Chapter 1. Getting to Know Android
Why Android?
Google’s Android mobile phone software platform may be the next big opportunity for application software developers.
Google announced the Open Handset Alliance and the Android platform in November of 2007, releasing the first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) at the same time. Within a matter of a few months, over 1 million people had downloaded versions of the SDK from Google’s website. In the United States, T-Mobile announced the G1 Android mobile phone in October of 2008, and estimates are that several hundred thousand G1s were sold before the end of that year. There are already several competing mobile phone software stacks in the market, so why is there such interest in Android?
Android has the potential for removing the barriers to success in the development and sale of a new generation of mobile phone application software. Just as the the standardized PC and Macintosh platforms created markets for desktop and server software, Android, by providing a standard mobile phone application environment, will create a market for mobile applications—and the opportunity for applications developers to profit from those applications.
Why hasn’t it been profitable to develop mobile applications for smartphones until now? And what are the problems that Android alleviates?
- Fragmentation
About 70 million smartphones were sold in 2007, so there are a lot of phones available to run applications, but each brand has a different ...
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