YA @ Sadko Mobile

Looking through the blogosphere review of A La Mobile presentation of a Qtek 9090 running Android, it seems to me that there is a correction that has to be made to the original US News and World Report story. A La Mobile is not a software company, it is a hardware company. What they really did is got Android to run properly on a standard machine and interact with all principal hardware elements - GSM radio, sound card, camera and so on. This basically proves that Hardware Abstract Level (HAL) of the platform is operating properly and software written for it can be expected to operate fine.

Based on the only available screenshot (courtesy of openandroids.com), it is difficult to say what kind of applications they got to run - we can only see a iPhone-like launcher. They could have used a number of open source applications or write their own prototypes (a primitive media player, for example, takes less than an hour to write and is available as a tutorial; browser and maps are provided by Google with the platform) . Porting Android to hardware has already been done before.

What is important, though, it that we now have proof that all basic functions of Android work with standard issue hardware (or at least are claimed to be working). To which degree, A La Mobile deserves recognition.

So, here we go, ladies and gentlemen. I am starting the Sadko Mobile blog with news that it is January 2, 6-01 pm Pacific standard time, and Android Challenge is LATE. Android homepage states clearly “Android Developer Challenge I: We will accept submissions from January 2 through March 3, 2008… A submission form will be available on this page starting on January 2, 2008.” - and the submission page is nowhere to be found. In places like Europe and Asia it is already December 3. So we now have the first major failure on behalf of Google to deliver.

Google Android challenge Usenet group was abuzz about the page from the very morning - see this discussion, for example.

What is most interesting about the Challenge is not the opportunity to submit ASAP itself - although many developers, including myself, already got submission-ready applications and stand ready to go - but rather, what the submission package will look like and what will be the terms of the contest.

I am looking forward primarily to legal stuff that can be either very favorable to the developer or get us sign away all our precious IP - depends on how the contest terms are phrased. A lot of us in the Android community bet heavy on the new platform and might be very willing - or very reluctant - to play the Challenge, depending on what’s in it for us (except for a check, which is relatively modest for Phase 1, compared to expected business benefits).

One more Challenge homepage refresh… no form. “Publish”.

PS. It turns out the problem is not legal but with the software.

Hello, Developers!

As you probably know, the Android Developer Challenge submission period for the first round is scheduled to run from today, 2 January, through 3 March.

Unfortunately final testing revealed some cross-browser bugs in the application we’ll be using to allow you submit your work. We’re fixing those now, and will have the site up and running as soon as we possibly can. At the same time that the submission application becomes available, we’ll also make the final Terms and Conditions of the competition available.

We apologize for the delay, and thank you for your patience!

- Dan

http://groups.google.com/group/android-challenge/browse_thread/thread/5fbad987d2b67145