“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