Coming soon: Google’s Android
By Serene Luo, ST
Internet giant Google is running the final tests on its much-anticipated cellphone operating system, which it will roll out in a few months.
The company showed off the software, called Android, yesterday, as part of the pre-opening activities at CommunicAsia, the annual telecom trade show.
Google’s senior director of mobile platforms Andy Rubin said that such free or open-source software would encourage more innovations for the benefit of the global users of over three billion cellphones. ‘Open-source software’ means the programming code is freely available, which enables other software developers to create new applications for it.
Mr Rubin estimated that cellphones running on such software would be about 20 per cent cheaper because of the savings on software costs.
He declined to say how many phones would be shipped with it, but showed off several of the system’s advantages, including its customising features and multi-tasking functions.
The most prominent feature is its ‘mash-up’ architecture, which allows different applications to be combined.
After an initial tepid response, Android, which brings together in one package a number of applications Google has developed for cellphones, has been gaining in acceptance.
More cellphone operators, such as American giant AT&T, are leaning towards offering handsets that run on the system.
Meanwhile, more than 1,700 applications for Android have already been written as part of a competition, the Android Developer Challenge, which has a total purse of US$10 million (S$13.8 million).
One big feature of the Android operating system is the number of Global Positioning System (GPS) based applications available.
Enkin, for example, tells users the names of the buildings around them and how far away they are. All they have to do is use their phone cameras to scan their surroundings.
GPS is even featured in Android’s games: In Parallel Kingdom, players make use of GPS and maps to role-play, defending their turf or ‘warring’ with players in their geographical vicinity.
Growth in sales of GPS-enabled devices worldwide has exploded in the last year or so, and manufacturers are coming up with devices that measure a runner’s speed and complex navigation aids.
Android is being developed by Google and 33 other technology companies – such as cellphone makers Samsung and Motorola, and Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo – as part of the Open Handset Alliance, a group which works to make the mobile world more open and free.
Tags: google, google android, open handset alliance, open source software
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