How can it celebrate a birthday when it's still not even finished?!
Google's Android celebrates fourth birthday
Android will be four years old on Sunday, September 23. Google launched the first public version of the mobile OS, in the form of the Android 1.0, on 23 September 2008, though its origins go back years before that. Google's Android statues Source: Quinn Dombrowski The operating system was created by a company called …
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Thursday 20th September 2012 17:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Something like this is never finished.
unlike iOS, which has pretty much stayed the same
It may help to actually try the device you're dissing. I have phones of all platforms (except the new Windows, too busy with other things right now) and it's a matter of personal taste. I cannot say that iOS has stood still, but they go more for usability changes, which are a bit more subtle (and they too get it wrong at times). I personally dislike Android, but I prefer not to make statements against it other than those based on facts..
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Thursday 20th September 2012 16:49 GMT Tom 38
Re: It's impressive
Agreed, but many probably forget (or don't even know) that Apple's iOS is based on BSD.
That is because it's not. It reuses certain components from BSD (specifically FreeBSD), but the OS is not and never has been based on BSD.
As an example, one of the things that is reused is part of the network stack. All versions of Windows also re-use the same parts of the same network stack, is Windows based on BSD?
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Thursday 20th September 2012 15:55 GMT Sam Machin
Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know
The first 2 versions of Android were known as Astro & Bender,
Andy Rubin is a big robot fan and wanted to name each version after a famous robot but most of those names are trademarks so Google Legal veto'd it, otherwise we'd have probably had C3PO instead of cupcake.
The same reason why none of the current names will be brands otherwise it would have been Jello instead of JellyBean.
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Thursday 20th September 2012 17:37 GMT Lars
Re: Got to feel sorry for Openmoko
Funny how (at least I) think there is always something to the name. What would you choose "Openmoko" or "Android". Most of the open source naming is rather "funny", Linux as an exception like Apache, for instance.
Still if you want to check all the cell phones based on Linux, just have a look at www.linuxfordevices.com
,it goes a long way back.
Incidentally, I still don't know if one should write Linux or linux.
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Thursday 20th September 2012 20:16 GMT Neil Lewis
Re: Patently obvious
Agreed 100%. I had (and still have, boxed way) an early G1 and found the trackball very useful indeed. Even now, it's a bit of a pain using a touchscreen device on a web site with drop down menus; there is no easy way to differentiate a mouseover event from a tap or hold without a trackball.
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Thursday 20th September 2012 17:45 GMT Christian Berger
Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn
In my opinion there have been some problems with Android. Of course others will see those problems as advantages, so much of this is personal opinion and taste.
1. No hardware abstraction below the kernel. This means every phone manufacturer _has_ to adapt the kernel to their hardware. There is no way of enumerating the hardware so a kernel with "all modules" isn't possible.
2. That Java Davlik thingy. OK, the idea was that you could have software on multiple CPU platforms. However today much of the software running on Android loads binary CPU-dependent libraries.
3. Weak standard compliance. OK there's worse, but it would be nice for Android to be X11 based. X11 is the quasi standard for GUI applications. Even if they desperately wanted to invent something new. They could have gone for something more innovative, something which would work independent of the programming language. For example something HTML-based.
4. Tying everything into the Google Account. I don't want to have a Google Account just to use some features. Why didn't they implement syncing via rsync? That would still leave 99% of the people using Google's services, but it would give the rest, particularly corporate users, a safe way to sync. Why can't I use Google Play without a Google Account. And why doesn't it use HTTP?
5. The whole idea of a "Store" as the only intended way of managed software distribution. Why didn't they add a repository, so I can install open source software just like I do with every normal Linux distribution.
Again, you might see many of those points as advantages of Android, however those are things IOS already did before, and by now just about anybody does.
I just wish there still was a "mobile Debian" around.
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Thursday 20th September 2012 17:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn
The "tying in to a Google account" is the reason Android is *cough* "free" *cough* - you pay for it with your privacy. Google has publicly implied that it uses Android as a continuation of the Streetview WiFi data gathering it got itself into serious trouble with, so you're basically walking around with a device that doesn't just spy on you, but also on those around you. Tying it to a Google account means that it can allocate events to an ID, and flog the result.
"Free" indeed..
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Thursday 20th September 2012 18:22 GMT Christian Berger
Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn
Well then again, if 99% of the customers hook it into their Google accounts, that's enough for Google. By not forcing people they could probably even increase the total market share. People who don't want Google now install Cyanogenmod or get some other OS. (although the alternatives are getting fewer and fewer)
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Saturday 22nd September 2012 02:11 GMT Frumious Bandersnatch
Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn
I can only imagine you've never tried to code against [X11] Kafka couldn't have done better.
I don't know. The client-server paradigm they use is pretty cool (even if they decide to swap the names around). I think if you really want Kafkaesque then you have to be an iphone user. Your arms and legs may no longer be in the place you expect them to be and and you're experiencing difficulty coordinating your extremities to perform what should be a mundane task, but still all you have in mind is asking Siri whether you can make the next train in time for work.
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Friday 21st September 2012 11:35 GMT rich_a
Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn
"That Java Davlik thingy. OK, the idea was that you could have software on multiple CPU platforms. However today much of the software running on Android loads binary CPU-dependent libraries."
Define "much"? Sure some top-end games and some CPU-heavy apps (Skype and the like) may load binaries for a specific arch, but the majority of the applications (calculators, fart apps, diaries etc.) don't.
"The whole idea of a "Store" as the only intended way of managed software distribution. Why didn't they add a repository, so I can install open source software just like I do with every normal Linux distribution."
Nothing to stop you from doing that once you're rooted. The current approach of allowing non-market apps, but forcing users to check the permissions of each app they wish to sideload before installation is an acceptable workaround, I think.
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