I think the Sudafed got to me. But hey, this Andriod thing is neat-o!
Monday night I couldn’t sleep. I was wired.
So I got up and downloaded the Android SDK. For those of you living under a rock, Google released a mobile platform (targeted at future 3G phones) recently. It’s a full software platform stack. From OS (Linux 2.6 kernel and a few other nice low-level libs) to default user applications. It is by far the most cohesive and open mobile platform I’ve seen. Conceptually, this thing is huge. The platform gives users and developers full freedom to do what they want. Don’t like the way the Address Book application works? Write a new one, and install it on your phone. Vendor lock in? Nope. Carrier lock in? Nope. The possibilities are endless, and exciting.
What’s better: The SDK uses the java language (and basic J2SE class libraries) for developing applications. There’s no Java VM on the phone, which let’s Google get around all the licensing issues of J2ME and J2SE. Instead, once you compile your application to java .class files, they get converted to another bytecode format (.dex) and executed in the Dalvik VM on the Android platform. Very clever. But the use of java as a language is a huge draw. There’s a lot of people out there writing java code day in and day out. Surely more than are working with QT, GObject, etc. from the rest of the Linux on a phone world. Avoid the pitfalls of using a desktop UI with a mobile device while simultaneously tapping the java talent pool was a good move.
Speaking as a hobbiest, it’s a compelling platform. The SDK is dead-easy to use, the API’s are clean, it’s a well thought-out system.
Speaking as an engineer, there’s some very clever programming and strokes of genius evident in the design and implementation.
Speaking as a consumer, I sure hope some enterprising cell phone hardware maker delivers something based on it, and that the carriers here in the US don’t try to hamstring us all into having to live with the crap they offer.