“Google’s eye-catching demonstration of an early Android-enabled mobile phone Wednesday appeared to mimic Apple’s iPhone. But Google officials downplayed the notion that they will face off against iPhone in the handset market,” Paul Krill reports for InfoWorld.
“The company at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco showed an Android device, featuring touch screen functionality, advanced graphical capabilities and Internet access, similar to iPhone. With Android, the company seeks to extend the browser to handheld devices, a capability currently limited to systems such as iPhone, said Vic Gundotra, Google engineering vice president,” Krill reports.
“‘We believe over time, the browser on mobile devices will be the entry point for many, many applications,’ Gundotra said,” Krill reports.
“Android, though, does not represent Google’s countermove against the iPhone, Gundotra argued,” Krill reports. “‘I wouldn’t say that at all. I think the iPhone is just a world-class device with a great Web browser that delivers in many respects on one of Google’s key goals: To bring the Web to the mobile device,’ Gundotra said. ‘We wish every mobile phone was as good as the iPhone.'”
Krill reports, “The first Android systems are due in the second half of this year, with an Android SDK available now that leverages Java development tools. Android also relies on Apple’s open-source WebKit browser engine.”
More in the full article here.
Google Android images and videos can be found here.
In an interview early this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was said to be “skeptical about Google’s decision to develop smartphone software… ‘Having created a phone its a lot harder than it looks,’ he said. ‘We’ll see how good their software is and we’ll see how consumers like it and how quickly it is adopted.’ In seeking not to get locked out of the mobile phone world, ‘I actually think Google has achieved their goal without Android, and I now think Android hurts them more than it helps them. It’s just going to divide them and people who want to be their partners.'” – The New York Times, January 15, 2008
Of course they want to give the iPhone props. That way, it stays viable enough that Apple will continue to innovate with it so that Google and all of the others playing catch-up can blatantly rip off its design.
Let’s throw it up against the wall and see if anyone salutes!
Why can’t the iPhone become ‘Android Compatible’ and run programs for both? Its my understanding they’re both Linux-based. It probably wouldn’t be a stretch to virtualize it on the iPhone and run programs written for both.
@ Derelict
The iPhone runs OS X, a variation of Mac OS X, which is BSD UNIX, not Linux.
And given the tight control Apple wants on the core operating system on the iPhone, they won’t let another operating system on there. However, users will find a way.
“Java development tools”
Java is very heavy for mobile processor, Java is a very “simple to use” programing tool, but it is not a powerful or processor optimize tool. Hardware on android phones must be very powerful in order to achieve at least half of the functions on the iPhone and even that, they will run much slower.
Ummm. Linux-based? gimme a break! OS X you tool! Not surprising that android is on a fake UNIX with its fake iphony.
“MacDailyNews Take: In an interview early this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was said to be “skeptical about Google’s decision to develop smartphone software… “
Oh no, not this Mr Markoff guy from New York Times again!
You can read in the lengthy MDN Take from yesterday
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/17396/
how this guy has no credibility.
Yesterday he used a NOKIA, MOTOROLA, SONYERICSSON, AND OTHER TELECOM analyst to cover APPLE IPHONE!
In today’s MDN Take reference he used an APPLE CEO to cover GOOGLE!
As MDN put it so eloquently yesterday:
Some stories don’t require contrary points-of-view from random crackpots.
i think google’s android platform is the only thing to rival apple’s phone OS. symbian, microsoft, palm, rim – they are all lightyears behind. that google will essentially give away their OS for free let the comeptitors come quiet close again. something they couldn’t have achieved on their own. (the looser here will be microsoft. who will pay them licencing fees to have windows mobile on their phones when they get a better OS from google for free?)
i hope the good relationship between apple and google stays where it is though they are now direct competitors in the biggest and most important technology market of the world: mobile phones.
i think that apple is thinking big here. 1,3 billion units will be sold in 2008. imagine apple having 10% of that one day. ah, i am dreaming.
“Why can’t the iPhone become ‘Android Compatible’ and run programs for both? Its my understanding they’re both Linux-based. It probably wouldn’t be a stretch to virtualize it on the iPhone and run programs written for both.”
1 – Mac OS X is built on Unix NOT Linux (though Linux is a very close approximation of Unix).
2 – That assumes there are Android built apps out there that people want to run on their iPhone. At present there are zero shipping Android phones and no apps running on them. So going to the trouble of making an Android compatibility layer in the iPhone OS X benefits Apple how?
Sure there are thousands of Windows apps I can run on my Mac via Parallels, but why bother when there are Mac apps that do all I want to do? My bet: There will be tons more iPhone / iPod Touch apps than Android apps.
screw google
This is a perfect example of how to play with and compete with at the same time. Ballmer doesn’t get it, instead he brings out fake hardware numbers like 270 million computers(which M$ didn’t make even one) versus 10 million for Apple, whose true installed base is above 20 million and they truly make their own hardware.
Expect, in spite of this article to see Eric Schmidt sometime during the keynote on June 9th.
