Google's Open Source Mobile Platform 199
As expected, today Google took the wraps off of the gPhone (as the media have for months been referring to the rumored project). Google is "leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers," and will be licensing its software to all comers on an open source basis under the Apache license. (The Wall Street Journal's Ben Worthen demonstrates a miserable grasp of what "open source" means.) Google's US partners include Nextel and Sprint, but not AT&T nor Verizon. Phones will be available in the second half of 2008 — not the spring as earlier reports had speculated. News.com's analysis warns that Google won't take over the mobile market overnight, though they quote Forrester in the opinion that Google may be one of the three biggest mobile players after several years of shakeout.
Re:Phone or Platform? (Score:1, Interesting)
I for one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Good. With that out of the way, I have to say I'm really looking forward to seing what Google can do in terms of getting functionality that has typically been the domain of "smartphones" that typically go for more than $200 w/ contract into the domain of phones that range from free to $50 (again w/ contract). With the minimum requirements set at an ARM9 @ 200MHz, this platform should allow open development on a huge new range of phones. I've already seen people earlier today making dire predictions about how Google is not going to be able to compete with the iPhone or how they prefer phones based on Symbian...and I think these people are completely missing Google's whole plan. I'm sure that initially phones based on Android will fall closer to the smartphone price range, but I can't help but think that eventually Google has to be aiming at the free-to-$50 phones. The "just a basic phone" market is an area in desperate need of a unifyied platform. Between lack of openness and the lack of a properly standardized Java implementation development for a wide range of low end phones is pretty much intractible. If Google can get Android onto low-cost phones *and* ensure "write once, run anywhere" between them I think they will have all the developer support they need. And since they already have the ears of the carriers (T-Mobile, Sprint, etc) they've already ensured they have a way to get this on shipping phones.
Why do I think low end phones are so important to these companies in the open handset alliance, when they don't have the profit margins of smartphones or "feature-phones"? Simple: Emerging markets. For billions of people around the world it is too expensive or impractical to own and maintain an Internet connected PC. It may be because of upfront cost or it may be a lack of Internet infrastructure in their area. For those people a phone will be their first (and maybe only) connection to the Internet. Right now the browsing experience on basic phones ranges from useless to unbearably slow and there is an impressive *lack* of easily accessible third party applications. If someone could change that it would add incredible value to that class of phones. So what's in it for Google? Making sure that their page is the first one a couple billion people see the first time they get on the Internet is probably worth it.
Re:Software Development Skills / Security (Score:2, Interesting)
We know that there are certain security issues that google does not worry about [news.com].
We know that google will put feature about security [theregister.co.uk].
We also know that google is avoiding those with experience [slashdot.org] and instead hiring and training those who will tow the party line.
None of this seems particularly hopeful or optimistic. If a device is discoverable, it is easy enough hook up to and transfer a payload. In public areas I usually see at least a couple discoverable cell phones. Even if bluetooth security is working, people will pass trojans to one another, just like they did in the 90's. Trojans do count, and are the primary threat that must be defended aginst. To use and old metaphor, google is allowing a new generation of unsophisticated users to gain access to powerful and potentially dangerous applications. Not so bad in itself, but bad as google is a very young company, who seems to be blind to the benefits of experience, so appears to be ignoring the lessons of 20 years of security experience.
OpenMoko? (Score:3, Interesting)
Second half of 2008 great for vapor phones (Score:4, Interesting)
Nokia is promising touchscreens and multimedia and Google is promising open source and the Web. Like we already have in our iPods. And they're going to get that to us real soon now. Like in another year from now.
It shows how miserable Palm has become that Google didn't even buy them. Not even for the name.
Somebody fire that guy (Score:2, Interesting)
How did this guy get a job as writer for the "Business Technology" of "The Wall Street Journal" ? It's fairly obvious he doesn't know anything about technology. Open? I do not really expect the gPhone to be open to consumers like a linux PC is open to it's user. A bit more customizable then Windows Mobile, likely, but not anywhere near OpenMoko. The point it seems he is trying to make is that the phone is open in the way that everyone can make software for it. HTC makes devices running Windows Mobile I have absolutely no trouble writing applications for. And indeed, Windows Mobile isn't really open, but if you take a stroll down PPC hacker lane, you'll find that very little is sacred and most things (outside of normal application scope) are not that hard to tap into. It would not be difficult (at least for me, and I'm not a _seasoned_ WM developer) to write virus like or security breaching applications for those phones, and they've been around for what, 5 or 6 years now?
