Google Phone

Recently Google held three developer workshops - in London, Munich and Tel Aviv - to publicise accurate Android facts and demonstrate how to code on the platform; another such event will be held on the 23rd in Boston.  Lance Davis of RegDeveloper was invited, along with other software coders, to visit Google’s London office and get some basic understanding of how the company has put together the Android embedded OS. 

For the non-coders among us, or those new to mobile development, Lance neatly illustrates the challenge Google has faced - and perhaps set for programmers already working in the field - by comparing computer versus phone architecture:

“Computer people coming to mobile have a very different view of phone architecture to phone people adding features. Phone people see the phone functions - the GSM chipset, Bluetooth, DVB-H, for example, as a foundation, with drivers on top. Then there’s an abstraction layer, an operating system, a user interface framework and the applications on top. Computer people look at the system as a processor with a BIOS on top, then an OS, framework and applications. The bits that mobile phone people see as a foundation, the computer people see as an adjunct connected by drivers. Voice is just another application. And this approach was reflected yesterday” Lance Davis, RegDeveloper

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After a delay while Google’s engineers attempted to fix the submissions system, the Android Developer Challenge has finally opened for entries.  With a total prize-fund of $10m, the competition has both been lauded and criticised as stimulating software coding and simultaneously encouraging developers to jealously guard their skills.  Challenge I, which will be accepting entries until March 3rd, will offer 50-percent of that jackpot, with fifty winning entries getting a guaranteed $25,000 each and the possibility of supplementary awards - ten of $100,000 and ten of $275,000 - for particularly good applications.

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It’s not just the Android SDK that has come under some fire for being prematurely announced; the much-publicised Developer Fund, which held promises of $10m in funding for coders willing to produce apps for the new mobile platform, has itself been delayed after Google’s engineers discovered bugs in the submissions website.  In fact, at the moment that’s no big deal: the final Terms & Conditions paperwork - which will detail such important elements as who holds the IP of submitted applications - are yet to be ready, leaving developers uncertain and cautious as to their long-term involvement in their own software and in Android itself.

“As you probably know, the Android Developer Challenge submission period for the first round is scheduled to run from today, 2 January, through 3 March. Unfortunately final testing revealed some cross-browser bugs in the application we’ll be using to allow you submit your work. We’re fixing those now, and will have the site up and running as soon as we possibly can. At the same time that the submission application becomes available, we’ll also make the final Terms and Conditions of the competition available” Android Developer Challenge blog

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Slow development milestones for Android have previously been blamed on Google’s $10m coding “prizefund” forcing app creation undercover; could the truth be that the platform is simply not ready for primetime release?  That’s the strident criticism from developer Adam MacBeth, who has found the SDK toolkit to be riddled with bugs, poorly implemented code and a general absence of support from Google themselves.

“Functionality is not there, is poorly documented or just doesn’t work. It’s clearly not ready for prime time” Adam MacBeth

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The glossy demo videos of Android are all well and good, but if the reference designs are to be translated into meaningful hardware the guts of the platform need to be better understood.  Over at the Android Developers Blog the latest podcast features two of the architects from the engineering team, Dianne Hackborn and Jason Parks, who talk us through some technical history of the project, discuss security and the way services are handled, as well as guidance on programming for small devices.

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It seemed such a straightforward idea (even if Scoble disliked it): launch a new mobile platform based on an historically fan-fuelled OS, emphasise the “phone of the people” credentials and then offer a sizable financial reward for developing new applications for it all.  But it seems that Google’s $10m moneybox might have had the opposite effect; rather than encourage new ideas, the thought of helping somebody else win a share of the fund has made expert programmers clam up:

“The fact there is close to $300,000 on the line for winning projects is making most people think twice about sharing stuff with the community. PHP-like documentation with associated user contributed code would make developing on the Android platform a dream — unfortunately there is no such thing. Unless you are an experienced Java programmer with the skills to interpret the provided documentation without extra code to look at, there is a good chance you are out of luck” Garett Rogers, ZDNet

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As developers get to grips with the Android SDK, we’re beginning to see fledgling apps and promises to support Google’s platform emerge from the coding community.  It’s not all Google Maps mashups, either; Stephane Daury, for instance, has done an initial port of the WPhone mobile WordPress client, finding himself surprised in the process by how straightforward it has been (even without taking a touchscreen for granted). 

“I was getting all geared up to start taking on the challenge of fully supporting the rich interface on the Android platform … But now having found the time to download the cross-platform SDK and trying it on my development sandbox, I’ll venture to say that it might just be a bit easier than I thought” Stephane Daury, WPhone Admin Plugin

Meanwhile, the shocking sight of Skypop’s Bruce Leak in shorts (you can see the video after the cut) only vaguely detracts from how impressive their preliminary exploration of Android has been.  Day one, apparently, coder and CTO Timo Bruck bypassed the “hello Android” test app and instead whipped up a Sudoku game; day two, he was onto friend-finding services similar to the Buddy-Beacon on Helio cellphones.

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Developers concerned about the amount of time it might take to get up and running with the Android platform will hopefully have their fears assuaged, after Google’s Dave Burke - an engineering manager within the mobile team - demonstrated how quick it can be to code up an application.  Talking about the OHA’s plans at the Future of Mobile Conference in London today, he managed to put together a working mobile browser in less than eight minutes.

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Somewhere in the caves of the internet there are people playing Robert Scoble Bingo - you can get a full house if you predict which technologies will float the former Microsoft tech-evangelist’s boat, without getting sidetracked by those he takes an avid dislike to.  Latest under Robert’s loupe is Android, and if you thought an open-source, Linux-based free platform together with $10m of financial backing for developers would make him moist around the pelvis then think again; he’s not impressed.

“I didn’t see ONE feature that will get normal people to switch from the iPhone. This comes across like something developers developed for other developers without thought of how they were going to build a movement” Robert Scoble

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One week on, and the first Android SDK details are emerging from the Open Handset Alliance.  Initial thinking was that the SDK toolkit would be primarily available for participating developers, but it turns out that - more in keeping with the Google way of doing things - it’s a full release, together with tutorials, toolkits, APIs and tips for amateur coders to start hashing something together for upcoming gPhones.  Those a little more proficient have another incentive to develop for the platform: a $10 million prize fund for the best Android applications.

After the cut: Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the Android SDK and demo primary apps

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