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This demonstrates exactly why Gruber completely misses the point every time he tries to nitpick the Android team's statements about not using private APIs. Whil
by commandar 16y ago
This demonstrates exactly why Gruber completely misses the point every time he tries to nitpick the Android team's statements about not using private APIs. While Gruber wants to make it about hollow point scoring, what the Android guys are getting at is that they've made a conscious design decision to have a clear distinction between what is system level and what is application level specifically to avoid getting stuck in this sort of situation.
Yes, your Android phone has apps you probably can't uninstall, but that's a distribution decision rather than something that was forced on them by technical limitation.
- sandGorgon 16y agohttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/29/exclusive-android-froyo-to-take-a-serious-shot-at-stemming-plat/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/29/exclusive-android-froyo-t... Android Froyo onwards, a lot of system apps are going to be downloadable separately, just so that you dont have to wait for your service provider to build an OTA update for you.
- commandar 16y agoWell, like Engadget mentions, they'd already broken Maps out like that a while back. The entire reason they can do this is because they've kept their first-party apps out of the system level and exposed the functionality they need publicly. The official Facebook and Twitter apps integrate with system contacts, for example, not because Google integrated them at the system level, but because Google provided an API to allow this with the Android 2.0 release. One of the things that continually impresses me about Android is the fact that Google took so much care to create a clean architecture that opens up the door to a lot of cool opportunities for any application developer.