WHY I WON'T BE BUYING THE ANDROID T-MOBILE G1 PHONE
After getting interested in Android after Mike Jennings talk, weeks of coding on AndAppStore.com, reading up on APIs, watching and getting involved with discussions on the Android developers and discussion mailing lists, and following various Android community sites to see if the G1 was the start of the Android revolution, I’ve decided that, for now, I’m not going to get an Android ‘phone, and here are the reasons why; The T-Mobile Deal (phone & contract)
FIRST ANDROID SECURITY FLAW TO BE PUBLICLY REPORTED...
The New York times is reporting a security flaw in the G1, and to me it’s confirmation that Google left opening up the source to public far too late by doing it the day before users could go out and buy hardware with it installed. If the source code had been available a few months (or even weeks) ago there would have been time for the collective eyeballs of the development community to take a look for problems like the reported one (which was found after a few days) and fix them before the device reached the hands of consumers.
EXPECT TO PAY WHEN YOU SETUP YOUR PITCH IN GOOGLES MARKETPLACE
If you want to have your application listed in Androids Marketplace the first thing you have to do is pay them $25. That’s right, even if you’re developing a free application for their open platform to list on their “user-driven” marketplace, it’s going to cost you a $25 entry fee. Do you have an app you’d like to to sell?, well, if you make a sale via the Marketplace, that’ll be another 30% (yes, thirty percent) of your sales going to them.
ANDROID; THE NOT-SO-OPEN OPEN PLATFORM
If you’ve taken an interest in Googles Android platform before you’ll be familiar with phrases such as “Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices” from when the Android and Open Handset Alliance initiative was started, and if you’ve attended talks by some of the Evangelists you’ll have been told that you can replace any part of the ‘phones software, but, this morning, it would appear that you won’t be on a level playing field.
SAME SCAM... DIFFERENT AUDIENCE
I’ve recently been subscribed to the development and discussion mailing lists for Googles Android platform due to working on AndAppStore.com and recently an email posting caught my eye because it reminded me of a scam that I thought had long since passed. The scam works like this; A person or company comes along and says “Hey, you’re really talented, I’d love to sign you up so I can offer you some great projects to work on, and, of course, and you’ll get a share of the profits”, which is indeed a good offer.
INTERVIEW WITH ANDROID GUYS
The folks over at AndroidGuys have been kind enough to publish an interview with me which covers some plans for AndAppStore and how I’d like to see the Android ecosystem develop.
WHERE GOOGLES ANDROID MAY HAVE ALREADY FAILED
(Declaration of interest; I’m involved in AndAppStore.com which allows Android Applications developers to list Android applications and users to download them) Imagine this; You have a product you want to make available worldwide, but you need the help of others to make it popular. You start a worldwide PR campaign, you make a mock-up available so people become familiar with your product, you run a worldwide competition for people to come up with uses for your product, and then you announce launch dates in one country for one date, another for a month later, a few more next year, and, well everyone else, you’ll have to wait and see what happens.
UNBOXING THE PLAYSTATION 3 PLAYTV
[For those that are interested there are some photos of unboxing the PlayTV here ] The PlayTV arrived today, and what can I say….. it’s nice, but it’s got quite a big design problem; it has no aerial out socket. Most TV devices have an aerial in and aerial out for the simple reason that it allows you to continue using your TVs functions because you can chain the new device into your aerial feed (i.
GOOGLE ANDROID AND CODE SIGNING APP SHOPS
After listening to Mike Jennings excellent intro to Android presentation at the London Dev Day I floated an idea which seemed to have some traction so I thought I’d expand it out for those that are interested. The Problem There is currently no way for a user to judge how trustworthy an Android application is. A user can say what they will allow an application to do (such as dialling out, intercepting SMSs', etc.
AN UPDATE ON THE NEW HOUSE
For those of you wondering how things have been progressing with the Crest Nicholson house my wife and I bought a few months ago, well here’s a quick update; We’ve just been asked for a 6 month snagging list, we’ve identified over 40 problems and we’re still going. The roof still needs repainting after the paintwork started flaking off before we moved in (the painting contractor did do a patching up job, but the paint started flaking again).