Hasta La Gadget!

In 2008, when Google organized its first developers’ conference, it gave attendees the first phones to run Android, its open source mobile operating system.

Now three years later, Android is one of the fastest-growing mobile platforms. Even though Google recently announced plans to close the web store for its Nexus One phone, Android itself is still going strong. In the first quarter of the year, a gaggle of Android-based phones grabbed 28 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, trailing Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices (36 percent) and ahead of Apple’s iPhone OS (21 percent), according to research firm The NPD Group.

It’s a stunning growth curve for an independent platform that seemed to emerge out of nowhere. And it has turned Google’s developer event into one of the hottest tickets in town with developers begging for passes to it on Craigslist and eBay. An Android developer told Wired.com that his company paid $1,600 for a $100 ticket to the conference — with an agreement that any swag handed out will be given to the ticket seller.

“The biggest difference with this conference compared to earlier ones is the sheer amount of interest in the platform,” says Harry Tormey, software engineer at Snaptic, which makes a note-taking app for both Android phones and the iPhone. “It will be interesting to get a feel for where things are going in the mobile space.”

At the Google I/O event May 18 and 19 in San Francisco, Google will likely focus attention on its Chrome browser and operating system, which will run on everything from netbooks to set-top TV boxes. But Android will be a key part of the picture.

Significantly, Google and Intel are expected to unveil an Android-based “Smart TV” platform.

Android developers say they are looking to hear from Google about how to make Android apps better, make money off the platform and deal with the problem of fragmentation with many versions of the OS available on phones currently.

“Android has been so successful so fast and they are iterating quickly,” says Gregg Fiddes, vice-president of sales and business development for Quickoffice, which makes mobile-productivity software. “When you are dealing with custom SDKs that makes it a big challenge.”

Fiddes says his company will be looking for direction from Google on how to cast a wide net with an Android app so it can support a range of devices.

“It’s a tough balancing act,” he says. “OEMs want to differentiate but Google wants to standardize it, so we are hoping Google will offer some clues on how to strike a balance.”

Developers also say they hope to get a closer look at the latest version of Android 2.2, aka “Froyo,” which is expected to have features such as tethering (so you can use your phone as a wireless modem) and the ability to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Turning on the cool factor for apps

The growth of the Android platform highlights the gap between Android apps and iPhone apps, say developers. The 38,000 or so apps available in the Android market may seem small compared to the more than 200,000 available in the Apple app store.

The quantity argument aside, Android apps have a problem, say Tormey.

“One of the big weaknesses of the Android platform versus the iPhone is that the apps don’t look as sexy as the iPhone ones,” says Tormey.

That’s because multimedia capabilities on the Android platform are not sophisticated as the iPhone, he says. For instance, support for OpenAL, a 3-D audio API, is available on the iPhone but not on Android. OpenAL is popular among game developers who use it for sound positioning in a program.

It’s also easier to get started as an iPhone developer.

“If you want to make a simple app its much easier to do so on the iPhone than Android,” says Tormey. “The documentation on Android is not as good as with the iPhone, which offers a lot more examples to developers.”

Tormey hopes at its developer conference, Google will offer sessions on the multimedia capabilities of the phone and how Android developers can bring the “wow” factor to their creations.

“The UI interactions can be complex and I hope Google will show clever ways to make the Android interface simple,” agrees Zhao Lu, senior software engineer at Orange Labs, who will be attending the event for the first time. Lu is working on a voice application for the Android platform that lets users add status updates and location to their voice greetings. “On the iPhone, the user interface is really elegant and beautiful. Android is catching up, but, in general, there’s a way to go.”

Developers also say they are looking to hear more about the partnership between Adobe and Google. Adobe is expected to show Flash Player 10.1 running on Android phones. And with the ongoing spat between Adobe and Apple, the presence of Flash might turn out to be the most juicy part of the show.

Google I/O takes place Wednesday, May 19 and Thursday, May 20 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Watch for coverage on Webmonkey, here on Gadget Lab and across Wired.com.

See Also:

• Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ Features USB, Wi-Fi Tethering
• Android Devices Crave Google’s Attention
• Android Fragmentation Declines, But Older Versions Still Rule …
• DIYers Hack Windows Mobile Phones to Run Android
• Adobe Demonstrates Flash on Android Tablet

Photo: (laihiu/Flickr)

Hey, remember how Microsoft released a very limited version of the Windows Phone 7 binaries for developers, and then it took about 34 seconds for someone to unlock them to open up all their hidden goodness? Well, MS has just the delivered an updated set of tools for developers to help them get a little closer to making millions on the Maketplace, and yet again it took no time at all for that release to be unlocked This time there are a few new goodies to take a look at and if you’d like to take a peek, and learn how to try them out for yourself, click on through.

Continue reading MS releases new Windows Phone 7 dev tools, we take ’em for a spin and you can too (video)

Filed under: Cellphones

MS releases new Windows Phone 7 dev tools, we take ’em for a spin and you can too (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 May 2010 12:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re itching to put a webOS device on your AT&T account and don’t mind having half the now-standard RAM, the developers at jictechnology have released what they’re claiming is an official, permanent SIM unlock for the original Palm Pre. A few bugs to get through, but it’s apparently legitimate enough (we haven’t tried, but the happy customers in the forums seem to suggest success) for the group to charge around £25. Great news all around, but if you’re the sort whose fixation on Palm hasn’t been so grand that you resisted switching to Sprint or Verizon, you can probably wait for the AT&T’s Plus-sized model.

GSM Palm Pre SIM unlock now available, unofficially originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been following the news about Microsoft’s reinvention of its mobile presence, Windows Phone 7 Series, chances are you heard about how the company’s developer-friendly emulator was… modified slightly by Dan Ardelean to expose a series of applications and hubs that you weren’t supposed to see yet. Microsoft was quite gracious about it, indicating it basically expected this would happen and simply reminded everyone that these newly discovered apps are far from complete. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the unlocked version of the OS, and we’ll spell out for you exactly how you can do the same to see it for yourself.

Continue reading Taking the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator for a test drive (video)

Taking the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator for a test drive (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Usually when we hear the phrase “contract-free developer phone” the words “unlocked” and “GSM” follow shortly thereafter, but apparently Palm didn’t get the memo — it just announced discounted hardware prices for its devices, but they’re carrier-locked to Verizon and Sprint. Yeah, that’s a big sad face out of us — it’s not like Verizon’s going to give you a cheaper plan if you show up with a contract-free device. In fact, you might be better off picking up a $79 Pre on a Sprint contract from Amazon and just canceling after a year or so — the ETF will have been prorated to $120 by then, putting you way ahead of Palm’s $439 price tag. So much for that dream — at least we still have our fantasy of driving to Mexico for an illicit Telcel Pre smuggling run.

Palm offering discounted contract-free phones to developers — too bad they’re carrier locked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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