“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
Given the openness of Android, and the sharp limitations of the capability of the iPhone SDK, the easiest thing to do will be to build an iPhone SDK emulation layer on top of Android, rather than the other way around.
Some hackers will do that, so you can bet in less than a year any app you see on an iPhone will be available on Android.
Google is going for the mass market. It does them no good to get the top 1% of smart phones, they want 80% of all phones.
I just love the feeling when Apple is set to Kill
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MDN word is justice!
the question is, c2, et al, is:
does it blend?
et tu google?
this is totally ridiculous.
is it just me, or did it look like they were demo-ing on an iPhone?
Apple could develop a “Boot Camp” for the iPhone as it has done with their Mac computers. That would negate many from even considering another smart phone vender. Imagine being able to dual boot your iPhone to either Mac OS X or Android.
Earlier this year I wrote a post called ‘The Chess Masters: Apple versus Google’ that essentially asserted two things.
One that Apple and Google are without peers in terms of their ability to build products that cross the once impenetrable boundaries between PC, mobile, media and Internet segments.
Two that given their respective mammoth ambitions, ‘friends’ Apple/Google are destined to become ‘frienemies’ ala Apple/Microsoft (circa 1990).
It seems clear that Android versus iPhone SDK is destined to become a bonafide platform battle as the year progresses. That said, both companies will continue to have lots of reasons to partner.
Check out the post if interested:
The Chess Masters: Apple versus Google
http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2008/03/the-chess-maste.html
Mark