Android Phones Delayed

CommanderData writes "PC World reports that Google's Android phone rollout is facing delays. Originally expected to have handsets on the market and in consumers' hands this summer, it appears that Q4 2008 or even sometime in 2009 is more likely. Software developers are also complaining that programming is difficult on the Android platform due to regular changes being made by Google." Update 21:14 GMT by SM: Google has (via Google Watch) refuted widespread claims that Android will be late, so I guess only time will tell.

Documentation

[truthsearch]

Software developers are also complaining that programming is difficult on the Android platform due to regular changes being made by Google.

And incomplete documentation. On the surface the documentation seems pretty robust. But while I tried to build an app on Android I ran into a number of roadblocks with details missing from the documentation. Maybe commercial enterprises can get something more complete, but the online docs are lacking in certain details.

New Paradigm For Them

[geoffrobinson]

While I'm sure Google is talented, providing an OS and API is new ground for them. I'm not sure what their culture is like, but I would think time to iron out the kinks would be expected for this type of thing.

Apple/Next has been developing APIs for developers for years and have lots of lessons learned. Google is new to this. Give them time.

Google Andriod is about to be hit by a steamroller

[Khopesh]

With Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech (makers of Qt and Qtopia [wikipedia.org]), Google is set to butt heads against a VERY large competitor, who is all-in on re-entering the US cellular industry.

Nokia is roughly the same size as Google (bigger in some ways, smaller in others), but more importantly, it's got more at stake. Qt/Embedded (a.k.a. Qtopia) is a heavyweight competitor to Android which has had far more design time, with a much more solid basis (Qt and Qtopia are both many years old, though Trolltech only recently aimed at cellular technology, which should be quickly rectified by Nokia's massive development teams). Google's dot-com mentality allows them to toss megabucks at an idea, like throwing things against a wall to see what sticks. If Android doesn't stick, whatever; they can afford it. If Qtopia doesn't stick, Nokia is back the drawing board and fighting a losing battle against LG.

Google's only merit is that they've been working on Andriod for longer than Nokia has been working on Qtopia (Nokia only finalized the Trolltech purchase last week). Google's only chance is to bring Andriod to dominance before Nokia manages to release Qt-powered phones. While they appear well-poised for this, the setback of this and other delays hurt the Andriod line more than you might think at a quick glance.

The cellphone platforms of tomorrow will be Apple iPhone, Google Andriod, and Nokia Qtopia. The other players (Motorola, Erickson, LG) will be left in the dust (or they'll adopt one of the above platforms rather than squeezing as much as they can out of standard J2ME). We'll see where Palm fits in with their revamped platform; they could easily go either way.

Can Google really face Microsoft on one front (office apps) and Nokia in the other? What about its bread & butter of web searching (their original front against Yahoo)? What's next, a car [google.org] to take on Ford and Toyota? :-p

That ASL...

[marco.antonio.costa]

...was just was an underhanded Google stunt to maintain status quo for handset vendors to lock people into their versions of 'Droid.

"The ASL will allow individual handset makers to develop proprietary customizations for the platform as needed to accommodate the unique technologies in their individual products."

So even if people decide to fork into FreeAndroid under the GPL we're screwed cause the drivers to make the phone freaking ring will be proprietary with a different interface for Motorola, Nokia, LG and CornershopCellPhones. It's back to reverse engineering for everyone. Shit.

Re:Huge shocker

[zullnero]

The first thing you should be prepared for in the world of mobile phone development is that, half way through any product development (or especially right when you think you have a finished product), you must be ready for salespeople to burst in at any moment and demand that you "make it faster" or "prettier" or shoehorn in some proprietary technology because mobile phone X just was released and people were lining up to buy it.

This is what sent Palm into limbo, made people forget about HTC and the WinMob phones, the Motorola Q and Razr...it just keeps going. I'm someone whose spent his entire career in the mobile arena, and I can say that this is one competitive business considering how much of a pain it is to reengineer a smartphone every year just to keep your head above water. Because if you don't keep improving and releasing, the industry writes you off. Companies as big as Google have been stymied and left behind as roadkill before and it'll happen again for sure.

Re:Yep

[Ilgaz]

Well, Google, Nokia, Sun (J2ME) aren't Apple. They can't take ridicilous decisions like "one store, we will review code, no multi tasking, no background running for you!".

If they had such luxuries, Android would release with a comical EULA like iPhone. They miss "apple apologists" feature :)

Even J2ME phones started to multitask, e.g. Sony Ericsson sub $100 ones.