Ten Features To Love About Android 1.5 384
An anonymous reader writes "Last month, Google officially announced the Android 1.5 update, dubbed 'cupcake.' The new software is apparently ready to roll out to Android-powered devices beginning tomorrow. Make no mistake, Android 1.5 is a major upgrade — they could have called it 2.0. The software brings a host of new capabilities, some of which can't be found on rival mobile platforms, including video recording and sharing."
Re:devices? Since when (Score:5, Informative)
Six weeks. Samsung and Moto have product releases scheduled, as does HTC.
Re:Are there more than 20 apps for it? (Score:5, Informative)
You must be joking. There's lots of apps for Android. Probably fewer than for iPhone, but not dramatically so. I was able to find an app for any task I needed.
Re:and a million things to hate about it (Score:5, Informative)
I find it difficult to program for the Android platform, but only because it's a *very* different programming paradigm. Rather than a single entry point, as with a standard computer program, there are half a dozen entry points. This isn't really a bad thing - having a single entry point would just mean you'd have to figure out which task needs to be done at the beginning of the program.
In other words, the OS does the hard part for you.
You might hate that style of programming, but it doesn't make it bad - and it certainly doesn't mean there are a million things to hate about the Android platform.
(There may, in fact, actually be a million things to hate about Android. I don't have an Android-based device, so I wouldn't know; I've only fiddled with the emulator in the SDK. My point is simply that the programming paradigm needed to write software for the Android platform isn't one of the things you should be hating.)
Re:Are there more than 20 apps for it? (Score:5, Informative)
Funny you mention that -- Android includes an embedded OpenGL implementation.
I upgraded from a first-gen iPhone to an Android dev unit, and am generally quite pleased. It's unfortunate that support for the Bluetooth RFCOMM profile isn't exposed to application level yet -- but one of the things about Android is that it's reasonably straightforward to build a custom version of the firmware with the "hidden" flag turned off for those classes; on the iPhone, I'd just be waiting for 3.0, and then hoping they wouldn't require any device I want to make a serial connection to from my phone to be licensed as an iPhone accessory.
Re:Are there more than 20 apps for it? (Score:3, Informative)
I call BS. That's because At&t doesn't sock it to you for data, they get you on the special voice plans for iPhone. On iPhone you will pay a premium for voice service, where with a G-1 device you pay regular rates for voice service. The iPhone generally costs $600 over two years more than devices priced at standard At&t voice rates. That $200 iPhone is actually $800.
Also, the G-1 sells for $99 at Wal-Mart, so it is $100 less out of the box.
Re:Are there more than 20 apps for it? (Score:5, Informative)
Except the iPhone is the same price or cheaper than other similar phones. Every carrier charges the same for data
Really? I paid $179.00 for my G1, and my unlimited data plan is $24.95. So I don't know where you're getting your pricing information.
Re:devices? Since when (Score:5, Informative)
I've had Android running quite nicely on my Freerunner for a while now, connected to the O2 account I've had for years. Freerunners are for sale, thus there is more than one Android handheld available to buy.
Re:Are there more than 20 apps for it? (Score:5, Informative)
"The iphone has more quality apps than all other platforms have total apps combined."
No. Not even close. In your utterance of that hyperbole you've given away your fanboi status.
The numbers on this are a bit difficult to track down but it's very clear that the IPhone is nowhere near WinMo and you can absolutely forget about it if you combine Palm and Symbian application numbers.
Here's a quick rundown.
In late July of LAST year WinMo _alone_ had 18K applications.
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/07/windows_mobile_7.html [informationweek.com]
Some estimates put Palm at 80,000 back in ***2005***.
http://www.pocketprof.org/running_palm_os_software.htm [pocketprof.org]
Symbian numbers are very difficult to come up with but a low ballpark would be 10,000 of them.
The IPhone currently has about 15,000 applications listed in the app store ( http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/so-many-iphone-apps-so-little-time/ [nytimes.com] ).
It's clear that your statement isn't anywhere near true.
Please leave some of Mr. Jobs AHEM for his wife, sir.
works for me (Score:5, Informative)
The G-1 has all the "killer apps" I need at the moment - Accuweather, Google Maps with GPS, an IP Cam viewer so I can monitor my security cams at home and at my datacenter, SSH client, voice recorder, handy tools like data conversions, a level, a ruler and of course the Magic 8-ball. The browser works for the kind of things I need every day - my MRTG graphs, logging into my switches, routers, and remote-reboot controllers. It doesn't do SlashDot for shit though...someone needs to work on that.
Seriously, anyone judging a smart phone based solely on the camera, eye-candy, and "gaming experience" is probably 12 years old. Mine is a tool to help me earn a living first, and a toy second.
Re:and a million things to hate about it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:1, Informative)
Please learn basic HTML for us lazy types. Thank you.
This message paid for by Anonymous Cowards Anonymous.
Re:Exciting but still unappealing & limited ha (Score:2, Informative)
Patience, young Padawan. They're coming; Motorola's been all abuzz about it for a few months now, they're hoping it will save their skin. Samsung and Sony are among others that have announced phones arriving in 2009.