I guess (and purely a guess, as I haven't even been to the US) for you Americans the real problem is BlackBerry. It steals a lot of the thunder of the current top of the line mobile phones, because it offers similar functionality (be it in an outdated, obsolete and rediculously expensive way), but it is one of the dominant brands. Over here in Europe, where I live, carriers are nice, and everybody and their grandma has a WM-PPC; if not their primary pub-phone, then their work-related phone. I'd be surprised if 1 out of a 100 even ever heard of BlackBerry
In the context of TFA, there is nothing new or even relatively new to the gPhone. I would almost go as far as to say there is nothing 'new' about the gPhone at all - yeah, let's get a bunch of companies together and form and alliance with all the control, then call it open, while it probably isn't really open for end-users, just for the buzz-factor. It's not like we don't have enough 'open' mobile device alliances already. And Google really does seem to be becoming the new microsoft, it's eerie! I Not that I think Windows Mobile is the best thing since sliced bread, performance/power wise it's way lacking compared to Symbian, but nevertheless, it is a really nice platform.
Obligatory OpenMoko disclaimer; sure OpenMoko may be the shit, but the device simple doesn't fit my hardware needs. It's so horribly two years ago.
Re:Phone or Platform? (Score:4, Interesting)
Open Source to Who? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think a lot of Google/Linux fanboys right now are probably foaming at the mouth with visions of linux running on a phone that they have root access to, installing apps whenever they want, downloading music for free, and giving the middle finger to the carriers.
I don't think that's what Google is doing here. I think Google is creating an "open source" operating system, open to the carriers to do what they want. In all likelihood, it will be "closed" by the time you get it. It will still be locked to the carrier, you'll still be charged for ringtones, and you will still need to buy an outrageous dataplan. I predict this will end up a lot like Symbian or Windows Mobile. The only difference being that there won't be a licensing fee to use it from Google. It may be Free As In Beer, but not to the consumer.
I don't think this deserves the "open source" moniker that we throw around here on
Re:open but for who? (Score:4, Interesting)
incidentally, how come something which is GPL2-based (if it really is off the linux kernel) can be released as Apache2. as far as i remember, the two licenses aren't really compatible.
Thank you Google for the... iPhone SDK?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Now let's see what comes out of Android. It can't be any worse than most current phone OSs anyways.
Re:it's just incompetence (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't seen a recent phone (since the advent of 2 or 2.5G phones) that doesn't lock up or become unusable over time. Discussing this with people, some have tried to counter this statement, but I have discovered that the people who think that their phone doesn't crash tend to be the people who fiddle with their phone all the time (like disassembly/assembly), or they tend to forget to charge it regularly, so the phone does get power cycled sometimes.
My nokia sometimes need power cycling sometimes because I'll plug in the charger, and even though the battery should be nearly dead, it'll say "battery full". Unfortunately I have been conditioned by too much use of Windows that my line of thought is "if in doubt, reboot", so when my phone does this I just reboot it. I don't want my phone to not charge because the software is being retarded.
A mate's got a new touch screen sony thing, and it doesn't notice when outgoing calls are made, but only sometimes! This is a basic fucking feature with a huge bug..... It may be addressable, but it'd mean jumping through hoops no doubt to correct.
I know this is all anecdotal evidence, but to say phones aren't glitchy is simply wrong! But if they didn't have annoyances then people would have reasons to ever "upgrade".
An open platform (and I hope it is actually properly open, not marketing speak "open") would hopefully open a route for the development of phone software that isn't like a horrible bespoke proprietry application you might see at a business: you know the kind of shit I mean, VB front ends to access databases or IE only active-X intranet sites. Awful to use, but the only way of getting stuff done.
Re:That platform won't be open (Score:2, Interesting)
Just get Moko to ship a product and I'm waiting, cash in hand, for one.