What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
Take Advantage of Ridiculously Low Holiday Airfares view!
travelzoo.com - Flights $52 and up for Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. But move on it now.
168 Comments
- whereisian, on 06/02/2008, -6/+123I'm starting to get really excited by this project. Open platform with hobbyists building new features in?
I can't wait until I can get a *cheap* phone with a build in ssh client, or can act as a media extender, or remote control for my mythtv, or can have a proper browser, or gps mapping device, or be my kitchen stereo.
My Nokia 770 showed me the possibilities, but they never seemed to take Maemo that seriously. This has way more potential.
I'm mostly excited by what nobody has thought of yet. The open source community never ceases to amaze me with their ingenuity. People are going to do some wild things with this. - inactive, on 06/03/2008, -8/+100Nice, so you mean we can have decent apps on our phones! , thats why i like google more than apple .
- speakafreaka, on 06/03/2008, -2/+55Apple opening up.
riiiight - loconet, on 06/03/2008, -2/+49Someone seems to get the idea.
A platform where I don't have to "apply" and "pay" to develop? A platform that will let me use _my_ phone the way I want? You mean I can install and write whatever I want for it.. no need to use your "approved" tools? I can discuss technical aspects of it without being persecuted like a criminal? No draconian NDAs to sign? A platform where it doesn't matter if the applications I run are not aligned with the manufacturer's business needs? You mean, us developers will have the freedom to innovate and create cool apps without having to ask the parent company for permission?
Back in the 80s the control machine that was/is Apple was left out of the party that was the PC success for very similar reasons. It seems like history is repeating itself and Apple has not learned from its mistakes. - Dylson, on 06/03/2008, -7/+35PRAISE GOOGLE!
- Mohdoo, on 06/03/2008, -8/+34Google is my all time favorite company.
- invectivelover, on 06/03/2008, -2/+24Prepare to jump.
- Phocion55, on 06/03/2008, -2/+21The regular user won't notice the "open source" part. They'll only notice the enormous list of useful applications they can choose from.
- WiseWeasel, on 06/03/2008, -8/+23Sweet, the only questions remaining are whether the carriers and handset manufacturers will give the end user access to the root account on the phone, and if there is full filesystem access over USB. If so, I might just have to jump ship from the iPhone unless Apple opens up.
- T8erT0T, on 06/03/2008, -4/+18Even though this won't climb to the "iphone craze" status of phones. I believe great things will be done by talented, passionate, people to give this thing some awesome functionality when it comes out. I would definitely get this in a heartbeat.
- inactive, on 06/03/2008, -3/+16The choice of the Apache license is a bad decision, what will happen is a number of carriers will take the Android platform and lock it down on their devices. I am not familar with other countries carriers, however here in Japan the mobile phones are locked down so they can generate other revenue sources by charging for 3rd party applications. Android as cool as it is, will be a repeat of the Tivoisation problem due to googles bad choice of license. Forget the flames saying I am wrong, as time will prove this to be the case.
- acegi, on 06/03/2008, -1/+12google should develop an open source OS.
i'd jump onto that in a heartbeat - meghalc, on 06/03/2008, -1/+12Oh they will...They already done it with Windows mobile HTC phones. APPLE is not that special, it will happy! That would be awsome, Android OS with Apple hardware! I love it.
Oh btw, Stop your bitching Apple Fanboys! This is a good thing for us! Think of US not the big corporations trying to control everything you do. - clickwir, on 06/03/2008, -0/+10Oh no, you are correct. They do that here too in the US. They take something that tons of people are looking forward to, and screw it up. Either by accident or on purpose.
- RamsesII, on 06/03/2008, -0/+10I'm pretty sure pissing off digg users with spam isn't gonna help your candidate.
- Mrdudeperson, on 06/03/2008, -3/+13The android phone coming to T-Mobile better be touch screen or I might have to go HD DVD on someones ass.
- gregmo, on 06/03/2008, -2/+12I think what will be most interesting is to see how handset companies react. I hope that enough people use and develop android to the point that every phone can have the option of choosing an OS. This makes android so much more desirable.
- srg13, on 06/03/2008, -0/+9Dugg down, reported, blocked.
This story has nothing at all to do with politics, and nobody cares about your opinion anyway - iofthestorm, on 06/03/2008, -0/+9Err, what the hell?
- twoboxen, on 06/03/2008, -2/+10it took more time to write your question than it would have to read the first paragraph or two of the article.... people never cease to amaze.
- stockjones, on 06/03/2008, -1/+9Wow Android will have a huge developer community and lots of add on's
- supermanred, on 06/03/2008, -3/+11I have a hundred apps on my iPhone, using installer.app and in June it gets opened up and Apple is launching the App Store, where publishers can put their app for any price, including free.
I dont mind giving app developers a buck or two, it really does help them make better apps if you know, they can pay their bills at the end of the month. - whereisian, on 06/03/2008, -1/+8There is no way to keep them out. The source is open. You will have root. Woot
- TheRealToma, on 06/03/2008, -1/+8Not all the components in Maemo are open source. I think some of the drivers are locked down... they also put a watchdog process in it that makes certain that youre running maemo on boot, rather than any other environment.
- swanny89, on 06/03/2008, -0/+7Android is a phone operating system, not a phone. Meaning that enterprising developers will probably find a way to put this on every smartphone capable of running it.
- WhereAmI, on 06/03/2008, -1/+8You're better off yelling on the streets than to Digg, because no one gives a ***** about you're opinion on the internet.
