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Google announces: Android (It's not a Gphone... It's a Gphone OS!)
Recoil42
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Google news cluster: http://news.google.com/?ncl=1123174168&hl=en
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139262-c,techindustrytrends/article.html
More at the official website: http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/
Even more from the Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-my-gphone.html
Pretty awesome stuff, fantastic move by Google and its partners, IMO.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139262-c,techindustrytrends/article.html
Google on Monday announced a widely expected open-development platform for mobile devices backed by industry heavyweights like T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola that could shake the wireless market to its core by simplifying and reducing the cost of developing mobile applications.
The platform, called Android, has been developed by Google and others as part of the Open Handset Alliance, which has over 30 partners supporting it. The goal of this ambitious initiative is to spur innovation in the mobile space and accelerate improvements in how people use the Web via cell phones.
As previously reported by IDG News Service, the open-source platform will have a complete set of components, including an operating system, middleware stack, customizable user interface and applications.
The first Android-based phones should hit the market in the second half of 2008. The platform will be made available under an open-source license that will give a lot of flexibility to those who adopt it to modify its components and design services and products, Google said.
The alliance will release an "early access" software development kit next week to provide developers with the tools necessary to create applications for the platform, Google said.
"Our vision is that the powerful platform we're unveiling will power thousands of different phone models." Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement.
Other founding members of the alliance include Broadcom, eBay, China Mobile, Intel, LG Electronics, NTT DoCoMo, Nvidia, Samsung, Sprint Nextel, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Texas Instruments and Wind River.
More at the official website: http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/
Even more from the Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-my-gphone.html
Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we're not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing -- the Open Handset Alliance and Android -- is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today.
Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile. Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.
We see Android as an important part of our strategy of furthering Google's goal of providing access to information to users wherever they are. We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone. Our goals must be independent of device or even platform. For this reason, Android will complement, but not replace, our longstanding mobile strategy of developing useful and compelling mobile services and driving adoption of these products through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile operators around the world.
It's important to recognize that the Open Handset Alliance and Android have the potential to be major changes from the status quo -- one which will take patience and much investment by the various players before you'll see the first benefits. But we feel the potential gains for mobile customers around the world are worth the effort. If you’re a developer and this approach sounds exciting, give us a week or so and we’ll have an SDK available. If you’re a mobile user, you’ll have to wait a little longer, but some of our partners are targeting the second half of 2008 to ship phones based on the Android platform. And if you already have a phone you know and love, check out mobile.google.com and make sure you have Google Maps for mobile, Gmail and our other great applications on your phone. We'll continue to make these services better and add plenty of exciting new features, applications and services, too.
Pretty awesome stuff, fantastic move by Google and its partners, IMO.
Recoil42 on
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Plus they're assholes. Don't forget that.
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
So's Symbian. It's not going to matter.
Oh, and FYI, the reason for it is that the lead behind this project, Andy Rubin, is a real robot nut:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/technology/04google.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1194289281-JmSetdagmAgiZUyhhSfUVQ
He's the guy that created the Sidekick.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
And Android is a great name.
They already have an internally used Ubuntu derivative called Goobuntu, but they're not planning to release any desktop OSs.
On a more related note, here's me hoping that Android will allow the USER to customise the OS and not just the mobile phone providers. That would rock socks.
Actually, they are
http://www.thinkgos.com/
It's open in every sense of the word. I plan to play with the SDK when they release it on the 12th.
"...gOS is not affiliated with Google or their partners..."
Until they rise up and take over when no one is looking.
I never asked for this!
Billing for Data Sent or Recieved. Data sent or recieved using Mobile Web (including advertising), Get It Now, and other data applications will be aggregated at the end of each mnth, rounded up to the nearest whole megabyte, and billed at $1.99 per megabyte.
So instead of paying $Ridiculous for a ringtone through Get It Now, you now pay $R+Data charges rounded up at the end of the month.
They've announced partnerships with just about every carrier that doesn't try to shank their customers. Also, Google does not have a history of announcing projects and then never releasing them.
With carriers are these? I was under the impression all carriers in the US screw their customers. T-Mobile is the only carrier on-board with international presence. Motorola make shitty handsets, there's not much further down they could have gone anyway.
It's a big vote of zero-confidence from Nokia and Sony Ericssion (who, let's face it, dominate the market), as well as a snub from Orange and Vodafone.
It's also not clear how Google makes money from this, or even if they have the UI ability to pull it through (see: Google's video store). It's going to die a quiet death in a couple of years at most.
Is it clear how Google makes money from anything?
Pushing users to their sites so they can sell Adwords. That's how Google makes money from everything.
Everything else they make accounts for only a fraction of their revenue. But most of the R&D that goes into the other products gets bred, transferred, improved, and integrated into Adwords and Adsense and the other moneymakers improving both of those products as well. It's a very clever system, they've essentially created a giant think tank of ideas, the best of which get promoted and integrated into their flagship products.
For instance, google video was integrated into AdSense to create Google Video Ads:
https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/video.html
Similarly, the same algorithms and database that comes from Google Web Search is used to determine which ads show on which pages, based on their content.
