Video: Google Demos the Android Phone Platform
Little by little, we're learning more about Android, the new operating system for cell phones that's being rolled out by Google and the other members of the Open Handset Alliance. Today's the official announcement day for the Android SDK, the set of tools that developers will use to create Android applications, and the Android site has gone live.
Also today, Google sweetened the pot, saying it will give a total of $10 million to the developers who build the best Android apps.
Logically enough, the info on the site is mostly targeted at programmers, not folks who are excited about the prospect of the first Android-based phones showing up sometime next year. But here's a video in which Google cofounder Sergey Brin introduces a demo of a couple of Android concept phones. We see the Android browser, an instant messaging client, and Google Maps (including Street View), and get a glimpse of how they all work together:
Last year, the applications seen in this video would have been heady stuff. Watching it just now, though, my instinct was to think "Gee, that looks like a somewhat less polished version of the iPhone interface, providing iPhone-like functionality."
I'm sure that Google and its Open Handset Alliance partners would insist that to think of Android in terms of the applications and UI elements that exist today is to miss the point--and they'd probably be right. What makes Android interesting, and radically different from the iPhone, is its inherent openness. As a truly open platform, it'll be defined by the community that codes for it. And while we don't know anything about the iPhone SDK that Apple says will show up by February, there's no chance whatsoever that it'll give third parties the degree of control over the iPhone that Google says the Android SDK will provide for Android-based devices.
It's always smart to be skeptical about the notion of new platforms catching on like wildfire, and the fact that Google is behind Android doesn't make it a slamdunk. (Remember when Google Base was going to kill, or at least severely wound, eBay? Hasn't happened; never will.) But now that the SDK is public, we'll begin to hear what developers think of it. And as they start putting it through its paces, we should get a much better sense of the platform's potential, even before any phones show up...
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Even if the iPhone SDK is heavily locked down, the iPhone Dev/Elite teams will still have something to work on, such as the all-important unlock hacks.
Competition might be stressful for business leaders, but I think it’s a net benefit for humanity. What’s really going to be interesting to observe in the next few years is the Gphone makes all media more ubiquitous, and how that ubiquity will impact company profits. That can benefit both consumers and investors. The NewsVisual article on Google’s Open Handset Alliance http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/11/google-and-moto.html implies that it’s really personal connections among business leaders that determine future success in the competitive marketplace. But consumers can also benefit from the new products those alliances spawn.
just a comment about your ebay-google base analogy. Neither of these auction sites is open source. Thus, there is no way for users to make them better. Android, however, would allow users to fix what it has wrong. A better analogy would be the apps the Facebook creators allowed developers to make. From a business point of view, this is basically just transferring development costs to the user, a very good idea/tactic.
Will Apple release an iPhone SDK with Leopard?
Leopard includes Objective-C 2.0, perhaps that is what the iPhone SDK is waiting for?
I know it is possible to create binaries for the iphone
now, but an actual SDK would be so helpful.
Greg Joswiak did say that Apple won't "intentionally work to break" iPhone hacks, but later clarified with gearlog.com "software updates will most likely break" native apps.
The whole point of an official SDK is that it means you can build an application within these boundaries, and we won't change those boundaries without telling you.