Android in Beta

So, obviously from my last post I'm excited about Android. They released the .9 sdk in Beta last week and since then, this thread follows a gentleman working on getting it ported to the HTC Vogue (aka Sprint Touch).

That being said, I have an HTC Vogue. And since Android is still running on top of Linux, I decided to run Beta.

I'm not sure I'd call this version 'Beta'. Unless you're only talking about the OS and not the functionality on a phone since you can't actually make a phone call or write a text. But I'll tell you, they sure got the browser and google maps right. No surprise there. And they've conveniently bookmarked Facebook, Myspace, Ebay, NYTimes and CNN for you. (I'm presently attempting to logout of Facebook. It seems the WM settings for timing out are still on and as I wait for the browser to refresh, the phone goes to sleep... making a minor mess of the situation. But no worries. It worked. And newyorkcraigslist.org is now in my bookmarks *phew*.)

Writing an OS, no doubt, is hard work. I completely get it. I am using the most un-intuitive OS imaginable--Windows Mobile 6.0 (proof: I found the option that lets you set the only screensaver for the phone (a slideshow of your photos as screensaver) under the *settings* for a photo... of course). I'm not a programmer. But I'd gather even for the programmers, it's, perhaps, harder than Google anticipated. Although it would be dandy if the HTC Dream running Android came out in September (won't happen, not with this release as beta) or even January. But I can't imagine it will. And if it does, it'll be pretty bare-bones. But cool none-the-less.

I do want to note a caveat:

The beauty of Open Source and Google's initiatives is that they've created a completely transparent environment around the OS. We, the plebeians, know about all that will be given to us. We know what programs are going to be out and are in development. A luddite as myself can even run the SDK! Hell, I just checked my Facebook page using Android. Much cooler than Windows Mo(re)bile. This makes for easy critics (as hopefully I am not becoming).

I can't wait. WM 6.0 is nearly killing me. I can't upgrade to 6.1 (which will make use of that GPS in my phone *sigh*) because I'm on a mac and refuse to get Windows XP... what a waste of hard drive space.

All of this said, I have a new found respect for the folks over at 1 Infinite Loop. I know, after all I said about them in my last post. They've put together one strong operating system in that iPhone. Of course, their endeavor is not as big as Google's, but still... running a Windows Mo-bile phone leaves me lusting for something better... more intuitive.

So there you have it. 12 hrs with Android and them's my thoughts.

I Have Android

Yes. I have Android. Working. It is fast. It is intuitive. It will be a contender.

Welcome to two-thousand and eight. And welcome, Google. In our age of global mobile markets where citizens of Zambia have no access to running water (as per a conversation I had w/ my neighbor on a flight who was coming back from a PeaceCorp gig there) but have plenty of cell phones. In this market, in this day and age, somebody's bound to do something radical. No, our planet can't sustain this electronics boom. But the people need it. So we must sacrifice, I dare say. I'm sure it'll be fine, though, since they just found ice on Mars. We'll be fine, little future generation. Just fine. (I'm being facetious, my friends).

But anyway, back to Android....

I am a long-time Mac user. My first computer when I entered college was a Color Classic. I'm sure that's because back then the Drexel University department of Arts and Sciences required you to purchase a Macintosh and the Color Classic was the cheapest. My father was not impressed with the Mac and was incredibly reluctant. But he gave in; he had no choice. And I was sold at 17 on the operating system of the future. The underdog and cool-kids OS. When my buddy graduated the next year (a computer scientist who had coded his whole undergraduate academic career on Sun's Unix using a Mac) and went off to work at 1 Infinite Loop, he would recount a story (this was 1994) that Microsoft had regular mandatory drug screening, Motorola had occasional drug screenings and Apple had mandatory drug use. It's true, the place was awesome. No suits and ties there. It was an environment to create. Completely radical and relaxed.

My buddy only worked there for a few years. Upon the return of Steve Jobs, he found himself with a PC and his own business. Such is the way, I guess...

