Google Android Killed The Wap Star

[BuffaloHelp 24]

It's the parody from the song "Video Killed The Radio Star."

I am not too fond of Google. I admit that I am still fighting the influence that Google has over the Internet as we know it. But once in a while Google amazes me. And in a good way, too.

Android. The new baby project from Google. This is the hype that Google's been receiving about their "G-Phone." As you can see in this link https://developers.google.com/android/?csw=1 there is no such thing as G-Phone. However, with the new project called "Android" would make the future cellular or mobile phones to become like G-Phones.

Android is a new platform designed to work especially with mobile devices. A new open source operating system that will benefit mobile devices, first, and perhaps to all portable devices. The impressive feature about this Android is the integration of touch and manipulate navigation movement much like the iPhone.

As you view the video pay special attention to Google Earth programming in the mobile device. The navigation is the exact same movement known to iPhone. This makes me wonder if Google's Android is willing to pay out royalty to Apple. If so, how would this benefit everyone when Google is claiming that it's a free and open source that everyone can build using SDK?

Apple filed copyrights to all iPhone features including the hand manipulating navigation system. This means, once approved, no other device can utilize "touch and drag" or "touch and scroll" without Apple's consent. And knowing Apple, it doesn't come cheap! I would imagine huge numbers to be paid out to Apple for sharing or using the patented features on all non-Apple devices.

But let's talk about more positive issue. And as I started this topic by saying, "Android killed the WAP star." WAP, as we all know, has been popular but hard to manage and maintain. It required very specific codes to work only for specific mobile devices i.e. JAVA enabled or J2SE capable device. Google's Android will not be requiring special Web codings to be displayed correctly. Android will understand the regular HTML and all standard HTML markups and render any webpage as we see them on our desktops. And in fact, the video by Google stresses this fact several times.

Oh thank god, I thought to myself. Finally! People with some common sense! WAP always annoyed me because after all, internet was suppose to bring people to a common ground. But this WAP had it's own form of coding which separated, in my opinion, internet community. You had to have some special ways of viewing special WAP sites, otherwise you had to code WAP pages with circumstances for different devices... ARRRGH!!!

Android is going to unify how HTML is delivered and viewed by all of us, whether it's on a mobile device with 320x240 resolution, a personal computer with 1280X800 or who knows a holographic retina projector with eye movement tracking technology (oh by the way, this technology doesn't exist yet )

I can't wait until the day one of these devices lands on my hand. I can't wait until the day a PDA with a screen resolution of 640x480, thickness less than 0.5 inch, navigation style of iPhone and wireless connection that can stay in touch with internet wherever I go. Because I am definitely getting tired of lugging my laptop around!

[Galahad 0]

I'm in the process of downloading Android SDK, and I'm going to participate in a Google contest for best applications for their Android... Haven't seen it yet, but I figure it will be programmed using Java, as it requires JDK 5 or JDK 6, from Sun...I on the other hand, just love Google, all their inovative services... I have a cousin "serving" internship in Google, in Norway... The stories I heard... Amazing... That's where I want to work... I loved Google before he went to work there, I love it now, and I'll probably love it in the future...Oh, and I just want to digress on the note that Apple will hold the copyright on touch and drag, and touch and scroll.. I seriousely doubt they can get copyright on that, since it's been there before iPhone... Starting with touchscreens for PC's, and so on... Motorola phones have had touch and scroll option on their touchscreen models... Maybe they'll have exclusive right to this tech inside US, but the whole world? No way... What other way is there to drag something on a touchscreen? Or to scroll something on a touch screen?

Edited November 29, 2007 by Galahad (see edit history)