As an avid mobile developer it is good news to see that the options of operating systems are soon to be widened with the release of Google’s Android. Recent demos of the abilities of this new OS and it’s claim that it should port to any mobile phone with a 200+MHz processor means that at last mobile users won’t have their phones limited by a manufacturers bodged job at an OS, like the LG viewty.

What is really exciting is this will mean that phones should date quite as quickly as they currently do. The UK mobile market is one of the fastest and most advanced, couple this with the need to have the latest application and function on the phone, equates to a very high turn over in handsets. This is poor for the environment and also causing manufacturers to rush out the next phone and in many cases too early. This also affects a third-party developers ability to build and deploy apps before the phone is old news.

The other exciting factor about this approach and separation of OS from hardware means that applications can be shared from device to device, no longer will consumers feel penned in by their manufacturer badge or feel jealous of the way their friends phone works. The amount of times I have heard Nokia owners who have bought another manufacturers phone say ‘I preferred the way my old Nokia menus worked’, Nokia’s tend to use Symbian, the current solo open OS.

It’s not just Google that is on this bandwagon, Ubuntu are porting to smaller and smaller boxes, plus there is LiMo and OpenMoko. All these are heading, in my opinion, in an exciting direction and one that will slow the turnover of handsets by adding value to each one, which benefits the consumer and the planet and the developer. It’s all good.

Think small, think big.

~ by Thinker on 20 - June - 2008.