Now here we are 12 years later (and that, to me, sounds like too long of a time) with Google sounding the horns of revolution. I am suddenly feeling the constraints of the closed capital driven world. I bought Leopard for my 2-year old MacBook Pro... and it was useless to me. It crashed my most used programs. And really, I am sick of buying a new operating system every 2 years. Granted, it did take me a few years to transition to OSX... and granted now I am typing from Leopard, finally... But I am sick of the non-backwards compatibility. Open source has always had a fierce and solid growing group of supporters. And I like to have the power in my own hands. Linux, after all, is the operating system of government choice in Europe (read this first and this second).

But now Google is on board the Open Source wagon, the completely free and completely open wave. And for the hottest market of the future: the mobile phone. So what does this mean? Well, we have Palm. I used to have a Palm Treo 600. I loved it. I loved mostly that I could write with a stylus very similar to how I write with a pen... and that made my note-taking very efficient. I wanted my Palm device to replace the old pen-to-paper-to-memory workflow that didn't always seem to work for me. Okay, then we have RIM (Research In Motion: Blackberry)--they have cornered the market of business. I, myself, was sold. I bought a Blackberry Pearl for my girlfriend. She loves it. And, of course, we have the sexy and popular iPhone. The iPhone in NYC has come to mean you belong to a certain 'class', let's say. A class of hip, artsy, urban, professionals that are in tune with culture (well, really not culture but trends). I see guys walking into the Meineke with their fancy shades, flip flops, Deisel jeans and iPhones on their $100 belts (sure, this just about sums up the guys in most of Brooklyn). Needless to say with the 3G and the enterprise, iPhone wants the RIM market. Not sure if they'll succeed. I've already heard of one professional who went from Blackberry to iPhone back to Blackberry in the course of 2 weeks.

But me? Why am I on so long about all of this? Because something happened to me 10 years ago when my Color Classic was stolen and I had to buy a PC. I was able to swap out components left and right (of course mostly because they were failing and it was out of warranty...) When I went back to the Mac shortly thereafter (I still have that G4... it has an upgraded CPU, video card (thanks Tony Hawk) and sound card) I started to feel just a tad limited by it's lack of upgradibility. I've become more and more disenchanted by the Mac since. Perhaps it was also from the year I spent writing my MFA thesis at the Linux Caffe in Toronto that my eyes opened wider. (Their site if you click on it is powered by Drupal, of course). I still ended up with another Mac because I like it better than Dell or Toshiba. And it is a good machine... for now.

However, for my next phone I did some research. I'd heard about the 'Google Phone' (i.e. Android) and I liked what I was reading. It's an all open, all free operating system. With probably the world's largest internet anything backing it--it is sure to be a tightly coded system. But it doesn't just work on any phone as yet. It's being fiercely developed for certain phones--namely those that will compete with the biggies. Well, and I am a New Yorker after all, and I am not immune to the sex-appeal: I really wanted an iPhone-like experience. So I went out and bought (since I'm on Sprint) the HTC Touch... or the HTC Vogue as it's officially called in the coding world... to run the revolution on.

AND I WAS RIGHT! I mean, this thing is still in developement and runs on the back of Linux... but it is quick, efficient--and fearsomely intuitive. The Touch is smaller than the iPhone (like that a lot) which also means that you don't have a wide touch keypad... and with Windows Mobile 6 (which the thing ships with...) you can barely write an email without it missing your input (I'm particularly sick of hitting the 'bn' key and it inputting a 'space' grrrrr). It's just not intuitive. Google has created a touch screen keypad that is smaller than the proprietary Touch keypad and is more intuitive. It's a full keypad (so no two-touch deal here) and I can input with my thumbs. Now that is nice. Probability and predictive algorithms are mighty. And Google can definitely harness that power. And let's talk about internet. How about Google Maps on your phone? Complete with traffic and satellite? So fast. So simple. So nice.

So here I am today... I am on the eve of running a dual-boot Leopard/Ubuntu MacBook Pro with a phone that runs Android.

This is definitely the wave of the future.

A big Android thanks to the folks at My HTC Phone for making it blissfully simple to download and launch Android. It may even be their keypad I'm raving about.