Xperture /rfg …experts on demand
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- Google Challenges Apple on Fertile Web Turf
- Honeycomb To Reunite Android, Eventually
- Alien Dalvik
- Editor’s Note: This is the second of two articles that explore the development of operating system platforms. As expected, it is a battle between Android and WP7.
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Experture /RFG …experts on demand Google Plays To Its Web Strengths With New Market Lead Analyst: Caroline Gabriel, Rethink Wireless Google duly unveiled the tablet-optimized version of Android, Honeycomb, but the well- flagged details were overshadowed by a revamp of Android Market. This now supports web-based purchases and in-app purchasing. The debut of an online store showed that, while Google accepts that native apps will dominate mobile usage for some time (see Wireless Watch February 2 2011), where it really wants to play is in the web turf where it is happiest and most dangerous. Not only Google – RIM and (via MeeGo) Nokia/Intel also think the web is the way to amass a developer ecosystem and erode the power of Apple. Google Challenges Apple on Fertile Web Turf Google’s ideal of web development replacing native apps is helped by the emergence of new devices, notably tablets, with larger screens and more reliable broadband connections. And Google knows that the new Android Market Web Store is the one element of its apps platform that will be hard for Apple to duplicate quickly. It also gives end users a far more simple and intuitive process for purchasing software than the current Market, learning many lessons from Amazon Kindle and from the iTunes user interface. Discovery and browsing are easier and a purchased product is linked to a Google account rather than a specific device, and so can be accessed from more than one registered gadget. It allows users to search, browse and buy apps from any browser and they can be shared via integrated Twitter, and installed over the air to smart- phones today and tablets in future. By contrast, Apple has been weak in designing web services that tie content or functions together, across different devices, via the web (the main exception is Find My iPhone) because its success has been built on centralized payments and distribution, and on integrating the individual device tightly to the apps. Google has theorized about its advantages here since Android made its debut, but has only now delivered the goods. The web version of Android Market does raise all kinds of questions about how Google will play against Amazon and its own Android oriented app store. The enhanced Market also supports in-app purchases, whose importance was highlighted this week by Apple’s challenge to Sony and, implicitly, Amazon over the issue. Local currency support is also expanded. These changes should help to quiet developer criticisms that it is too hard to make money from Android Market. This is the first time that Google has offered native support for in-app purchases for virtual goods and extra content inside Android apps, such as a new gaming level. Developers who integrate the feature can offer one-click payments through Google Checkout or carrier billing. RIM is backing in-app payments too – they are supported in the latest version of BlackBerry App World, which went live this week. It allows developers to use RIM’s Payment Services SDK to enable in-app payments in future and existing applications. These will be subject to the same revenue share splits as offered by the BlackBerry App World storefront and use the payment type users specify in their BlackBerry ID (which can be either a credit card, carrier billing or an online payment service such as PayPal). Honeycomb To Reunite Android, Eventually As well as the new market, Google finally officially unveiled Android 3.0 or Honeycomb. One of the most interesting points to come from the event was clarification on the vexed issue of whether Google is splitting its platform in two. It has been widely assumed that Honeycomb would run only on large-screen devices, and might even require high-end hardware features like dual-core processors. That would leave 2.3 or Froyo for the smartphones, and create a full fork in the OS, with potential incompatibilities between the two sets of apps. Although this appears to be the situation for the short term, Google’s director of mobile products, Hugh Barra, insisted that the two platforms would soon converge again, and the firm would not pursue separate roadmaps for Froyo and Honeycomb successors – although we can assume that, as Android reaches down to smaller devices and up to more powerful ones, that Android will continue to fragment. Barra said that, for now, Honeycomb is optimized specifically for “touch and tablet” but in future Google would work to bring it to handset too. No phone specific details were on offer, except that smartphone screen resolutions are already supported in the Honeycomb SDK. The key Honeycomb enhancements for developers, apart from large screen support, include smarter widgets, which will now enable users to access a wider range - and more combinations – of data without opening an app (an approach that has been pushed to the limit by Microsoft for WP7). Also, the pull-down notification shade used by earlier Android versions is replaced by a pop-up on the display. There is a new graphics engine, Renderscript, to go with devices based on powerful processors. This supports fluidity and advanced visual 3D effects, rivaling Apple’s Core Animation and enabling more immersive experiences for games, video and ereading. There is a slicker camera