5 ms·

Why Android Will Soon Kick Ass

30 points by qhoxie 18y ago

seiji 18y ago
"Google has their eyes on the long haul with Android. Which is why reactions to a somewhat scattered UI in the very first implementation is not something they're worried about too much." It's too important for them to worry about the details of it?
iigs 18y ago
Now, I enjoy an Apple hardware brainfuck as much as the next, but a phone is never a better phone because of hardware alone, and Google knows this too. Not sure about this... I think in large part the problem with Windows Mobile phones is the driver quality/integration -- a problem that you can't separate from the hardware too far. No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I'm excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don't like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager—something that's technically possible in WinMo but often comes off more as an awkward re-skinning and not a top-down integration. I know the good folks at Google have given this a lot of hard thought, but the fit and finish of those applications is critical to the reliability of the phone as a phone. Software that hook into those interfaces poorly or without good reason risks a lot of reliability for dubious gain. Anyone who used Mac OS pre-X or PalmOS with a lot of extensions knows exactly what I'm talking about. That said, I'm more and more pumped about it as time goes on. The openness can't hurt, even if Apple isn't on board (and likely won't be for years if ever).
- jwilliams 18y ago
  Not sure about this... I think in large part the problem with Windows Mobile phones is the driver quality/integration -- a problem that you can't separate from the hardware too far. Yup - The problem with a phone is that yes, the software is important - but people still see it as all hardware and expect it all to just work like hardware. So people see it as a device, but it's increasingly a platform. Apple's model will certainly be more successful in treading this line - but remains to be seen if that's the determining factor or not.
nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
> It's not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and _OS handcuffs_. Tell my why developers can only use Java applets then that can only access certain API functionality that Google (or the carrier) wants to limit them too? Why can't I program for Android using Python, or C, and why can't I connect to the phone from another machine over SSH to transfer files, or compile applications, or tunnel an X11 session? What was that you said about "no OS handcuffs" again? > No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I'm excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don't like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager Openmoko has been making this possible (and infinitely more open) for far longer than Google was even planning Android...
- davidw 18y ago
  We'll have the source code next month, and at that point, your hacking abilities will be the only limit. OpenMoko is interesting, but realistically, Google has way more muscle and stands a better chance of spreading Android far and wide.
  - nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
    Just because you have the source code to Android doesn't mean you have a fully-open phone or operating system. Your Android apps are still limited to their Java sandbox, and you still don't necessarily have any sort of access to tinker with the OS installed on your phone, let alone re-flash it at will like I can with my Neo. If I screw something up, or if I one day decide I want to run Debian Linux instead of Angstrom/Openmoko, I'm free to reflash my phone's bootloader, kernel, and rootfs, or specially format its Micro SD card and boot from that instead. With Android, you don't yet have any of that freedom, and if the American cellular companies have anything to say about, you never will. However, I will grant you the fact that Google has a gigantically higher chance of changing the face of mobile communications with Android than Openmoko, but I'd still rather have my Neo any day.
river_styx 18y ago
The problem with this argument, and the problem with every argument for android I've seen, is that many of the things that set it apart from iPhone are geared for developers. I don't have the actual numbers, but I'm pretty sure that developers make up a relatively small fraction of the overall mobile phone market. I mean seriously, do you think that all of these teenage girls and trendy urban types will really give a shit if a phone is built around an "open" platform? These things look cool to us because we're the target market. No one else will care.
- davidw 18y ago
  There's a reason Steve Ballmer screamed "developers! developers! developers!", and it's not that he forgot to take his medications. Developers are the people who create stuff that makes a platform attractive.
  - scott_s 18y ago
    This is a particularly important point when Apple is denying apps that compete with theirs, but have functionality they don't. (Podcaster, or whatever the name of the app that let people download podcasts directly to their iPhone.) What Ballmer recognized was that if you have an environment that's friendly to developers, eventually you will have things regular users want. I'm surprised Apple doesn't seem to understand this.
    - iron_ball 18y ago
      Because now Windows PCs are viewed as sexy, powerful, and easy to use devices that make you cool and productive, while Apple computers are not.
      - orib 18y ago
        Because Windows PCs are well known to be friendly to developers, with a lovely, powerful Win32 API that's a joy to use, has no horrible warts and... oh. wait. Thanks to an accident of history (NeXT) combined with Apple killing backwards compatibility with OS9 down, they have a really developer-friendly API compared to Windows. On a purely technical level, Apple is far more developer-friendly than Windows. They are doing their very best to shit that all away though, when it comes to the legal and backwards-compatibility side of things. That's one reason I doubt I'll ever spend my money on Apple.
unalone 18y ago
I think Android has a chance, but... not because of this. You can't base the success of an OS based on another OS not having good developer tools. Apple can release the restrictions on developing whenever they want to, and they WILL if they ever think that Android might gain more developers than their group. And, not to belittle Google, but the iPhone apps are NOT something to laugh at. Many of them are insanely good, and it's incredibly easy to get them.
shimi 18y ago
Android found a great balance between a virtual environment and a good API. It pretty much covers everything a developer needs. What's more the SDK is also great, I tried to run the latest S60 SDK (Nokia) and after 2 weeks gave up, MS is great but its not for free. With Android it's free and straight forward.

