Google Android

Almost every developer worth his/her money should have heard about the Google mobile phone initiative ‘Android’ . At first it seemed like a lot of hot air due to a lack of examples or sdk at the press release , but a week later Google launched the first initial version (beta anyone?) of the sdk .

I’ve had a few spare minutes and installed it, looked at a tutorial and built the first ‘Hello Android’ application.

This made me curious to see what more is possible, too bad other things will need my attention first.
I like the fact that Google is trying to shake up the mobile world using open source (not free software, see the FAQ ) software. As far as I know developing mobile software has never truly been made easier by the telco’s and hardware producers or as this quote on Slashdot states:

For the past 3 days I’ve been trying to modify and mess with my Motorola V3M Razor and it’s a glitchy hell to try and do. Any phone that’s more open than the current phone Nazis keep them is fine with me. All those dollar per ringtone and wallpaper people can shove it. Oh and especially that chick on late night TV commercials with the weird accent telling me I can win like $32,000 if I unscramble the word and text it in. I hope Google tracks her down and gets her deported. Now some of you may be asking, “Do you have anger issues with cell phone carriers and their associates” to which I say, “Don’t you?”

Hopefully this will change for the better. I wonder how this will affect proprietary systems such as Windows Mobile and Symbian , but also open systems such as Open Moko.

Time will tell, I guess.