Google Android Phones Debut
February 12, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
The first phones using Google's Android software go on show at the Mobile World Congress.
Is it the wave of the future? Several manufacturers seem to think so, because they were showing mobile phones using the Google Android software yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
Texas Instruments and Qualcomm are among the dozen companies with prototype handsets using the software on display.
Developed by a group of companies, including Google, Android is a free software system based on Linux open-source that was launched last November. Developers have access to the code that underlies the software, allowing many people to work on applications. The first handsets using it are expected to hit the market later this year.
Ian Drew of ARM told the BBC that the phone on display was just a prototype.
"What we are demonstrating on the Android platform is maps, browser, camera applications, multimedia, e-mail, and calendar - basically everything you'd expect on a mobile phone."
Indeed, open-source might be the wave of the future for phones. Limo, the new software from the Mobile Linux Foundation, will debut at 3GSM, it was announced, with seven manufacturers, including Samsung and LG, offering 18 different devices.
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BILL on Feb 13th, 2008 at 3:11 AM:
Apple is going to blow this... With their historic mindset, expect Apple to own only a tiny fraction of the mobile market. Apple is too closed — they only put their OS on Apple hardware — but in Mobile, there's far too many competitors. (Imagine if Mac computers competed against 4 other OS's in the PC space —- each far more ble to innovate and learn from Apple's success than Microsoft. What a world it would be!) But unlike the PC space, Mobile has dozens of competitors, wildly innovative, learning and copying, releasing products annually, and covering divergent prices and styles.
Read the excellent analysis at http://www.broodingsavage.com/journal/2008/2/13/ap...