30 points by qhoxie 18y ago

seiji 18y ago

"Google has their eyes on the long haul with Android. Which is why reactions to a somewhat scattered UI in the very first implementation is not something they're worried about too much." It's too important for them to worry about the details of it?

iigs 18y ago

Now, I enjoy an Apple hardware brainfuck as much as the next, but a phone is never a better phone because of hardware alone, and Google knows this too. Not sure about this... I think in large part the problem with Windows Mobile phones is the driver quality/integration -- a problem that you can't separate from the hardware too far. No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I'm excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don't like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager—something that's technically possible in WinMo but often comes off more as an awkward re-skinning and not a top-down integration. I know the good folks at Google have given this a lot of hard thought, but the fit and finish of those applications is critical to the reliability of the phone as a phone. Software that hook into those interfaces poorly or without good reason risks a lot of reliability for dubious gain. Anyone who used Mac OS pre-X or PalmOS with a lot of extensions knows exactly what I'm talking about. That said, I'm more and more pumped about it as time goes on. The openness can't hurt, even if Apple isn't on board (and likely won't be for years if ever).

jwilliams 18y ago
Not sure about this... I think in large part the problem with Windows Mobile phones is the driver quality/integration -- a problem that you can't separate from the hardware too far. Yup - The problem with a phone is that yes, the software is important - but people still see it as all hardware and expect it all to just work like hardware. So people see it as a device, but it's increasingly a platform. Apple's model will certainly be more successful in treading this line - but remains to be seen if that's the determining factor or not.

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago

> It's not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and _OS handcuffs_. Tell my why developers can only use Java applets then that can only access certain API functionality that Google (or the carrier) wants to limit them too? Why can't I program for Android using Python, or C, and why can't I connect to the phone from another machine over SSH to transfer files, or compile applications, or tunnel an X11 session? What was that you said about "no OS handcuffs" again? > No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I'm excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don't like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager Openmoko has been making this possible (and infinitely more open) for far longer than Google was even planning Android...

davidw 18y ago
We'll have the source code next month, and at that point, your hacking abilities will be the only limit. OpenMoko is interesting, but realistically, Google has way more muscle and stands a better chance of spreading Android far and wide.
- nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
  Just because you have the source code to Android doesn't mean you have a fully-open phone or operating system. Your Android apps are still limited to their Java sandbox, and you still don't necessarily have any sort of access to tinker with the OS installed on your phone, let alone re-flash it at will like I can with my Neo. If I screw something up, or if I one day decide I want to run Debian Linux instead of Angstrom/Openmoko, I'm free to reflash my phone's bootloader, kernel, and rootfs, or specially format its Micro SD card and boot from that instead. With Android, you don't yet have any of that freedom, and if the American cellular companies have anything to say about, you never will. However, I will grant you the fact that Google has a gigantically higher chance of changing the face of mobile communications with Android than Openmoko, but I'd still rather have my Neo any day.

river_styx 18y ago

The problem with this argument, and the problem with every argument for android I've seen, is that many of the things that set it apart from iPhone are geared for developers. I don't have the actual numbers, but I'm pretty sure that developers make up a relatively small fraction of the overall mobile phone market. I mean seriously, do you think that all of these teenage girls and trendy urban types will really give a shit if a phone is built around an "open" platform? These things look cool to us because we're the target market. No one else will care.

davidw 18y ago
There's a reason Steve Ballmer screamed "developers! developers! developers!", and it's not that he forgot to take his medications. Developers are the people who create stuff that makes a platform attractive.
- scott_s 18y ago
  This is a particularly important point when Apple is denying apps that compete with theirs, but have functionality they don't. (Podcaster, or whatever the name of the app that let people download podcasts directly to their iPhone.) What Ballmer recognized was that if you have an environment that's friendly to developers, eventually you will have things regular users want. I'm surprised Apple doesn't seem to understand this.
  - iron_ball 18y ago
    Because now Windows PCs are viewed as sexy, powerful, and easy to use devices that make you cool and productive, while Apple computers are not.
    - orib 18y ago
      Because Windows PCs are well known to be friendly to developers, with a lovely, powerful Win32 API that's a joy to use, has no horrible warts and... oh. wait. Thanks to an accident of history (NeXT) combined with Apple killing backwards compatibility with OS9 down, they have a really developer-friendly API compared to Windows. On a purely technical level, Apple is far more developer-friendly than Windows. They are doing their very best to shit that all away though, when it comes to the legal and backwards-compatibility side of things. That's one reason I doubt I'll ever spend my money on Apple.

unalone 18y ago

I think Android has a chance, but... not because of this. You can't base the success of an OS based on another OS not having good developer tools. Apple can release the restrictions on developing whenever they want to, and they WILL if they ever think that Android might gain more developers than their group. And, not to belittle Google, but the iPhone apps are NOT something to laugh at. Many of them are insanely good, and it's incredibly easy to get them.

shimi 18y ago

Android found a great balance between a virtual environment and a good API. It pretty much covers everything a developer needs. What's more the SDK is also great, I tried to run the latest S60 SDK (Nokia) and after 2 weeks gave up, MS is great but its not for free. With Android it's free and straight forward.