Android just got stronger. The industry consortium behind the Google-developed mobile operating system, the Open Handset Alliance, just added 14 new members, including ARM, Garmin International, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone. The other new members are AKM Semiconductor, ASUSTek Computer, Atheros Communications, Borqs, Ericsson, Huawei Technologies, Omron Software, Softbank Mobile, Teleca AB, and Toshiba.
When the Open Handset Alliance was announced a year ago, it launched with 34 partners, including T-Mobile, HTC (maker of the G1 Android), Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, Motorola, Sprint Nextel, and NTT Docomo.
Nokia, AT&T, and Verizon are still sitting on the sidelines. Their loss.
“Their” loss.
Relax, people need to stop jumping on every little grammatical error they see on the internet.
No, professional writers need to learn to proofread.
fixed
The correct wording is: “Their loss” rather than “They’re loss”.
All your base are belong to us!
bump :)
Different devices, different features, different usability approach, compatibility issues.
Devs will be happy…
By your comment Im guessing you dont really know much about Android.
I can tell you as a Dev that I’m very happy with where Android is headded. I cant stand the iPhone and their locked sdk.
The problem is that as a Dev you don’t care that much about user experience and usability. There is no way you can create a piece of software that offer for people the same experience on different devices with different capabilities and form factors.
or: They’re lost.
It would be good if they could get more damn Android phones into the market. The G1 is cool but it looks horrible.
not just horrible ..ugly!
Anyone else worried that Google is becomming just a bit to powerfull? They have their hand in more stuff than ATT did when they were forced to break up into the baby bells and part ways with Unix.
that aside, I actualy preffer developing for WinCE (windows mobile) than Android. the tools are better and its really straight forward. but competition is usualy good too…
GE is powerful as well, but no one complains… Think of Google as GE 2.0…
I am really liking all the competition in the mobile OS segment. I think it is pretty nice having Google, Apple, Blackberry, Nokia, and MS compete. We are seeing new technology every few months now. This can really only be a good thing.
Since we are all correcting spelling… Its powerful not powerfull
And it’s “It’s,” not “Its”
Not sure what the innovation/reason to not buy an iPhone is with this platform. Plenty of risk, to be sure, and lots of fun to be had by the developers, but as a consumer, what is to be gained by not going with the product that is proven, that is awesome, that costs roughly the same, that doesn’t have annoying Google ads built into it, and that is the undisputed market leader?
In other words, what iPhone problem is Android solving, from the consumer’s perspective?
Problem: poor call quality, restricted application availability, no media text messages, high price.
It is useless.
http://www.iamlittle.net
Nokia is definitely lost with its once popular Symbian.
I think they gonna try something with maemo
Nokia has about 40% market share, and Symbian has about 50%. They definitely lag behind in the US-centric tech press, but Nokia makes some darn slick devices. Symbian’s powerful, refined, and it’s a bit dated visually. The upcoming Symbian Foundation should hopefully bring a refreshed and usable UI, as well as make it a bit easier for developers to create rich apps.
Overall, I think Android will make everyone step up their games. And that my friends is good for the consumers.
More device manufacturer’s joining Google’s Open Alliance just helps reinforce the opportunity for 3rd Party developers like DataViz. We’ve seen great success with our products on Symbian, Palm, Windows Mobile and Blackberry, and all of the platforms have different pros and cons. They also attract different types of users. Luckily, whether you are a student or a professional, everyone needs Office and making it available on a mobile just helps raise personal productivity ;-)
As such, we have recently announced that we will be bringing our mobile Office suite, Documents To Go, and our Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync client, RoadSync to Android. If you would like to learn more and follow our progress, please visit http://www.dataviz.com/Android
Good answers, everyone.
To answer my own “what’s in it for the consumer” query, for me, it’s all about NOT having to deal with AT&T and all of the various realms of suck that that entails.
‘Nuff said.
Not trying to be a nitpicker either, but I know I’m getting tired of seeing the repercussions of thousands of well educated, long-term career media professionals being down-sized or laid-off: a cheaper paid generation of writers/editors who don’t know the basic rules of grammar and the differences between ‘their, there or they’re, or loose, lose and other frequent ‘English for Dummies’ infractions.
And while I enjoy Erick’s reporting, he’s been a growing offender of late of sloppy grammar or frequent typos. As troolz said, “professional writers need to learn to proof-read”.
Please respect my time as a reader and clean up your act.
Android allows for programs to run in the background, while the iPhone does not. Do you feel this will be a differentiator?
What we (well me actually) is a cheaper touchscreen smartphone for everyone. Unlike you guys from US, operators don’s subsidiary the phone here. So most touchscreen smartphone are sold for 300-700US$.
i hope, with this open source mobile OS (think Symbian and Android) the future price will be lower.
If they can make cheap linux based netbook, they can make cheap touchscreen smartphone with linux too (or other open source mobile OS)
Well if that not more reason to consider a android, I don’t know what is. I wonder thou whether enough “android” is hip enough for the iphone generation.
What has always amazed me about Apple, and this goes back to the iPod, is that they do a few things very well. They have greatly simplified some annoying IT problems for the average, non-techie consumer. On the iPod, the only thing that’s different between Apple’s product and all the others is that it can synchronize all your music between the iPod and the computer. The truly amazing part is that In all the years the iPod has been on the market, no one has replicated that ease of use. Its like there is a giant blind spot in the engineering community.
So when it comes to the iPhone, Apple is way ahead of the competitors (including Google) in making things simple. Take the AppStore, it makes buying applications a thought-free process for consumers. No need to enter a credit card. I just don’t see anyone else doing the same thing. Even Android still lacks that.
So I’m glad there’s all this new competition in the mobile smartphone OS field, I wish there was more.
Michael & Team Crunch.
I’m actually working on a report on this topic (I’m a sell side analyst). I’m happy to share the results with you when I publish.
Regards,
j
Were all handset manufacturers to adopt the same OS they will find it harder to differentiate their products. Think what happened to PC makers: http://www.reviewsreviewed.co.uk/index.php/mobileblog/Open-source-close-company-844.html
Some readings:
1. Sony Ericsson sold their shares of Symbian to Nokia to be able to run to Android, as predicted.
2. ARM does want to power Android handsets processors (G1 has a Qualcomm processor)
3. Even Vodafone will put Vodafone Live on Android. Wouldn’t they sell it as a mobile App in App Market and make Vodafone Live available to users from any carrier for a wider audience?
4. Softbank (is this the same Japanese mobile operator that sells iPhone?) might be hoping for an Android flip phone that meets the Japanese taste for clam-shell phones.
5. Garmin, fearing of the strong threat of mobile phones with A-GPS and Google Maps to their navigator devices, might be thinking that better partnering than fighting.Garmin already launched its first GPS-phone, the Nuvifone, earlier this year. It seems that there will be more to come, confirming that GPS and Phone synergy is here to stay.
6. Nokia, RIM, Microsoft and Apple keep resisting to join the “Alliance”, and remain in the dark side of the Force. No wonder Android logo looks so much alike C-3PO!