more permissions than would seem necessary for the application to work. Your average tip calculator, for example, probably does not really need Internet access, or to know where you are via GPS, or to be able to read your device's contacts. Read more
Last week saw a lot of coverage of Apple's multitouch-related patent being granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Not surprisingly, messages related to the patent then started to show up on the official Android Google Groups, the ones monitored by the core Android team for supporting both SDK and firmware developers. A few of the moderators asked that discussion of this patent be kept off the one list, leading to some amount of angst.
For many, patents and software go together like oil and vinegar. For some, patents and open source software go together like oil and flamethrowers. Hence, it is not surprising that some advocate ignoring the patent, particularly since it is unclear how many other jurisdictions will grant similar patents to Apple. Read more
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