It's a very clever system, really.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
That's not to say that those companies won't join the OHA at some point. If they don't, they may well have commitments to other providers of similar software (In the case of Nokia and Sony Ericsson).
Regardless of who is in the OHA, throwing out "death in a couple of years" predictions for something that encompasses 34 companies, all of whom are important in their respective fields, one of which is Google, is a bit silly.
What carrier isn't.... :P
I agree with this. I can't imagine this whole shebang WON'T have a major impact. I love how Microsoft and the other mobile OS developers are brushing off this whole alliance thing. Most of them are saying that they've been doing it longer so they've got nothing to worry about. I think they're stupid for acting tough.
Now, a Linux-based OS was fairly obvious. And as much as I look forward to trying it out and seeing what people do with it, I second the notion that someone responded with of, "If Google's name wasn't attached to this, the rest of the industry would've yawned and walked away."
Oh well. We'll see where it goes. At least they have some good hardware manufacturers on board (HTC) to offset the bad ones (like Motorola).
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
The funny thing about all this is that it's coming out of the US. Our cellular system is so backwards that this is the part of the world where this system is least likely to catch on. I can see this spreading like wildfire in Asia and maybe Europe (although Europe loves them some Nokia/Symbian). But here, where carriers like to exert control over everything on their service, from the hardware to the software, it's going to be more... complicated.
In fact, it can go either way. Since it's an open platform, that means that any software programmed for it will work in theory. However, Sprint is on the list of supporting carriers, and Sprint locks down their phones like Verizon does. There's nothing stopping them from using this new platform to create more locked down branded phones.
It will be very interesting to see which directions each of these companies take it.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Still, I'd really like to see Helio on that OHA list.
Google isn't making a phone, they're creating an open-source platform to work on cellular phones. The handset companies (HTC, LG, Motorola, & Samsung) work on the hardware production. It's genius, because there's no overhead aside from the initial cost of developing an OS.
Linky to the NY Times article (free subscription req'd)
I...
I know. The point of my post was saying how I don't understand how anybody would ever think that Google would come out with a handset.
To respond to your post, it's not really genius because, well, it's been done lots of times before. As I wrote in my post, it will be interesting to see if companies use it to actually build an open platform or if they use the codebase to create even more locked down phones.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Could any company legally use open source to protect their own hardware for commercial use? I can see using open source to protect something personal, but gaining commercial advantage using free software seems unethical.
Is it unethical and probably against the open source licensing agreements? Probably. But there's still nothing stopping a big corporation from getting a stable build from the open source community and then closing off the source to build on it in their own direction. I would hope there's something in the OHA membership paperwork that says you can't do that.
This is where it becomes interesting. If hardware specifications are part of the OHA standard, which would better guarantee the compatibility of software, then that would promote a really open software ecosystem.
As it is, we don't have that and a software platform isn't going to change that. Every handset manufacturer uses their own standards and parts. One of the major reasons I like Symbian so much is because it's the same OS across lots of different phones, by virtue of two things: 1. most of those phones are made by Nokia and 2. There are a number of rules that you have to abide by to make a phone that runs Symbian (certain buttons that correspond to OS functions, etc).
The tech specs of Android are coming later (possibly this week, if I recall what I read correctly) so hopefully that'll answer that question. They did mention that Android is at its simplest a software abstraction layer, so that might remove the whole hardware difference problem (ala, Rosetta for the Apple switch from PPC to Intel).
In other words, who knows. We'll see where it goes and if it takes off.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Also, the following question was asked:
Q: "Does this protect consumers in any way of installing software on their phones? Or can carriers create a completely locked down phone?"
Rubin: "Please refer to the Apache software license... when you free something, it's up to the industry to do something with it."
"So if the industry wants to create totally locked down devices, they CAN do it?"
Rubin: "Yes."
Eric: "While it's feasible, it's also highly unlikely you'll see that scenario."
"Eric" is Eric Schmidt, as mentioned above. Unless he's a naive idiot, I'm assuming there's something to do with Android which means companies won't want to create a locked down phone.
That's a good sign, I hope. He obviously knows some stuff that I (and collective we) don't about the partners involved, so hopefully it'll turn out well.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
I'm on Helio too! Virtual hi-5!
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
You are a very hopeful man.
It also very much isn't against the Apache license to do whatever you want with the code. The Apache license is not reciprocal, and places no boundaries on what you do with the code provided that if you modify it in any way, you do not place the Apache trademark anywhere on it.
This piece was absolutely savage.
Mannnnnnnnnn.
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=microsoft+alliances&btnG=Google+Search
Every company in every industry makes alliances for a variety of purposes, including the ones you listed.
I'll just quote some Steves.
edit: OK, cutting Fake Steve since I'm too slow. :P
And I mostly agree. I've seen these huge consortia of companies go out with enormous press releases about how awesome their combined product will be, and then either nothing happens or they come out with some horrible bloatware that suffers from the too-many-cooks syndrome.