Web Development Live

Developers praised the programming experience and the potential of Google’s Android mobile platform at the Google I/O conference as the company emphasized its flexibility and showed cool new features.

There was a lot of buzz around Android at the conference, which covers all areas of Google development, and an “Introduction to Android” session was full. Google wants the technology to open up the mobile industry, where developers have faced hurdles getting applications ported to many different operating systems and approved by carriers. But Android will enter the fray as just one mobile platform among many, including the Apple iPhone SDK.

The latest prototype version of Android drew comparisons to the iPhone after it was demonstrated during a keynote session Wednesday morning. Google showed a home screen with colorful widgets similar to the Apple iPhone’s, plus a compass and a status bar that can be pulled down in any application to view messages. The compass, which could be built into a handset along with an accelerometer, would be able to orient maps according to which way the user was facing. As demonstrated with Google Maps Street View, it could show the exact view that a user was looking at, with street-name and address information built in to the map. Videos of the demonstrations were posted by the Android Community blog.

Aside from features on high-end phones, Android will reach far more people than the iPhone platform, if it meets its potential, said Atif Iqbal Chaudhry, a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the conference. The platform could be extended to inexpensive phones with a smaller set of capabilities for average consumers, he said.

Android is an easy way to begin developing a mobile application, because Google provides all the pieces required, unlike some other platforms, such as PalmOS, Chaudhry said. He has been developing location-based applications through the PC-based emulator software for Android and said he is looking forward to trying out the software in the field on a real handset.

Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance are pushing Android as more open than other mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Developers won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session. In addition, there won’t be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators, he said.

Developers will also be able to modify core elements of the interface and come out with replacements for the basic building blocks that come with Android, such as the address book, Chen said. Even the look of the home-screen widgets will be customizable. For users, that will mean being able to control their own experience by downloading their favorite third-party versions, Chen said.

Google expects the first Android-based devices to hit the market in the second half of this year and will make the finished software platform available to developers after that, so anyone can create their own phone platform, Chen said. The core elements of it will be released under the Apache open-source license.

Until all parts of Android are complete, Google won’t start translating the platform and documentation into languages other than English, Chen said in response to a question. The team doesn’t want translations to lag behind the current information, he said. But he welcomed an attendee to help Spanish-speaking developers by translating materials or participating in message boards.

Developers praised the platform, in which applications are written in the Java programming language and then compiled for the Dalvik virtual machine.

“It’s sweet,” said Free Beachler, owner of Longevity Software, in Boulder, Colorado. Beachler wrote an entry for the Android Developer Challenge, a competition to find the 50 best Android applications. His software, designed to store itineraries, contacts, destinations and other travel information for users on their phones, didn’t make the top 50. But he’s working on two projects for Android Developer Challenge 2, which will take place after handsets are out and the platform are complete.

Beachler, a Web developer, said it took time to learn to use Android but once he did it was logically organized and easy to use. He compared it to languages such as PHP for Web development.

Enterprises are asking R Systems International, a software services company in El Dorado, California, to write applications that work on any mobile platform, said Harsh Verma, vice president for global innovative research at R Systems. One way to do this is on browsers, but there are problems with that, including differences among mobile browsers and the need for a network connection, he said. Verma hasn’t yet started working with Android but believes it could reach a broad range of devices.

