Hello, I have a sugestion for the Android platform developers. As a regular user, I very much hope that the platform will implement and support the USB Host feature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On- The-Go). The almost entry-level phones today already have ARM 11 396 MHz CPU, 128 MB of RAM (see Nokia 6120 for example, wich costs 200 Euro). This hardware is equivalent to the computers we were using some time before. Back in the years 1999-2000, many of us were using computers with same level of processing power and memory. Those computers had USB ports that were allowing us to connect many kind of peripherals to them. The feature was possible mainly because the operating systems supported that. Back to the phones today, they already have enough processing power and memory to do that. The only part its missing, is a fully capable software platform to support the USB Host feature. If the Android platform will offer this capability, this will encourage and push the mobile phone manufacturers to implement the hardware, which is really easy. They only have to add a USB controller and to make phones with regular USB plugs just like those plugs that computers come with. I hope this message will be read by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and the other brains that are behind the Google Android idea :)
Once the platform will support this, the manufacturers of peripherals will be encouraged and even forced by sales numbers to develop drivers for their peripherals for the Android platform Implementing the USB on the Go feature on a phone, will allow you to conect to the phone: - regular keyboards - imagine how easy you enter contacts, edit notes and other text information into your phone when you go to home / work and connect the keyboards from the computers you are using there. - regular mice - flash drivers, card readers, external hard drives, foto camera - printers - so you can easily print the photos you make wit the built in camera, and office documents you edit from the phone. - scanners - monitors (with a USB-to-VGA adapter, like the HTC Advantage X7510 does) - WiFi cards - USB ethernet cards - this would be an imensely great feature. Because with propper software you can test an ethernet port (ping, etc), even test UTP cables - like the expensive Fluke devices do. Just imagine how convenient is to test a network without taking the laptop with you and without buying expensive network testing tools. - TV Tuners - another phone that will stay in "slave mode" - web camera - maybe it's a silly idea, but hey, why not? - pen tablets :) - USB hubs - so you will be able to connect all the above peripherals to the phone in the same time. the idea is not new, the PDA's already have something like that trough the CFIO/SDIO cards but extending a smartphone capabilities trough USB its just so much better. thanks --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Announcing the new M5 SDK! http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/02/android-sdk-m5-rc14-now-available.html For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
