Motorola Introduces Android Phones, Social Software 195
ruphus13 was among the readers sending word of Motorola's Android handsets yesterday, along with a "socially aware" application layer called MotoBlur. The Motorola Cliq is expected in a few weeks. T-Mobile is Motorola's carrier partner in the US. A second Android phone will be marketed in other countries under the name Dext. Reuters called the market's reaction to Motorola's announcement "muted." "Dr. Sanjay K. Jha, Co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of the company's Mobile Devices division, unveiled Motorola's Android platform play. ... Key to both of the phones, and key to Motorola's overall Android strategy, is a new interface and application layer called MotoBlur. It's focused on 'a single stream' for social networking features, software updates, messages, syncing, e-mails, videos, photos... The Cliq phone has a 5-megapixel camera, slide-out keyboard, 24 frame-per-second video capabilities, GPS, a headphone jack, an advanced browser from Google, integrated Exchange service, and Google roaming services including Google voice search, access to maps, Google calendar, and more. It also provides one-click access to Android Market and the thousands of Android applications there."
Re:Get these on Verizon!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Say what? There's already one coming: (gizmodo link) [gizmodo.com] in a month [androidandme.com].
Open handset alliance has members of basically every phone provider, so don't think that a singular google phone will, nor will have to, take over the iphone. They'll simply have one to fit every person's preference, unlike the iphone.
Re:Motorola's great return? (Score:3, Informative)
But at the same time, why bother with Dalvik
They are not all targeting the same chips or even CPU.
Android now runs on or is in the process of running on X86 and MIPS. Additionally, alternate ARM-variants (non-Qualcomm CPUs) are also in use for Android phones and devices. With the release of the Android Native Development Kit [android.com], you can officially target specific CPUs with native code but it creates additional work and headaches for developers. Not to mention, when the market is upgraded to become NDK aware, applications which use the NDK will only show for those CPUs which are supported. That in turn requires per-CPU releases rather than a single package for all variants. That of course has both its pros and cons.
Ultimately, the NDK is still limited in what it supports. Of course, developers are free to jump the NDK-fence, but that means almost certain application breakage as new Android releases are made available to users. Of course, to some small degree that's true for Dalvik code too - contrary to what Google officially states.
Re:Muted reaction (Score:3, Informative)
I must admit I expected a flamed response. Thanks for the surprise.
Keep an eye out for the Galaxy or the Shules (or was it the other upcoming Moto phone). Both are reported to have some nice specs. There are a couple of other models which have been leaked which blow the iPhone's specs out of the water. IIRC, HTC is soon to have a higher end Qualcomm offering too. By year end, world wide, there should be plenty of Android offers which easily excels way past any Apple offering, from a hardware perspective.
Re:Motorola's great return? - Not likely... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Muted reaction (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, I hope the myTouch is a big improvement over the G1. I've never played with a myTouch (there have to be jokes to make over that sentence). The bigger screen and lack of a keyboard are features I want. Also, the battery is slightly bigger, but still only a pathetic portion of the total volume compared to an iPhone. I would consider upgrading, but when I found it didn't have a freaking headphone jack, I just couldn't. I'll never again make the mistake of buying a phone without one.
Anyway, since you asked, I had one of the earliest G1s. Before that, I had an iPhone. So, in comparison to the iPhone (which isn't really fair, it's like comparing to a Ferrari) here's what sucks:
- No headphone jack. Are you kidding me? How incredibly stupid do the HTC people have to be to keep this super-important feature off the new myTouch?
- The speaker is too quiet. I had this problem with my original iPhone, too. Crud gets in that speaker slot, and you can't hear a conversation in any noisy environment.
- While the phone is as big as an iPhone, the battery is about 1/3 the size.
- While the phone is as big as an iPhone, the screen is only 2.5", compared to 3.5" for the iPhone. Size matters.
- I prefer a slim design without a slide-out keyboard. I know this is a religious war, but it's fixed for me in the myTouch.
- The whole phone is built out of plastic. I pay too much for this phone to get a cheap feeling PoS.
- The camera in my phone sucks big-time. Even in the small screen, images appear clear in the middle, but faded on the edges, and the colour sucks, and I'm colour blind!
- My 1st generation iPhone had 8 gig of flash. My G1 had 0. I had to pay $$ for the micro-sd card. Micro-sd is both expensive, and lacks high-capacity cards.
- The iPhone has all kinds of cool peripherals, like the stereo we bought for our iPods, and my car, which has an iPhone plug. This isn't really a problem with the G1, but let's face it... Apple is leveraginig their lead.
All and all, the G1 is the third best phone I've owned, given the technology at the time. My old razr was awesome, but I wanted to kill people at Verison for charging me to use my own camera. My iPhone was just awesome, until freaking Apple borked it. All in all, though I'm whining a lot, I've had more satisfaction from my lame G1 than any other phone.