interface, support for video chat in Google Talk, and a limited degree of multitasking. Alien Dalvik However many strong features Google adds to Android and the Market, the platform has one disadvantage the search giant cannot address – its own huge power over it. Open source Android has spawned a huge surge in innovative applications and open development, which most vendors and operators welcome – except for the power it places in the hands of Google. So what if all that Android developer effort could be harnessed to rival platforms too? RIM is reported to be planning to run the same virtual machine as Android, Dalvik, on its QNX system, to attract the huge base of Android apps to its PlayBook tablet. Now mobile Java player Myriad has announced “Alien Dalvik”, which will enable Android apps to run on a wide range of non-Google handsets, and could even provide a back door for Nokia to welcome Android developers to MeeGo. Myriad already boasts an implementation, Turbo Dalvik, with higher performance than Google’s. Now it will open the Android experience to a wider audience, particularly users of featurephones – one of its key businesses is in creating Java-based apps for de- vices without sophisticated operating systems or high-end connectivity. Alien Dalvik will generate “new revenue opportunities for mobile operators, OEMs and app store owners”, said the Swiss company. It insists that deploying Android apps on third party operating systems will not compromise performance, and that most apps will be able to run unmodified and will appear as native to the user. App providers will just need to repackage Android APK files. “The proliferation of Android has been staggering, but there is still room for growth. By extending Android to other platforms, we are opening up the market even further, creating new audiences and revenue opportunities,” said CEO Simon Wilkinson. The first target for the new virtual machine will be MeeGo, and other platforms will follow. Ironically, Alien Dalvik could offer Nokia a way to attract Android apps to its new OS without actually supporting the Google platform, though Myriad’s choice was more likely governed by MeeGo’s open Linux-based nature. Also, Myriad’s CTO, Benoit Schilling, is a former Nokia CTO, and an architect of the firm’s Qt multiplatform developer framework. He is naturally a believer in multi-OS tools and recently predicted that Nokia and Microsoft would form an alliance bringing WP7 into the Finn’s fold alongside MeeGo. The software will be demonstrated on the Nokia N900 device at the Mobile World Congress. Dalvik is becoming the center of a tangled competitive and legal web. There was surprise when Google adopted that rather than the Sun JVM, distancing Android from the Java mainstream. Now Android and Dalvik are the subject of a lawsuit brought by Java owner Oracle against Google, alleging that they infringe on Sun patents and copyright. And late last year Myriad was dragged into the fray, when it announced its own lawsuit against Oracle, alleging that it was being overcharged for the use of Java. The hand of Google was seen behind this action - one of the lawyers representing Myriad, Scott Weingaertner, is also representing Google. Myriad also offers J2Android, a converter that turns Java MIDlets into Android applications. A logical next step might be a non-Dalvik Java VM for Android, which would allow the platform to be included in the Java mainstream again. This is a challenge that has been taken up by an open source initiative called IcedRobot, which is building a JVM for the Google OS, based on OpenJDK, which is licensed under the GPL process (as used by Oracle and the main Java community, while Google uses Apache). IcedRobot’s initial goal was to bring the Android API to the Linux desktop, but now it is looking further, to the implications of Oracle winning its lawsuit. “The goal is to avoid Dalvik and Harmony as much as possible and put the Android stack on top of the OpenJDK class library, and run the whole thing in Hotspot,” according to the project leaders. “The second goal is the most interesting because it means basically that Android will run on any desktop finally: one environment, one specification one JVM.” This is yet another fork in the fragmented Android, but IP activist Florian Mueller says this would be the price of keeping Java open and also keeping Android safe from Oracle litigation. Editor’s Note: This is the second of two articles that explore the development of operating system platforms. As expected, it is a battle between Android and WP7. IT executives should watch these developments as they mirror similar conflicts between other areas in technology that are being driven hard by demand and marketshare. Copyright © 2004-2011 Experture and Robert Frances Group, all rights reserved 649 Fairfield Beach Road, Fairfield, CT. 06824; (203) 557 0856; http://www.experture.com/; Contact: inquiry@experture.com Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2014 2014 -> For want of a nail 2014 -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 2014 -> Ihbb asian Championships 2014 middle school bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> Ihbb european Championships 2014 Bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> International History Bee and Bowl 2013-14 Asian Division Question Set Bowl Round Six 2014 -> United states patent and trademark office 2014 -> Coffs harbour eisteddfod vocal syllabus 2014 -> Listen News Programs Schedule pledge now 2014 -> Slow club announce third album complete surrender Download 22.95 Kb. Share with your friends:
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