Motorola Readies Its Own Android Social Smartphone – ZDNet
I was excited when the G1 was released on T-Mobile, actually considered switching until I realized that I would have a great phone with no service seeing how T-Mobile doesn’t have the best coverage in my area. The article states that the debut is October 22, but the actual release is hoping to be within Q2 2009. Thats not far at all.
I’m really hoping that android is what is needed to give some competition to the iPhone. When I say competition I mean for the mainstream market. In the buisness market, we have already had phones that do what the iPhone can do. The problem I have with the iPhone is the same problem I have with other Apple products (with exception to the iPod), that Apple’s platform is too shut off. Apple is the exact opposite of open source. They want to control everything. They even have a remote kill switch on your iPhone that you purchased and can shut you down at anytime. Also, Apple likes to give the perception that they are flawless, and in order to do that they hide very big problems from the user, mostly security exploits. And to anyone who wants to tell me that OSX is more secure than windows please JUMP HERE. People who switch from PC to Mac say that Mac works better, I say they just don’t know how to use a computer properly.
Anyway…I’m looking forward to this release and can’t wait to see the new phone. I’ve always been a pretty big fan of Motorola.
First off… my thanks for the comment on the gamer mouse “experiment” that was posted. I will say if I had to pay full price for my Death Adder, there would have been no regrets. Same with the eXactmat as well.
Funny you mention the iPhone kill switch… Which that was incidentally found by accident by an iPhone dev. They say the only mode of action they notice it doing so far is the download of known malicious URL’s and that it’s possibly for corporate users, however, no one knows for sure. The funny part is more the fact that the iPhone apps go through a rigorous approval process already… so my own speculation like many other sites have mention is that in the case that a malicious app has slipped, it can be destroyed and the developer’s approval to be revoked.
(Disclaimer, I am no iPhone fan… LOL)
At the same right… Google’s Android isn’t a perfect ideal yet as they too have their own kill switch which they did openly disclose to the public, unlike Apple’s silent admission to theirs. Android’s market place allows apps to be published immediately with no approval and certification chain. This is both advantageous and dangerous within reason… Advantageous as apps are published right away, but dangerous as it relies on the community to scrutinize code and if something is missed, then it relies on Google to police the code ASAP.
Google’s API isn’t completely open… unless you’re high on the Google code development chain. Cause the last I remembered… depending on how close you or your team’s ranks are with Google, it could mean the difference between being able to get access to code for reading screen sensitivity and accelerometers or only being able to code simple apps that don’t even touch the core of the phone. There’s an article on ZeroXR.com that speaks on this tangent as it caused a minor schism with some Android coding teams…
Now if OpenMoko or the LinPhone alliance could hurry the fork up, there could be some truly open phones!
PS – My big gripes with Macs are more the restrictive BSD sort of license and also the fact that if you’re trying to do something in that poor sorry excuse of a terminal called “Darwin”… The GUI can completely override what you’re doing via command line!