Rather than making Android-compatible webapps, wouldn’t any developer for Android prefer to develop a real port to the iPhone SDK?
Google’s mission is to make as much money as they can.
They currently do this by selling advertising.
How will Google make money off of the Android stuff?
By ads on your phone.
Yet again and again, Apple is all about making money on its hardware. Sure, the OS is important, but if the iPhone, like the iPod, is the cult thing to desire and have, their OS numbers are going to be high anyway, despite which competitor. Anything against Windows Mobile is a win for Apple…let the evolvement of hardware eventually decide. Patent, patent, patent. Enforce, enforce, enforce.
Um actually no OS X is built on BSD not UNIX. Just because it meets the UNIX spec doesn’t mean it is buitl on UNIX.
Also Linux also meets the specs for UNIX. Hence why porting software between the is so easy. the hard part are the GUI differences. Linux however doesn’t have a company willing to put up the thousands of dollars in testing fees need to have UNIX specs. that is also why only OSX 10.5 is UNIX, 10.4 isn’t.
so only Leopard meets UNIX specs. stop telling lies. or at least learn to understand what your talking about.
android is to crush Windows Mobile. Nothing More. Apple will always have it’s niche of awesomeness
If Android is half as good as the iPhone software, it will be good competition for Apple and keep pushing them to excel while it will completely eliminate WinMobile from the market place. If you can’t build an iPhone, at lest you can put the next best system on the one you have. Goodbye WinMobile, Symbian, Palm, Rim.
@ Peragrin
So, is BSD UNIX based?
Answered my own Question at Wikipedia.
There are a number of Unix-like operating systems based on or descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) series of Unix variants. The three most notable descendants in current use are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, which are all derived from 386BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite, by various routes. Both NetBSD and FreeBSD started life in 1993, initially derived from 386BSD, but in 1994 migrating to a 4.4BSD-Lite code base. OpenBSD was forked in 1995 from NetBSD. Other notable derivatives include DragonFly BSD, which was forked from FreeBSD 4.8, and Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X, with its Darwin base including a large amount of code derived from FreeBSD.
Out of curiosity, why is it that now whenever someone unveils a phone that has touch capabilities and can browse the web, it is automatically an iPhone knock-off? Yes, I understand that the iPhone has these features too, but why can’t others? Certainly every mp3 player since the iPod is not an iPod remake, hell the iPod wasn’t every the first mp3 player. You guys gotta learn that just because something has some of the same features, that doesn’t make it a knock-off.
Oooooook, guys:
“Unix” has not been an OS “per se” for a long time, but a certification.
There are 2 major branches of the Unix kernel: SysV (the AT&T;version) and BSD (the UC-Berkeley version), both of them are official and legit (after a lawsit and setlement between AT&T;and UC-Berkeley).
OS X is based on BSD, and it’s a fully-certified Unix OS. So, by extension, people are right to say “Mac OS X is Unix”.
Now, Linux is a 100% Unix-compatible kernel. It’s not called “Unix” mainly because they never bothered to go throught the Unix certification. But since Linux is 100% POSIX-compliant , it’s a de-facto Unix.
The Mac OS X kernel is Darwin, based on the Mach kernel (the same used by NeXT) and it’s open source. In fact, you can install it on any standard PC.
Now, just because the Kernel is Unix, doesn’t mean the applications are cross-compatible. Most Unix versions (and Linux) use X as GUI foundation. Mac OS X uses Carbon and Cocoa, which is proprietary.
So, if you want to port a Unix app (for example, Gimp), it runs only after a session of X is started in Mac OS X.
On the other hand, there are no available frameworks for PCs of Cocoa or Carbon. The closest thing would be GNU Step, an open source implementation of Objective C and the NeXT framework.
An interesting project so analyze is Open Office versus NeoOffice in OS X, the requiring X to run, the second being a full OS X port.
So, it’s not as simple as “It’s Unix, let’s port it!”
“It’s just going to divide them and people who want to be their partners.'” “
It’s going to give Steve a Cheek Parting, that’s for sure.
“numbers like 270 million computers(which M$ didn’t make even one) versus 10 million for Apple, whose true installed base is above 20 million “
If you want to play the OS installed base game, at least quote Microsoft’s installed base too rather than yearly sales.
Then it’s approx 1 billon vs 20 million.
For mobile phones, I like the idea of the choices being Apple or Google software. People who can’t afford an iPhone should have a better second choice than Windows Mobile. That’s the market Google is really going after. I would be thrilled if my mobile company offered an Android phone for $100.
As for this Mac/Linux debate: OS X is a Unix operating system with an open source kernal, so I think it’s fair to say it’s a lot like Linux, at least to the layman. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to port software between the two, because OS X has a lot of unique technology not found in other Unix-type operating systems.
Apple is trying to make highest quality phone possible for consumers. The iPhone is not competing with regular or mid-range phones.
Android is mainly competing in the less-than-iPhone demographic. More to the point, Google wants to annihilate Windows Mobile.
Apple has become the R & D department for the rest of the world!!!