Android gaining momentum in smart phone race

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/09/BU141A327G.DTL

by gibsonf1 • 17 years ago

21 35 17 years ago

Zak3• 17 years ago

The only advertising I've seen[0] for Android phones has been from T-mobile for the G1 and MyTouch. There is zero Android branding in these ads. The only indication that the two run the same software is a mention of "with Google" at the end of the ad.

I see this as a major branding fail.

[0] I don't really watch TV, so I haven't seen as much as most people.

joeyo• 17 years ago

Why does google need to advertise to end users? Most of the savvy ones already know about Android and the rest probably don't care what their phone runs as long as it can do email, get map directions, etc.

If they are spending money on marketing, they are spending it on the handset manufacturers.

Mark_B• 17 years ago

Exactly. I don't care what went into making my hot dog. I only care that it tastes good!!

joezydeco3• 17 years ago

Also, no carrier is going to advertise that their phones run the exact same system as another carrier's phone. Why give customers an easy reason to switch?

There are half a billion Nokia users that have no idea what Symbian is.

jan_g• 17 years ago

I think that Android doesn't need advertising. It's something that people mostly don't care about. However, they do care about quality, which Android may provide for handset producers. So maybe, Google is not even trying to put effort in Android advertising (for masses), but lets thi job to specific device manufacturers. For example, HTC Hero is advertised quite a lot.

Zak3• 17 years ago

I think Android is something people will care about, not because of the OS itself but because of application compatibility.

RK• 17 years ago

If anything, the money needs to go to advertising Android Market, which can attract both users and developers. Wireless company money will of course try to get people to buy the specific phones, which makes sense.

maudineormsby• 17 years ago

Well I think calling it the "MyTouch 3G with Google" is the best T-Mobile can do. I bet most of the people who are shopping for a phone don't even know what android is. They know there is iphone, blackberry, (maybe) palm, WinMo, and now there's this phone with Google. Android is not the brand - Google is the brand.

Also, TFA fails to mention that the HTC Hero launches on Sprint on Oct. 11.

davidw2• 17 years ago

I think it's nearly time to get one - maybe an HTC, as they're well into their second generation of phones. Hecl needs more attention on Android, and real live device is the surest way to accomplish that:-)

thismat7• 17 years ago

I'm still loving my first generation HTC G1. it's a little bulky and can be slow at times (unless I kill the processes left from applications running the background, then it's snappy), but I really enjoy it.

I've heard really good things about the HTC Hero though, and would love to try one out.

bockris5• 17 years ago

I was a bit underwhelmed by my 'donut' update. More fit and finish than new features.

I really can't wait for Verizon's offerings because I need better network coverage than T-Mobile. My phone doesn't work at my parents house or my in-laws house. :-(

nek4life3• 17 years ago

I need to learn Java for work and I'm looking for an interesting project to learn it with. Any thoughts on building an Android app for my first project? Would this be a good way to become familiar with the language?

kylemathews• 17 years ago

I'd say so. I never ended up building an app but was planning on it and looked around the APIs enough to feel familiar. It's a very sensible development platform and is sufficiently Java-ish that you'll pick up good habits.

joezydeco3• 17 years ago

Download Eclipse and the SDK (all free), get it all running, then build the "API Demos" project from the samples directory and run it on the emulator.

This program lets you play with every single part of the Android system and UI. Tinker with this for a week or so and you'll have a great introduction to the platform.

davidw2• 17 years ago

Yeah, it would indeed. There's something cool about seeing something you wrote run on a device, too.

For that matter, J2ME is fun too, because it's a fairly small platform, and there isn't a lot of Java blahBlahBlahFactory() type of stuff.

nek4life3• 17 years ago

Sounds like a good (interesting) way to get started. Thanks for all the replies.

dminor• 17 years ago

Just be aware that Android operates in a resource constrained environment, so that some practices (such as avoiding garbage collection through resource pools) aren't typical in desktop or server-side Java applications. Also, if you're going to be doing desktop UI stuff at work, Android's UI APIs are very different from Swing et al.

nek4life3• 17 years ago

Good things to be aware of, I certainly won't be doing any android development for my current job. More server-side web app type things.

AndrewDucker• 17 years ago

You can add INQ to the list of companies producing Android Phones - they produce custom phones designed for social networking/IM and are very popular in Europe. They used to use their own custom OS but announced that they were moving to Android last month: http://www.gsmarena.com/inq_to_also_use_android_os_soon_do_s...

callahad• 17 years ago

Aside from the ADP1, are there any Android devices available that allow root access per default?

mbrubeck• 17 years ago

The Creative Zii Egg is another full-access developer device: http://www.zii.com/

Note: It's a multimedia tablet like the iPod Touch, not a phone.

Android gaining momentum in smart phone race

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