As we reported before, Verizon intends LiMo to supply the operating system for its entire product range, starting with lower-end phones and moving into smartphones. Verizon has, on the other hand, said that it has not completely ruled out Google’s Android as being an acceptable operating system for their handset line. In short, they will not take measures to actively block Google’s Android from appearing on their handset line should consumers wish it. Also, if the demand is there, they will surely consider implementing it on future devices. The customer truly is king in this sense.
[Via Engadget Mobile]
The Android Developers Blog has given us a look at the latest application they developed called AndroidGlobalTime. The program seems to be an interesting blend of Google Earth and a user-friendly global time app.
For Google’s Top 50 Android apps competition, many of the winners were developers who made location based applications. Out of the 46 applications made public, some 27 of them are based around either location or Google Maps. That’s 59% of the successful applications. Google loves its GPS apparently.
[Via ZDNet Asia]
According to the head of Google’s mobile engineering team, Android will not be getting any special treatment and will be considered just another mobile operating system.
Speaking at the companies London headquarters, Google’s mobile engineering director, Ann Mei Cheng stated that:
The mobile team is separate from the Android team.
Android is just another device for us. We will certainly make sure that Google products run as well on Android as anything else.
The Google team is working hard to create a relationship with Nokia and does not want to be seen as giving preference to an operating system that Nokia may not want to utilize.
Google has released the names and company affiliations of the 116 judges who helped narrow down the 1,788 Android applications into 50 semifinalist winners. About 18% of the judges were from Google while the rest made up experts from various handset makers, carriers, chip makers and other hi tech areas.
Now here is the part where I gossip like a teenager: Verizon totally wasn’t invited to judge. Verizon has chosen the LiMo Foundation to supply Linux based OS systems so there is clearly bad blood between the two. AT&T wasn’t a judge because it is not part of Google’s open alliance. Companies after the jump. Continue reading ‘Google’s top application judges revealed’
Verizon has chosen the LiMo Foundation instead of Google Android which is all well and good but they had to go out of their way to take a cheap shot at Google.
“We chose LiMo because it’s a collaborative effort. It’s not just one company runs the place. We like that. We like a collegial and collaborative effort, where there is no barrier to entry on the part of developers and, at the end of the day, there is no one entity that can say ‘OK, here’s how we were playing now. The rules are changed.”
It’s hard to make the argument that Google isn’t a company trying to pioneer the “open airwaves” movement and to peg them as some sort of monopolistic empire is a little rich. Thems is fightin words.
Verizon is going to introduce a line of handsets based on the LiMo Foundation’s mobile Linux OS. The LiMo foundation is best known for promoting Any Apps, Any Device, an open access initiative. Expect these devices in the next week because word is that CTO Tony Melone has promised the devices mid-May.
Although Android is also Linux-based, the LiMo Foundation has beat Google to the punch by unveiling its first devices at the Mobile World Congress 2008 event in Barcelona in February. LiMo’s Linux based devices include Motorola’s Moto U9, Moto Z6w, Motorokr Z6 and Razr2 V8, NEC’s FOMA N905i and FOMA N705i, Panasonic’s FOMA P905iTV and FOMA N7051, and Samsung’s SGH-i800.
Google’s Android OS has yet to make a full blown appearance on the market and yet we’re getting a glimpse at the various software that will be released. Google has released a list of 50 of what it considers to be the top mobile applications using its OS. The winners were discovered during Google’s Android Developer Challenge which had 1,800 submissions. The winners will eventually be narrowed down to the top 20 and 10 of them will receive $100,000 prizes while the very top will earn $275,000 in prizes.
An interesting note here is that 60% of the winners and applicants were from outside the United States.
Clearwire, the wireless highspeed provider that has recently been given a huge amount of money from Google, has posted a Q1 loss of $176.4 million. On the other hand, Clearwire added 48,000 net new subscribers during the quarter. The carrier ended the quarter with about 443,000 total subscribers. If this trend continues, Clearwire may be a solid base from which Google can start its plans for world domination.
Google is making really aggressive moves to take over the mobile space. In recent news, Google has partnered with Sprint to completely revamp Sprint’s content deck to be Googleable (yes, that should be a verb). Sprint will also be offering a home screen search on it’s Windows Mobile devices. Look forward to devices being launched with Google Maps and YouTube apps.
This is exciting news considering searching for content through the carrier’s deck has always been a pain. Especially with respect to games, content searching has always just been about looking at the top downloads and getting a title you recognize. Google will hopefully be changing all of this.