Andriod Hype
Monday, November 12, 2007
The gphone that is no phone at all, but a Linux-based software platform. Of course, the APIs are written in Java, and the development environment is Java (based on Eclipse). We, developers, love this kind of stuff. However, I was expecting an actual device attached to the release. No word on when they will be available, but lots of big names are saying they will support Andriod (this could end up meaning nothing, actually).
Ballmer is not too impressed with google's Andriod. He said in an interview, "they [google] have a press release. We have many, many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices. They are welcomed in our world." He's got a point, but google outmaneuvered Microsoft in the internet market, and will likely do so in the web application market.
Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian, simply said, "it's another Linux platform...There are...25 Linux platforms out there." He's also got a point, but google search was just another search engine in a crowded market, yet here we are.
Watch the interviews:
Google, of course, will sweet talk us into developing application for the new platform. And applications will pop-up from everywhere (I may even write one), but this will not guarantee success unless the hardware is as sweet as the iPhone's. It's one of those things: the hardware has to be good enough to run applications that consumers will actually want, and, most important, will actually need.
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