Me And Android: The First Day
"What, um, is Android?" my friend Masha asked me when I told her about my new job at AndroidPIT. I tried to explain, and ended up sounding like a douschy salesman: "It's this platform for phones, developed by Google, that's rapidly growing in users and already the number one cell phone operating system," I hyperventilated. Masha's eyes glazed over: she owns an iPod. She will likely never switch to another phone. I showed her my phone. "Ohhhhh! This is like the phones that try to pretend they're made by Apple." Uh, yeah.
This was my first day with the Android. I'm a newbie, or NOOB in internet parlance. At times, I felt like a grandpa, clumsily fiddling with the keypad on my Samsung Galaxy while attempting to add people to my phonebook. "I just want to make a call with this damn thing!" I wanted to say in an asthmatic voice while cursing the heavens with my cane. Then I synced the phone to my Facebook app and "shazam": suddenly it looked like I could even call that boring kid who sat behind me in math class.
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Android Chief Andy Rubin to Developers: We Love You, You're Perfect (Now Change)
Android is the math geek you elected president: he's happy you voted for him, but now he's motherfucking president and will do as he pleases.
For over a week now, stories have been running about how Android is trying to throw it's weight around a bit more, given its surging popularity. Today Andy Rubin, VP of engineering, assured developers that just because they're super popular right now and can basically choose to collaborate with whichever cell phone company they wants, doesn't mean that they have forgotten their original mission: to be open.
"We don't believe in a one size fits all" solution, Rubin wrote in a post on the Android development website. "But", he continued, "we do require the device to conform with some basic compatibility requirements." The post then goes on to detail Android's commitment against fragmentation while assuring developers that Google has no desire to standardize the platform on any single chipset architecture.
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Will Android-Based Tablets Ever Be Able to Seriously Compete with the iPad?
The pioneers get both the flowers and the arrows.
According to estimates by Deutsche Bank, sales for Motorola's Xoom, one of the first tablets to compete with the iPad, are bleak. The company has only managed to sell 100,000 of their tablet PCs thus far. That's probably the same number of people who bought iPads in the first few days after it was released.
So far, Android phones have been able to compete with the iPhone partially because of their low prices. But when an Android tablet costs a whopping $799, like the Xoom, it means the product has to compete both with both other small laptops and the iPad. That's just too much competition for an unproven piece of hardware.
When the Xoom was first released, reviewers were impressed by its technical prowess. To some reviewers it felt like someone had taken a powerful notebook computer, sheared off the keyboard and replaced it with a touch interface. But the Zoom didn't have the ability to use its own SD card slot, and only a few applications took advantage of its larger display.
There is certainly a product to be made to compete with Apple's iPad. I've always thought the iPad felt like an overgrown iPod, not a computer with the kind of capabilities that could ever replace my laptop.
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AT&T brings Android to the prepaid masses with the Froyo based LG Thrive
Prepaid phones used to be clunky, mostly unattractive and feature-less clunkers, but boy were they cheap. Plus, knowing you're not signing your soul away for a year or two offers much relief to the lesser quality of what you can get as a prepaid option. AT&T is now changing much of that by introducing the LG Thrive, a Froyo based Android phone that bring plenty of punch for the $179 contract-free asking price. Read past the break for more info.
The Thrive brings a 600MHz processor, 3.2-inch (480 x 320) screen, a 3.2 megapixel camera and unlimited WiFi usage on the entire national AT&T WiFi Hot Spot network. Its decededly plasticky body isn't the hottest thing around, but for an entry-level phone, there's worse. The blue version above is the Phoenix, identical in specs, but it'll run you $50 and it's available only on a two-year contract with mandatory data. AT&T is also serving up a mildly attractive 500 MB for $25 a month for the prepaid version, if you're so interested. Plus, this thing runs Froyo from the get-go, something some of its higher-end brethren launched within the last year can't say for themselves.
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Android Concept Cars
Android is a great time waster in the car (when you're not the driver) and many people also use their Android as a navigational system. So why not embed the Android directly into your car? Hyundai has done just that at the Seoul Motor Show with their Blue 2 concept car. Now the kids can play angry birds in the back while you curse at traffic.
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