> Yeah, I think it's all just earlier in the process than we'd like. I > think that we might all agree that the key for success now is real > phones, running solid V1 Android OS, with more carriers signed up and > the start at a marketplace for innovative software.
Precisely. To look at it another way, suppose that November 1, Android phones start to ship and Android 1.0 has their "App Store" equivalent. That would put them 16 months behind the iPhone on the hardware side and only 8 months behind on having an SDK capable of deploying to hardware. That's not too shabby, particularly since turnover on hardware designs is so high anyway. The difference is that OHA is doing this in a relatively open fashion, so we're seeing the sausage being made, vs. the cloak-and-dagger iPhone development. > Are there any Palm developers driving Bentleys? Maybe that just ain't how they roll, yo. ;-) > For those of us who can no longer afford to work solely for pizza and > glory, is this "open revolution," whichever company drives it, going > to result in real opportunities for developers? For independent developers aiming exclusively for the Android, probably not many will "make it rich", but the same holds true for any mobile platform. While the number of mobile devices in use is staggeringly huge, the vast majority seem to be treated as "appliances" by their owners, who may download content but don't install much in the way of applications. For example, if I were a betting man, I'd bet that there were more ringtones installed in 2007 than there have been mobile apps downloaded and installed since the dawn of time. Now, eventually, the whole "mobile device as platform" mindset will hit the mainstream vs. just power users. At that point, there could be as many rich independent developers for Android as there are for, say, the Mac. -- Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy) http://commonsware.com _The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development_ -- Available Now! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
