Ever since the Apple iPhone debuted and left some people wanting, some people have been hoping desperately for a "gPhone." This imagined phone from Google would be everything that the iPhone was not: open source, cheap, and with 3G hardware for high-speed wireless away from Wifi. Some even predicted the phone might wind up being free for consumers, paid for by advertising that came up when you web surfed or perhaps played before allowing an outgoing phone call.
Well, Google has finally made its mobile phone announcements and it is not quite what the utopians had dreamed of... but it is interesting:
1. It is an open platform called Android
2. It is linux-based
3. It is designed from the ground-up to be infinitely user-customizable ("Choose your own dialer, your own picture manager, etc.")
4. It is going to be supported by multiple manufacturers (Motorola, HTC, etc.) and cell phone companies (T-Mobile, Sprint, etc.)
5. The first devices are expected toward the end of 2008
Unsurprisingly, the biggest phone companies - AT&T and Verizon - refused to sign on and open up their walled gardens. And also unsurprisingly, those with their own proprietary platform - Apple, Palm, and Microsoft - were nowhere to be seen in the presentation. It will be interesting to watch and see if Android goes from vaporware to reality. The cell phone space could use some freedom, that is for sure.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Google Phone announcement: Android
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3 comments:
I'm excited about this for a couple of reasons. I think that open source is the best way to go with most software - when it's not abused. Secondly, I'm excited to see Sprint (my provider) on the list of companies supporting this initiative, and since my upgrade path leads me to August of 2008, perhaps by then we'll start to see some of these phones hitting the market at the Sprint store.
The other nice thing about Open Source is that the benefits of Android do not need to stay on the GPhones. A compatibility layer could easily be built into the iPhone or Windows Media Phones, so a good app built in one arena could quickly arrive in other arenas. No one would necessarily be left out.
Freedom of imagination is always a good thing to provide developers, because in the end it will almost always benefit the end user. :)
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