Besides, there's only one Android phone in the US market now, and it just came out 6 months ago.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/smartphones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212501692 [informationweek.com]
Re:Missing Enterprise Feature (Score:4, Informative)
Might find some alternatives here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collaborative_software [wikipedia.org]
Re:and a million things to hate about it (Score:5, Informative)
That is correct, all application development is done in Java. Yes, that is a show-stopper for some people, but that doesn't make Android a "bad" thing.
Re:and a million things to hate about it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Missing Enterprise Feature (Score:5, Informative)
How do you figure that?
Zimbra for a 50 seat license: US$1,400
Exchange 2007 Standard with 5 CALs: AUD$2234 (USD1,714.93 at the time of writing).
The site I'm looking at only has CALs available in units of 5 [ht.com.au], and they're USD$576 for a block of 5.
And that's just a CAL - do you need a license for Outlook as well? I thought you did.
Re:Are there more than 20 apps for it? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, one difference is that you could buy a CDMA Android Phone and take it to Verizon and buy a plan. You don't have to do the "bundled" phone thing.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Informative)
Ctrl-C
Ctrl-T
Ctrl-V
If you're not used to doing that on the internet by now, you're probably doing it wrong.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:2, Informative)
Step 1) Triple click to highlight
Step 2) Right click
Step 3) Select "Open Address in new tab"
Not true (Score:5, Informative)
parent is false....
Only Webkit, and its direct connectors run native, the wrapper around the browser runs in the DVM.
This is more due to Webkit itself not based on Java, and allows for performance.
most other apps, including the dialer do NOT use native code.
Of course, some libraries use native Code too (like the DB, etc) but you have access to the same libraries via the same API.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
(Firefox, assuming middlemouse.contentLoadURL is set to true)
Step 1: Triple click to highlight
Step 2: Middle click to load URL from primary selection.
Step 3: There is no step 3.
Re:Why would that be a showstopper? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Missing Enterprise Feature (Score:1, Informative)
Google Apps for My Domain
Works brilliant. I run my business off it and don't pay a cent.
Yes you can. (Score:5, Informative)
I got one last week. The Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1) has the same hardware as HTC Dream, with the only difference in that it won't run DRM-damaged applications.
It'll cost you about 4600 SEK all in all, not bad at all. Also, you get the cool dev phone pattern on the back ;)
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html [android.com]
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you need an addon?
Firefox:
1. Triple click to highlight.
2. Drag to empty area of tab bar.
APD1 vs G1, vs iPhone- not tied to Tmobile, Apple (Score:2, Informative)
I use my ADP1 with AT&T. Yup, no 3G for me (yet?) because US carriers somehow manage to always pick their very own frequencies (wtf?!? 1700 MHz band aka AWS for T-Mobile, some 1900 flavor for AT&T even though they have a 1700/AWS license as well, and whereas the rest of the world agreed on 2100 long ago).
Anyway, I have 3 lines on a $50 +2 x $10 family plan = $23/line, or ~$26 with taxes etc... Unlimited data adds $15/mo.
Yes I'll need about 6 months to recoup the extra cost of this phone ($424) vs an iPhone with typical voice+data plan ($199 + $78-ish/mo) -- not taking into account the pennies I can save on apps (e.g. free SSH client) and on calls using VoIP/SIP.
Speaking of which, check out http://www.sipdroid.org/ [sipdroid.org]; it's definitely still buggy but works over 2.5G. Cupcake and open-source in general rock.
Re:devices? Since when (Score:2, Informative)
Daily recharge is a bit harshly put. I'm running on SHR unstable and using phone and SMS (maybe 3-5 calls a day) the Freerunner can handle 48 hours before needing a recharge. It changes of course if you want to use it as a GPS or audio player a lot (Then it's about a day) but it's really not that much of a problem. It's not that hard putting a tail behind it before going to sleep every second day. Never tried how long it would last when on standby the whole time, I can't afford to not have a phone for that long : ).
Re:Why would that be a showstopper? (Score:3, Informative)
What about people that have hundreds of thousands lines of C/C++ code written
I dunno....maybe compile it?! While C and C++ code is officially unsupported, its not like they prevent those applications from being published or installed. There are many applications available for Android which are bundled with C/C++ libs.
On Android, it seems, "unsupported" does not mean "disallowed"; it means no support is provided - you're on your own.
Re:and a million things to hate about it (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure it compiles for ARM and x86. Last I heard an MIPs port was possible. Android is slated for phones and netbooks.
Besides, saying platforms can mean, non-HTC dream hardware.
Re:Why would that be a showstopper? (Score:3, Informative)
For the last time, native C absolutely is available. Period. Google is simply not going to support you. Many apps have been released which include libs compiled from C/C++. Android supports but JNI and an even higher performance interface which allows DVM to call into C/C++ libs. Furthermore, there is an interface which allows for C/C++ libs into the DVM environment.
Re:and a million things to hate about it (Score:3, Informative)
I would say there are some significant differences between your standard Windows event-driven program and your standard Android program. You see, the Windows program has exactly one entry point (WinMain or main); the event handlers are called by library functions or signals or whatever, but the program is already running at that point.
With Android, your program may actually be loaded at any of the entry points (at least, that's my understanding of it). They may both be event-driven, but there are some fundamental differences that make programming for the Android platform a significantly different task than programming a single-entry-point event-driven program.