Nov

13

The Android Bait And Switch - How Google Could Save The Cellphone

Posted by Eric at 16:48 | Filed In Uncategorized | Add a Comment

What are the two things we know about Android? Scratch that - if you’re anything like me, you already know a lot more than two things about it. So let me rephrase: what are the two things that your average casual but somewhat informed Digg or Slashdot reader knows about Android?

1) Android is open.

2) Android is business-friendly.

Google has assured us that both of these will come to pass, the first because “Hey, we’re Google!”, and the second because they’ve chosen a permissive Apache license. The pitch to businesses has been along the lines of “You know, if you guys want to lock down this platform, you’re free to do so - see, that’s why we didn’t GPL it, we’re looking out for you!”

But it’s easy to wonder how these two goals can possibly coexist - at least in the US, cellphone providers love having their platforms on lockdown, because it’s a very good arrangement for them, what with licensing fees, quality control and all that good stuff that businesses thrive on.

So the big question on everyone’s mind right now is, “What is Google doing to make sure that Android phones remain open?” And the answer is far more subtle and devious than it appears at first…
Read more

Nov

13

Dalvik VM: Icicles abound, no Sun in sight

Posted by Will at 04:33 | Filed In blog | 1 Comment

Updated 11/13 12:12pm, see bottom of article.

It’s now been over twelve hours since the Android SDK and documentation hit the web. Before I sleep, here is a rundown of one of the technical aspects of the Android release that surprised and impressed me the most. By far the biggest, ballsiest move we saw from Google today was the announcement of the Dalvik Virtual Machine within the Android architecture. Following the Open Handset Alliance’s initial announcement last week that revealed Android would be using the commercial-friendly Apache v2 license for everything but its linux kernel (here’s a good Ars Technica article explaining why), there was much speculation on what sort of development environment Android would adopt, since Sun’s own open-source reference implementation of J2ME (phoneME) is GPLv2 and therefore incompatible, and Sun was conspicuously absent from the OHA lineup (despite the CEO’s public approval of the project while promoting the Netbeans IDE).

Sooo, what about Google Android and phoneME?

13

“Why you should care about Google Android” featured

Posted by Brian at 01:03 | Filed In blog | 1 Comment

OHAdev’s own Greg had the featured story on ZDNet Community today (SDK day), discussing the role of developers and community in the success of Android with his post “Why you should care about Google Android“.

From Greg’s posting:

[…] With an open standard such as Android to build upon, Google’s mobile initiative is much more likely to survive than if it had gone with a more “standard” approach to entering the phone industry (a la the iPhone).

With a strong community of developers, Android could forge new, unexpected collaborations between programmers, allowing them to iteratively increase the platform’s stability and utility to your average mobile handset maker or service provider.

No, this doesn’t mean that your average student programmer will be able to make the next iTunes–it has always been the case that good, beautiful software still takes lots of design, hard work, and testing, but what we may see with Android is a slight twisting of the nozzle, pressurized by the force open-source software, starting to empty into the giant, empty pool that is the mobile phone market.

Stay tuned for our end of SDK-day wrapup, we’ll be helping you digest the massive SDK release and offer our thoughts on what it will mean for mobile development.

Nov

12

OHAdev on an Android Phone?

Posted by Brian at 17:04 | Filed In blog, emulator | 1 Comment

Not quite, but you can get to us through the emulator!

We’ll be performing a more thorough analysis of the Android emulator applications and the ~2000 SDK classes later today.

Nov

12

First Look at the Android SDK’s Game Demos

Posted by Will at 16:07 | Filed In blog, games | 2 Comments

We’re still digging through the Android SDK’s overwhelming documentation, but I thought I’d share with you some initial impressions about the emulator and code samples. Because Android-compatible hardware isn’t scheduled to hit the market until the second half of 2008, the Android SDK includes an emulator that mimics the environment of a mobile phone on a standard PC desktop - a standard practice for any full-featured cellphone SDK. Just run the file “emulator.exe” in the “\tools” directory after unzipping the SDK, and you’re good to go. From here, you can play around with the Android default GUI and application suite as seen in the official Android demo video, which includes a web browser, maps, phonebook, etc.

If you want to try out the API code samples and game demos, you’ll have to set up your development environment, which isn’t too difficult if you have used a Java IDE previously. Follow the instructions here to integrate the emulator with the Eclipse IDE, create a new Android project with source from one of the projects in the “\Samples” directory, and you’re good to go. Read more

Nov

12

Android SDK technical specs

Posted by Will at 14:16 | Filed In Uncategorized | Add a Comment

From our forum discussion, here is a quick and dirty rundown of the technical specs of Google’s Android SDK release:

Core SDK features

Linux 2.6 kernel
BSD-based libc
Dalvik VM - mobile optimized
WebKit-based browser
2D graphics lib - SGL (custom library)
3D OpenGL ES 1.0
FreeType bitmap/vector font
SQLite
Media formats (based on PacketVideo’s OpenCORE): MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF

Supported hardware (mostly not implemented in API yet):

Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, WiFi
Camera, GPS, compass, accelerometer
GSM telephony

12

Google releases the Android SDK!

Posted by Will at 11:06 | Filed In Uncategorized | Add a Comment

As expected, the Android SDK is out! And it looks like a pretty substantial release! Google has put up an official Android developer blog, and a developer discussion group. There is also a mirror of the codebase up at Google Code. We’ll all be playing around with the SDK as much as possible throughout the day. More to come soon..

Nov

12

Synaptics to provide Android touch interface

Posted by Brian at 09:47 | Filed In hardware | Add a Comment

Santa Clara touchscreen OEM company Synaptics announced today that they will be providing the interface for developers to create touchpad applications in the Android platform. This is confirmation of a feature that many assumed would be key for the Android platform, now a reality. Pictured, left, is the Synaptics Onyx concept phone.
(via PR Newswire)

Nov

12

… patiently waiting for SDK

Posted by Brian at 09:19 | Filed In blog | Add a Comment

If you’re as excited about the SDK’s launch today as we are, you may be wondering how the Open Handset Alliance defines “November 12, 2007″.

Unfortunately, it appears they do not define it as 12:01AM EST, November 12, 2007.

The forums are bumpin!

Nov

11

What might Android do for mobile gaming? Look to Tokyo!

Posted by Will at 21:40 | Filed In blog, games | 1 Comment

I currently work as a game developer at Javaground, a mobile phone game company based in Southern California. My coworkers and I are all well aware of Google’s Android announcement, and I’m sure everyone in the mobile game industry is waiting with baited breath to get their hands on the “early look at the Android™ SDK” announced to be released into the wild tomorrow, November 12. With a very ambitious press release and such a huge consortium of industry players (and with the industry giants notably absent from the Alliance), all of us game developer types are all wondering one thing: What could Android possibly do for mobile gaming?

keep looking »

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Nov

13