With local mobile carriers rushing to convert their subscribers from 2G to faster broadband-like 3G services, the lack of a 3G-enabled model is viewed by analysts as the key impediment to releasing the device in Australia.
Analyst firm IDC said Australians wanted more than a large screen and great web browser and the appeal of an iPhone without 3G connectivity would be limited to die-hard Apple fans and the fashion conscious.
It would appear highly unlikely that a 2G iPhone [would] be released in Australia, with Telstra focusing all efforts to migrate subscribers onto Next G and Optus and Vodafone both building national 3G networks this year. The 2G market in Australia is shrinking fast, IDC telecommunications analyst Mark Novosel said.
In 2009 the number of 3G subscribers in Australia will outstrip 2G subscribers. By the end of 2009 56.6 per cent of all mobile subscribers in Australia will be on one of four 3G networks.
Apple has said the iPhone will be launched in Australia this year, but has yet to pin down an exact date.
In a research note sent to investors late last week, Bank of America financial analyst Scott Craig said channel investigations showed a 3G iPhone would be produced in small numbers in May followed by a larger production run in June.
The note came after Dow Jones Newswires reported that Taiwans Hon Hai Precision Industry, the largest contract manufacturer of electronics in the world, had won an exclusive contract to make a new version of the iPhone. It cited a person familiar with the situation.
As well, a Hon Hai official told the news service that the company was in talks with Apple for the supply of a more advanced version of the current iPhone.
Similarly, Taiwans Commercial Times reported, without citing sources, that Hon Hai had been competing with other manufacturers for the 3G iPhone contract.
This week, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he expected Apple would introduce a 3G iPhone within the next 3 to 6 months.
The upcoming annual Apple developers conference, scheduled to begin in San Francisco on June 9, could be an opportune time for Apple CEO Steve Jobs to unveil the device.
Jobs said battery life issues prevented the company from releasing a 3G model from the outset but he has indicated he would like to build in 3G support when the time is right.
In November last year, Randall Stephenson, the chief executive of AT%26amp;T, Apples exclusive iPhone carrier partner in the US, confirmed a 3G iPhone would land some time this year.
IDC has forecast that Australian iPhone shipments would commence in the third quarter of this calendar year, but predicted the device would comprise only 3.5 per cent of the Australian mobile phone market.
Apple stores across the US are experiencing iPhone shortages, and some have interpreted that to mean Apple is running down its existing stock to prepare for the launch of a new model.
Jaffray said of all possible explanations there was an 80 per cent chance that a new version of the iPhone is coming earlier than anticipated.
But some say the shortage is simply due to stellar demand for the device, particularly from countries where the iPhone has yet to launch. Many, Australians included, have imported the device and, using various unauthorised yet easy to perform hacks, unlocked it for use on their local networks.
Telstra was widely rumoured to be Apples iPhone carrier partner in Australia until January when Optus emerged as the dark horse.
Thailands largest mobile operator, Advanced Info Service (AIS), said it was negotiating a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Asia.
The telcos chief marketing officer, Sanchai Thiewprasertkul , told the Bangkok Post that AIS was collaborating with Singapore Telecom (SingTel) and Optus to launch the iPhone throughout the region.
Optus is a wholly owned subsidiary of SingTel, and SingTel owns 21.4 per cent of AIS.
Yet even before the local iPhone launch is announced, Telstras Sensis is already gearing up to create mobile applications specifically for the device. It has advertised for a business analyst to create iPhone search applications.

Apple also said it will unveil new iPhone features aimed at businesses, potentially stepping up competition with Research In Motions popular Blackberry devices.
Apple will detail the software road map for the iPhone on March 6 at its Cupertino, California headquarters, the company said in an invitation sent to reporters.
Shares in Apple were up 2 per cent at $US121.50 in afternoon Nasdaq trading. The stock has fallen 30 per cent in the past three months on concerns that a slowing economy could hit sales of its Mac computers, iPods and iPhones.
When Apple launched the iPhone last June, it only allowed outside software developers to make Web-based programs, not ones that could be installed and run on the device itself.
The policy sparked an outcry among developers, who quickly found ways to crack Apples restrictions and offer unauthorized programs. Within months, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs backtracked and promised to open the phone up to outside software.
Apple has understood the importance of local applications and they are responding to that, and it will help them sell more iPhones, said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst of Creative Strategies.
It should release a plethora of creative applications and it will make the iPhone much more practical as a mobile applications tool, Bajarin said.
UNLOCKING CONCERN
Analysts have expressed concern in recent weeks over iPhone sales and the practice of unlocking them to run on networks other than that of AT%26amp;T, the exclusive US carrier.
Bernstein Research last month estimated that more than a quarter of iPhones were unlocked, pressuring Apples business model since the company does not collect a portion of carrier fees from those users.
Cracking down on unlocked phones could scare some users away and cause Apple to miss its sales target for the device, whereas allowing them could erode profitability and make it tough to sign more carriers to similar revenue-sharing deals, Bernstein said.
Apples invitation did not indicate whether it would address the unlocking issue at the March event.
Apple also gave no hint of what enterprise features would be unveiled, but many professional users have clamored for push e-mail that sends full messages from a corporate mail network to the phone.
That is how Research In Motions Blackberry devices work, but iPhone users must manually pull the messages down from their accounts.
Apple has acknowledged that there has been great interest in the enterprise community for the iPhone, Bajarin said. Theres no question it has great potential in enterprise given the right application.

Speaking at the Mobility Summit in London on Monday, Andrew Moran said that mobile Linux was fragmentation city and completely unfeasible. Despite describing Linux as being important as a web server platform, Moran claimed it was currently too hard for enterprise users to plan deployment of open source on mobile handsets. You would have to have a rock-solid business case to do that, he added.

Nigel Heaney, the EMEA telecoms director for mobile applications company Dexterra, agreed that there are currently no suitable devices that run Linux, but hinted that such devices are starting to appear. He also suggested that RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones would become less popular in the future, as Microsoft and Nokia increasingly drive the marketplace.