Google Android
Google Android is a new mobile phone software development kit that has been created by the Open Handset Alliance and is prominently supported by Google. The SDK has just been released for developers and it uses the Java programming language. The applications are compiled before being loaded onto the device. There is a virtual machine provided with the SDK to allow for testing the software.
There have been mixed reactions to the announcement from various people. Notably a spokesperson from Symbian, a company whose platform powers millions of mobile phones, said “It’s very clear what developers want - volume and a stable platform that doesn’t keep breaking. You have to have a lot of zeroes in your sales figures before a developer gets out of bed.” This may indeed be what the professional developers employed by many large companies want however Google looks to be targeting a different sort of developer.
Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge which has $10 million worth of prize money for applications for Android. This is clearly meant to entice large numbers of developers to take part and I would think that many of them will be interested in the open source movement. You could argue that most of the applications submitted will be of a fairly poor quality, produced by amateurs who don’t really know how to design and polish an application, there will undoubtedly be a lot of these kind of applications. However I would imagine that there will also be a large number of high quality applications produced, partly just because the scope for developing for a mobile device is far more limited compared to a PC.
The screen area is very small as well as the processing power so large complex menus and interfaces just aren’t possible, the simplicity of the applications works in the favour of small scale developers. Also I have looked at the developers kit and there is a good framework and API set there to work with. The system encourages use of mashups as they are called where the developer takes several existing elements and combines them in a unique and useful way.
If you are a developer I would recommend taking a look at the SDK since it is fairly interesting and if you are anything like me new cool things are exciting. Even if you are not a developer you might be interested in just looking at the platform in the emulator although I guess it is quite a lot of bother with all of the downloading.
http://code.google.com/android/