Android (mobile phone platform)

Google has unveiled at least three prototypes for Android, at the Mobile World Congress on February 12, 2008. One prototype at the ARM booth displayed several basic Google applications. A 'd-pad' control zooming of items in the dock with a relatively quick response.

Several manufacturers have expressed interest in implementing the Android platform; Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics said they would unveil devices based on the platform by the end of 2008 in the United States.^{citation needed}

A prototype at the the Google IO conference on May 28, 2008 had a 528 MHz Qualcomm processor and a Synaptics capacitive touchscreen, and used the UMTS cellular standard. It had 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB of flash. The demo was carried out using a 3.6 Mbit/s HSDPA connection.

Software development

The feedback on developing applications for the Android platform has been mixed.^[7] Issues cited include bugs, lack of documentation, inadequate QA infrastructure, and no public issue-tracking system. (Google announced an Issue Tracker on January 18th 2008.)^[8] MergeLab mobile startup founder Adam MacBeth stated, "Functionality is not there, is poorly documented or just doesn't work... It's clearly not ready for prime time."^[9] Despite this, Android-targeted applications began to appear already the week after the platform was announced. The first publicly available application was the Snake game.^[10]^[11]

Software development kit

Android Developer Challenges

Android Developer Challenge is a competition for the most innovative application for Android. Google offers prizes totaling 10 million US dollars, to be distributed equally between two phases of the competition.^[12]^[13] The first phase accepted submissions from January 2 to April 14, 2008. The 50 most promising entries, announced on 12 May 2008, each received a $25,000 award to fund further development.^[14]^[15] Those winners are now eligible for ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards. The second phase is to launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008.

History

Google acquires Android Inc.

In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc., a small startup company based in Palo Alto, CA.^[16] Android's co-founders who went to work at Google included Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (one of the first engineers at WebTV). At the time, little was known about the functions of Android Inc. other than they made software for mobile phones.^[16] This began rumors that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market, although it was unclear what function it might perform in that market.

At Google, the team, led by Rubin, developed a Linux-based mobile device OS which they marketed to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system.^{citation needed} It was reported that Google had already lined up a series of hardware component and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation on their part.^[17]^[18]^[19]

More speculation that Google would be entering the mobile phone market came in December 2006.^[20] Reports from the BBC and The Wall Street Journal noted that Google wanted its search and applications on mobile phones, and it was working hard to deliver that. Print and online media outlets soon reported rumors that Google was developing a Google-branded handset.^[21] More speculation followed reporting that as Google was defining technical specifications, it was showing prototypes to cellphone manufacturers and network operators. As many as 30 prototype phones are reported to be operating "in the wild".^[22] Phoronix had reported that Google was looking to team up on the GPhone with OpenMoko,^[23] a project to create a smartphone platform using free software, including the Linux kernel. But Network World reported that Google’s phone was actually an open source software phone operating system, rather than a specific hardware device like the iPhone.^[22]

Patents, patent applications filed

In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google has filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony, hinting at the arrival of the gPhone in the (then) near future.^[24]^[25] Notable US patents and patent applications include:^[24]

Google applied for a patent for a mobile payment system to complement its plans to launch what was thought to be a Google phone.^[19]^[26] Known as GPay,^[27] it covered a system that would let the user send a text message to Google giving the details of a payment to a specified recipient. GPay would then debit the user's bank account, crediting the money to the payee. (This patent may be invalid in light of prior art.^[28])

Open Handset Alliance founded

Criticism

Android has been criticized for not being all open-source software despite what was announced by Google. Parts of the SDK are proprietary and closed source, and some believe this is so that Google can control the platform.^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33] The Android Software Development Kit License Agreement^[34] states that:

However, Google has since announced that all parts of the OS will be released under the Apache License where applicable and under the GPL elsewhere. Google's applications that interact with Google's systems, such as their email service, are not open source.

Also, at least for now, software installed by end-users must be written in Java, and will not have access to lower level device APIs.^[35] This provides end-users with less control over their phone's functionality than other free and open source phone platforms, such as OpenMoko.

Another issue is related to Android's disregard of established Java standards, i.e. Java SE and ME. This prevents compatibility between Java applications written for those platforms and those for the Android platform. Android only reuses the Java language syntax but does not provide the full class libraries and APIs bundled with Java SE or ME.^[36]

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Hardware