- willfe, on 06/03/2008, -3/+9"Where have I seen this before" ... nowhere. Microsoft (the company you're errantly comparing them to) uses the "embrace and extend" technique, with closed-source products and incompletely-documented protocols and "secret calls" only they know about, that mysteriously stop working once enough users are "hooked" on their version of the implementation (the "extinguish" part of their "embrace and extend" methodology). They've give away compilers and development environments ... that only work on their platform and only produce binaries that run on their platform. No source code, so you can't fix either one or solve problems (or remote limitations). No source code for the OS. No source code for the development tools. No source code for the core libraries.
If Android is open sourced with a suitable license, it can be developed and used outside Google's reach should they decide to turn evil. And Google doesn't have much of a monopoly in the OS, cellular network, mobile phone, or even application development industries. They're likely to stick their own advertising on the resulting platform, but 1) we'll be able to change/disable it, and 2) if it's actually disruptive in an antitrust way, I'm sure the DoJ will step in with their impotent efforts to stop it. Note the DoJ was absolutely helpless in punishing Microsoft for what it did. The market did their job for them, though -- genuinely better products from other people (companies, volunteers, non-profits, etc.) emerged that have (and still are) crushing them, and their own efforts to "innovate" have resulted in the yawn called "Vista." - inactive, on 06/03/2008, -1/+7Excellent! That is the way it should be.
- Derferman, on 06/03/2008, -0/+6Sorry to burst your bubble, but submitting apps to the iPhone store requires an annual fee of $99. Not much considering all that Apple does for you, but it is still a price.
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/ - twoboxen, on 06/03/2008, -1/+7what the hell??....
- jgtg32a, on 06/03/2008, -0/+6Ok
- ThatGeek, on 06/03/2008, -1/+7go back to your bridge plz
- supermanred, on 06/03/2008, -2/+8My iPhone is jailbroken, and people will often tell me they have the same features on their phone, thats usually where I say something like "Really? Yours plays music too, go ahead play a song for me..." 30 seconds later they are still waiting for their music app to launch.
Hopefully the Android phones wont be as bug filled as some of the apps on the jailbroken iPhone, Ive had to uninstall quite a few that cocked up the phone real good. Can't wait until Apple is controlling the App store and helping developers write good code (which is something they do and often)... - tnoy, on 06/03/2008, -2/+8"Except where noted, everything will use the Apache software license (ASL v2)."
- supermanred, on 06/03/2008, -1/+6You obviously don't own an iPhone. "demolishes the ability to actually get things done" are you kidding me?
The virtual buttons on my iPhone are twice as big as the actual buttons on a blackberry, yet somehow blackberry users (the millions and millions of blackberry users) still manage to run corporations and get things done.
I too, with virtual buttons twice the size get things done. And my screen, when I need to use the whole thing to play a video or play Super Mario Brothers when im bored is twice as big as any celphone I've ever seen.
Seriously, don't make claims about something you know nothing about. This is a comment section, not a toilet to ***** into. - whereisian, on 06/03/2008, -0/+5The best security is open security. When you have the whole world scrutinizing the lock, the lock is better.
- Kral, on 06/03/2008, -1/+6I think this announcement is Google effectively trying to pass the buck for their Android platform turning into the next "Java phone", saying that their stack is 100% open so it's no fault of theirs that carriers lock it down to prevent us writing code against the native hardware.
I have no interest in another "Java phone" type platform. - Ratatosk, on 06/03/2008, -0/+5well of course: one carrier can lock it... but then nobody is gonna buy it... Imagine you have carrier A, B and C. A and B are locked, C is open. Which phones would sell more? Yeah, I think you got it...
- jgtg32a, on 06/03/2008, -1/+6Nope
- supermanred, on 06/03/2008, -1/+6No one company, person or entity should ever take over the world. Live free or die.
- DaDiggydiggyDOC, on 06/03/2008, -1/+5This is a good thing and it's not just for android, but for all cell phone users in general since the creation of new "useful" apps will help push the usefulness of cell phone tech overall. Just like the iphone might not be your cup of tea, but it helps to open the eyes of dev's in what it is that people want and helps drive tech forward much faster. The good thing is that even though we will get flooded with crap apps too, the good ones will rise to the top pretty quickly. Plus I like that instead of hating a certain feature I or someone else can change, update, or just create a new or more useful app to replace it instead of having to wait for the cell phone company to release another useless or broken app.
- Kragnerac, on 06/03/2008, -1/+5Oh please.
- whereisian, on 06/03/2008, -0/+4Excellent point. Not one I had considered. As you said, time will tell.
However, they are starting from an well know open source. If people are as effective at reverse engineering their way into the iPhone, it should be a whole lot easier to do that on a known system. - known, on 06/03/2008, -2/+6Thank you Google.
Open Source Software promotes Competition.
Closed Source Software promotes Collusion. - celkin, on 06/03/2008, -1/+51/0
- RebeL5K, on 06/03/2008, -1/+5As per the iPhone comparison, that is because people place far more emphasis on "cool" than what a device can actually do.
- P5ycHo, on 06/03/2008, -1/+5But will it be GPU driven?
- Lazydriver, on 06/03/2008, -0/+4Which is a helluva lot more useful then using Internet that costs $5 per mb of usage on a closed carrier from AT&T.
Least we can modify the software. - Dylson, on 06/03/2008, -1/+5No.
- inactive, on 06/03/2008, -0/+3Dont confuse Google with Open Source and Microsoft with Closed Source.
Google is a strictly closed source company that from time to time releases some open source code to show people they care.
Microsoft are scumbags that would rather see the competition loose than themselves win. -
Show 51 - 100 of 174 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is