Android got some critical press last week - in Business Week:
Still, the success of Android hinges on Google’s ability to get the platform in better working order. One developer who really needs help is Peter Wojtowicz. He and several collaborators are using Android to build a cell-phone game called Wi-Fi Army, where competing teams would hunt each other using Google Maps and location data from the Wi-Fi hotspots nearest the rival camp’s cell phones. Upon finding an enemy, a player uses the phone’s camera as a rifle scope to shoot.
But Wi-Fi Army faces a more significant hurdle than enemy bullets: Android doesn’t yet support Wi-Fi wireless technology. And the lack of support for Bluetooth means that Wojtowicz and his co-developers can’t get going on a feature that would enable team members to strategize their moves using wireless headsets. Writing the game application “is not easy,” Wojtowicz says. “But we are looking at it in the long run. Google has a lot of money to burn.”
and in San Jose Mercury News:
But Google has yet to deliver. “What have they been doing for three years?” said Sean Byrnes, chief executive of Flurry, a San Francisco start-up that offers free e-mail software that makes regular mobile phones more like smart-phones. … For the first time, developers are griping about Google the way they used to complain about Bill Gates & Co. The search giant’s phone software is buggy, they say, and lacks key features.
In fact, Android lacks more than that. Even photos in contacts are not supported yet. For CallFreq, for example, we had to create our own database of associated photos - but Android’s original dialer does not display photos while showing call progress interface.
The press criticism in my opinion is exaggerated. Too much, too soon. But the risk of slow Android development is still real.
We can provide Google with extended time credit on Android development - we are in this business ourselves, and we realize how hard it is. But we still have to deliver critical functions to our customers, and if the OS development lags behind, no one will be happy. Android is a huge investment for Google, and while Google can afford wasting it, it does not mean it should.
So, Google should keep steady progress if it really committed to become a mobile space leader. There are no “years” or “months” in mobile space, rather “weeks”.
Tags: android, google, mobile
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Android news, Uncategorized.
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