• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Is there an Android in Your future?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Android is coming! It's a next generation powerful operating system Google has engineered for your handset. The goals are ambitious! They are betting on this to extend their presence in the massive mobile phone/device market. It even has it's own physical design (not by Google) "Gphone", as it has been labeled by others! It will be customizable for different companies, so that a Yahoo or your particular phone company version, for example, will be available. Otherwise it is built to be very Google-Centric. The main thing they want to do is feed us ads! However, if ease of use means anything, they might have a winner.

The Android software is the result of a loosely established broad cooperative effort, the "Open Handset Alliance" to make the mobile handset experience, really, really easy to use but rich in multifunctional capability. This whole project is lead by Google to improve the internet experience with your new the mobile phone (available later this year). They want to banish the bad user experience of sluggishness and complexity of menus.

"According to research by Google, people who own an iPhone – widely regarded as having one of the best web browsers of any phone – are 50 times more likely to access the internet on their phone than those who own other devices.

"It's been made so that, with very few exceptions, you need only three keys to operate it: 'select', 'up/down/left/right' and 'back'. All the rest is intuitive. A picture of the globe is the internet. (Microsoft could count this as a little victory - the icon is nearly identical to Internet Explorer.) A musical note is the music player. An envelope is mail.

The first thing that you notice is how fast it moves. The clunkiness of even some of the faster phones is gone - a sign of the efficiency of the operating system which Google has helped to design." Source.

“The phantom walking the corridors here is definitely Steve Jobs [Apple’s chief executive],” said Vic Gundotra, a vice president of engineering at Google who heads up the company’s mobile strategy. “As the bar is raised for mobile web browsers, more people will be using the internet on their phones, and that will be good for everybody.” source

Google has been hard at work extending it's iPhone advantage to other phones and has its own improved mobile handset on it's way. Meanwhile, here's the present.

android_new.jpg


Engadget shows the new SDK Gallery with an improved and expanded interface/functionality

here .

So how might this effect you? What software is on your wish list?

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
My take on this new open source software.

My take on this new open source software. Since this is open source, I can see this interface being used as a link in the rapidly developing capability to transmit images. As this increases in power, reporters may be using specialized camera versions or links to their DSLRs for news photography or fashion shoot to Art director approvals or even internet based physician follow up.

It could be that this new software will be the major innovation that will herald truly seamless connection of all our distant resources wherever we are located.

Imagine materials in clothes with nano sensors monitoring patients, instant printing of sports photos at events, geo-location, live driving directions, number plate registration check and accident reporting, pregnancy and diabetes testing, as well as stock trades all from one device.

Well everything but the medical monitoring and the official accident reporting will be yours to have later this year. I'm sure that image transmission will be ported to this system at the onset or soon afterwards.

Is your interest sparked yet? If so, how might you improve your own workflow with Android?

Asher
 
Top