Google’s Android Exposed!
Posted on 28 May 2008, at 5:19 pm, by Judie Lipsett
I feel like we should start a feature called “Where’s Vincent?!”, as he seems to wind up at a different tech event every few days; if I were using a map to keep up with his comings and goings, it would be full of pin-holes by now. It’s okay though, as long as he keeps it up, we’ll be reporting it here!
His latest is the Google IO event, and earlier today he got exclusive video of the new Android OS…
Google’s latest Android prototype is miles improved over the versions we last saw. Back at CES the GUI was clunky and the whole thing looked relatively primitive; Google themselves asked us to keep an open mind and instead concentrate on the OS’ potential. Now, they’ve brought out a device that you could, frankly, mistake for production hardware.
As our exclusive demo videos show, the Android team have been putting in some long hours bringing the user interface up to the standard people expect. The iPhone sets the bar high, and left field rivals like Samsung’s TouchWiz GUI really pile on the pressure. What they’ve given us is, at first glance, a blend of the successful parts of each of those, together with a dose of Google’s own minimalist aesthetic.
In this last video, a demo of Google Maps, you can see how closely the Android experience matches that of the desktop. All of the usual mapping options are present – satellite views, traffic, etc. – and, with a 3G network, load and update quickly.
Vincent has posted a massive amount of video and a plethora of photographs at his site Android Community.
Be sure to catch the Q&A session, where among other gems, Android’s developers said:
Q. Will you have to buy the device with Android on it, or will you be able to load Android onto an existing device.
A. The software will be released as open-source when the first handsets are available … so people can do with it pretty much whatever they want. We don’t dictate how it’s used.
Wait! Does this mean that I can load it on my iPhone?
Q. Touch is heavily featured in the demo today, but Android is extensible to all sorts of different platforms. Were you just showing off the most flashy parts … how did you make those choices?
A. The platform is designed to be very generic, it has to work with touchscreen devices, D-pad devices and trackball devices. Some devices might not even have a screen. We chose to show a demonstration with a device that happened to have a trackball; we have other devices with a trackball. We could’ve shown that exact demo completely driven by the trackball. That’s pretty compelling as not a lot a lot of platforms have that flexibility.
It all looks quite impressive, but like a fly in the punchbowl Mike Cane asks
… what did you guys do that wasn’t influenced by Apple?
All I’m seeing here is basically Hey We Can Do That Too! stuff.
Hmmm…he may have a point. But the big difference from the beginning will be the open source vibe which should allow developers everywhere to create whatever features the users want. So that was Mike’s list; what would you like to see on your Android phone? 
Link: Google IO at Android Community
Link: Android show me the CC&P
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May 28th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
This looks pretty cool. Depending on what kind of hardware its offered on, I may go that route, or stick to the iPhone 2.0… I wonder if it will sync with iTunes..?
May 28th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
May 29th, 2008 at 3:44 am
I’m thinking of having him GPS-tagged.
It was an impressive performance, but I do see where Mike is coming from. Thing is, I’m also remembering what Android looked like at MWC in February – blocky icons, empty menus, it felt more like a proof-of-concept than an upcoming platform. A few months down the line and it certainly looks like something you could buy tomorrow; obviously they’ve only shown us the glossy parts, but the promise is there.
For me, the “wasn’t influenced by Apple” part is the compass/Street View integration. Okay, right now it’s just a way of panning a picture around, but if you’re obsessed with augmented reality (as I am) then you’ll be squealing about the possibility of tagging Google data on top of location-aware graphics. For me it’s the biggest sign that the Android developers are looking at the platform from a mobile, not a desktop perspective: how will people actually use mobile data while in their daily lives? Right now I can access most websites on the move, and fast too thanks to HSDPA, but would I want to? I’d only do it because I needed the information right that second; a specific shop or address, directions maybe. I don’t want to have to translate to the real world what it says on a tiny screen – I want the phone to do that for me!
Sorry, longer comment than I intended