Quel surprise: Google’s Android will be delayed. It looks like Google and their hefty consortium of partners are struggling a little with getting a new mobile OS deployed across a wide array of hardware connected to all sorts of different networks. Who coulda predicted it? (Yeah, okay, basic high school chaos theory, given complexity growth and propensity for system break down and all, but other than that…)
Originally slated for second half 2008, its now looking more like fourth quarter, if not 2009. Seems like the T-Mobile launch is so Google-tention intensive, it’s pushing Sprint’s launch further back. Also — wait for it — Sprint doesn’t want to just deploy a clean Android build, they want to wall it off brand it up all personal like (couldn’t see that one coming?). Meanwhile, mega-carrier China Mobile is “running into issues” pushing its launch back as well.
To top it off, Android is more challenging to develop for, which is also a startling revelation, given the alpha/beta status of the SDK. Hitting deadlines is one thing. Hitting them through an asteroid storm of OS changes is another entirely.
Not to beat a dead horse, but all these problems were wicked obvious going back to launch day. In fact, Fake Steve satire’d it up brilliantly from the get go, and Daring Fireball sums it up nicely now.
Keep reading after the break to find out how this effects the iPhone…
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Posted on Saturday, May 31, 2008 by Rene Ritchie
Tags: android, Google, Microsoft, palm, rim, samsung, this-week-in-smartphone-schadenfreude, windows 7, windows mobile
File Under:This Week in Shadenfreude
Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!
In this week’s edition: Windows Se7en, Great Googley Android, India’s circling the RIM, the Treo 800w guest commentary, and no other news on Safari for Samsung…
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Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the first ever live demo of Google’s new Android platform… and it’s on the iPhone!
[Er... That's the HTC Dream.]
What? Sigh. Okay.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s a proof of concept. Maybe it’s because of the Diamond. Maybe it’s just a hormone thing. But does all the innovation have to lead back to Cupertino these days? Does it?
So, another week, another iClone, and more specifically another HTC iClone. (At least they’re giving RIM a run for their Bold, Thunder, Storm money for the official iClone volume title…)
Still, it’s nice to see Android. As I mentioned in the Top 5 Things the iPhone Could Learn From the Competition, the cloud looks to be the future, and Google currently owns the cloud. Never mind their CEO is on Apple’s board of directors (he reportedly recuses himself from iPhone discussions to avoid a conflict of interest), the industry needs the drive Google can provide, even if they wrap it up in a horribly derivative package for now.
Check out the video after after the break!
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Just when you thought it was safe to switch to WinMob of Misfortune, iPhone JEOPARDY is back with a bonus round!
Joining us via lifeline is Google Android, first among Linux vaporOS’s (sorry Nova, Access, and OpenMoko!) and fresh from CEO Eric Schmidst’s latest iPhone briefing at Apple’s Board of Directors meeting, we give you the suddenly chatty group manager for mobile platforms, Rich Miner:
“There’s a much larger potential market on Android than for the iPhone. There are things I saw people doing with the first version of the Android SDK that it seems like you can’t do with the iPhone at least at the moment.”
Then, as if catching the Shining-like glare in Daddy Jobs’ eyes, he quickly added:
“[If I were a developer] I’d certainly be looking at the iPhone, and if you believe there will be lots of Android phones out there, as we do, I’d be developing for both platforms.”
Now, for those of you just joining us, remember that Google’s core business is advertising (no, not search, that just pulls the ad revenue), not OS development.Few companies can be good at more than one thing, and Apple is traditionally very good at hardware and software (and wisely leaves Google and Yahoo to do the heavy services lifting on iPhone). Google hasn’t managed to monetize everything in it’s vast repertoire yet, much as Microsoft is struggling to grow outside of Windows and Office.
If Google plans on hitting WinMob standard and Symbian on the low-end and leaving Apple to duke it out with WinMob premium and Blackberry on the high, maybe Miner is making the kind of sense that does. However, if Eric Schmidt is the fox in Apple’s development henhouse and (bigger and), Google can ship a working OS sometime this decade, things could get interesting.
I hate to say I told you so… ok, that’s a lie. I love to say I told you so. Google has an iPhone fixation, as Macworld made clear. The latest piece of evidence for their love affair is this NYTimes blog entry, where Google co-president Sergey Brin waxes ecstatic about the Google Maps feature on the iPhone.
Also interesting that that Google CEO Eric Schmidt also chimes in on the potentially awkward fact that Google is developing their own (competing) smartphone operating system. Schmidt’s take - they’ll profit on the iPhone even after Android comes out by way of online ads. They should, too, since the iPhone hits the web more than any other smartphone out there today.
It looks like those crazy analysts who said that Android wasn’t a threat to the iPhone may have been right.
One of the most interesting stories at Macworld hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in the larger press - namely that Google was around at Macworld a lot more than most people realize. It’s not just that they have a medium-sized booth featuring both their Mac products and new iPhone-compatible web offerings. No, the real story about Google at Macworld is that it’s very clear that Google has the iPhone on their collective mind in a big, big way.
Google’s services will continue to be great on the iPhone even after their Android OS hits the market. Read on to find out why!
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Google has announced Android, an open source Linux operating system designed to be very customizable by programmers. This isn’t the GPhone, the long-rumored Google Phone. Google is not making any of the actual phones, just the software. Android joins the ranks of myriad Linux development attempts: the new pro-sumer Palm OS, Access Linux Platform, Trolltech’s QTopia, OpenMoko, and others in Asia that are unknown to me.
I don’t know if this one will be more successful than the others, and they haven’t announced what it looks like, or what it will do. They just announced the software license and that it exists, or that it should in late 2008… but expect a bunch of publicity all over the place anyway. What I do know is that this effort will have a lot of money behind it.
