Re: [BLUG] Android - competition for iPhone?

Apple also claims that they will have a full iPhone SDK in place for
developers by Feb. 2008. I'm interested in knowing whether this will
be complete and entirely open and transparent to developers, or
whether it will be Apple's version of "open", which sometimes seems to
carry a different definition. I'm also interested in seeing whether
Apple will license the iPhone OS (which is a stripped down version of
OS X) to other vendors, and what these relationships and caveats will
be like.

No matter what you think of Apple (and believe me, I have a love/hate
relationship with them myself), the iPhone is damn cool. If Apple
plays their cards right, they could really dominate the smartphone
industry like they dominate the mp3 player industry. Apple sometimes
does some weird things on their backends, sometimes stuff that doesn't
perform well, is oddly designed, etc., but they *do* know how to make
a good client interface, which is going to be what makes or breaks the
purchasing decisions for Joe Sixpack.

This isn't to say that I *want* Apple to dominate this industry, but
then again... better Apple than Microsoft :)

On Nov 13, 2007, at 11:07 AM, Steven Black wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 12, 2007 at 08:10:16PM -0800, Mark Kruzan wrote:
>> From the website: "The Android platform is a software stack for
>> mobile devices
>> including an operating system, middleware and key applications.
>> Developers can
>> create applications for the platform using the Android SDK.
>> Applications are
>> written using the Java programming language and run on Dalvik, a
>> custom virtual
>> machine designed for embedded use which runs on top of a Linux
>> kernel."
>
> Personally, my gut turns when I think of Java. I don't know if I could
> live with myself using a Java-based phone. Not to mention they
> appear to
> have turned Java in to a write-here-run-here language. Custom
> libraries
> on top of a custom VM?
>
> I suppose they expect you to need to rewrite your entire user-
> interface
> if you want to re-use any libraries between a phone and light-weight
> desktop application. This really sounds like a giant leap backwards,
> powered by Google, so it may catch on.
>
> I'm much more interested in OpenMoko. Their entire design is
> centered on
> standard libraries so the only requirements that applications have is
> that they are limited by the screen size. If you have a small light-
> weight
> desktop application, then it may just compile cleanly for OpenMoko.
>
> Cheers,
> Steven Black
>
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