The problem would be support. If it's a feature that's only in a few manufacturers 'phones it's unlikely to appeal to developers because of its limited availability and duplication of features when compared to BlueTooth and/or 802.11.
Whilst I respect your viewpoint, the Japanese market is a minority player and tends to have solutions which don't gain traction elsewhere (e.g. iMode, Cellular TV), and it typically accounts for around 10% of the global phone market. If you look at sales by volume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_phones), none of the top 3 'phones have IR (and that's 426 million phones), and if you look at smark 'phones none of the recent releases from the major manufacturers have IR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_smartphones). IR is also absent from a vast majority of the new generation of NetBooks including the more popular Asus EEE range, Aspire One, MSI Wind, and Dell Inspiron Mini 9. In light of this I think it unlikely that we'll see IR support in the future. Al. acton wrote: > I respect your opinion. However, as I am aware, it is the phone > manufacturer who has to decide what hardware to incorporate into their > products to sell in a particular market. The market in Japan seems to > be the leader for phones - even the US is a laggard in this respect. > > Let me quote from a Mercury News report about the lacklustre response > for the iPhone even though Apple reported it sold 1 million in the > first 3 days : > > "For example, young people in Japan take for granted the ability to > share phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other contact information by > beaming it from one phone to another over infrared connections. Being > without those instantaneous exchanges would be the death knell on the > Japanese dating circuit. > > While the iPhone has Bluetooth wireless links, it has no infrared > connection. > > The iPhone lacks other technology long available on Japanese cell > phones, such as digital TV broadcasts, a built-in camcorder, voice > recognition and an "electronic wallet" function. " > > For the whole article, click here: > http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9898056?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com > > I think the Andriod team should look at market needs and if they want > to be a global phone OS. As an open platform, Android should support > as many market needs as they can. After all, anyone can submit a new > feature for all to use, isn't it? But this does not mean a > manufacturer should (or want to) install all the features - this > should depend on what they need for the market they want to enter. > > That is what I understand is the benefit of an open platform, imho. > > > On Oct 2, 4:12 am, Al Sutton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> For 'phones Bluetooth is pretty much a "must have" because of ear >> pieces, GPS integration, and in-car speaker systems which wont work well >> with the line of sight requirement IR has. >> >> imho, given that Android already has 802.11 & BT I can't see there being >> a lot of call for another communication technology. >> >> Al. >> >> acton wrote: >> >>> It all depends on what you want to do with wireless data transfer - >>> i.e. sharing or swapping videos and photos. These are going to be >>> very large in the next 6-18 months with 3 megapixel cameraphones and >>> soon 5 to 8megapixels. >>> >>> Even today some Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones continue to support old >>> IrDA - at 1Mpbs. All new phones from NTT Docomo, Softbank, KDDI, >>> Sharp, Casio, Kyocera, etc support the faster 4Mpbs IrSimple >>> protocol. That is also complemented with a whole range of portable >>> photo printers: >>> http://acton-acton.blogspot.com/2008/09/printing-from-your-phone.html >>> >>> I have seen demos of phone-to-phone sharing of photos and user >>> generated videos using IrSimple - it is fast! less than 1 sec. Let >>> me know if you want to see the live demo - I can bring it to one of >>> the dev meetings! >>> >>> I know some Japanese companies are trying to get in touch with the >>> Andriod product team to include IrSimple into their spec. Anyone can >>> help to do that? >>> >>> regards, >>> -acton >>> >>> On Oct 1, 1:32 am, Al Sutton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> >>>> The HTC spec sheet >>>> (http://www.htc.com/www/product/g1/specification.html) makes no mention >>>> of it so I would assume that it's not going to be there initially. >>>> >>>> IR ports have died off with the increase in popularity of Bluetooth >>>> because of bluetooths advantage of not needing a line-of-sight link >>>> between the two devices, so I would go out on a limb and say that I >>>> think it's unlikely IR will ever make it into a Android device. >>>> >>>> Al. >>>> >>>> sai wrote: >>>> >>>>> I have been trying to find on the android home page, I see Blutooth >>>>> and wireless support but there is no mention of the infrared port, any >>>>> ideas if it is supported now or may be later ? >>>>> >>>>> Thanks >>>>> Sai >>>>> >>>> -- >>>> Al Sutton >>>> >>>> W:www.alsutton.com >>>> B: alsutton.wordpress.com >>>> T: twitter.com/alsutton >>>> > > > -- Al Sutton W: www.alsutton.com B: alsutton.wordpress.com T: twitter.com/alsutton --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. 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