Giving Android A Helping Hand
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in smartphone, Developer, Google, Mobile on
Q. How do you get 4000 people to start developing for your mobile platform?
A. Give them all a phone.
No, that’s not a riddle - that’s just what Google did this morning at its IO event here in San Francisco. After a keynote that majored on the future of the web - specifically on HTML 5 - and only touched on some of the features in the upcoming “Donut” release of Android, Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra unveiled not just one more thing, but three more things.
The first was the return of the Android Developer Challenge, this time with the added appeal of user votes. I’m not quite sure how The Web’s Got (Developer) Talent would televise, but the folk at Google seem to think that they’ve got the software needed to manage a large scale user driven voting process. Certainly tools like Google Moderator seem to have the user voting process working well - and it’s been heavily stress tested by hosting a White House electronic town hall meeting.
The second was a box that would be given to every attendee at the event, a box that would contain details of the Android SDK.
The third was what else would be in the box: an unlocked Android phone running the 1.5 “Cupcake” release. It was what Gundotra called his “Oprah moment”, not giving away a car, but more than 4000 3G devices with a month’s unlimited data (and a far chunk of voice).
It was quite an impressive giveaway, especially when the phones turned out not to be the familiar G-1, but the new G-2, the HTC Magic, which was unveiled at MWC in Barcelona in February. By the end of the afternoon most of the developers in the conference centre were clutching their boxes, and the 3G bandwidth in and around the Moscone Center was starting to get a little thin…
Of course it’s going to take time to see just how well Google’s bet pays off, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting gambits - and even more interesting considering the tough financial constraints many developers are under. If having a device to test code on is the difference between working with Android and working with Windows Mobile or iPhone, then Android will certainly pick up a hefty new constituency.
I suspect that Google will be watching the number of Android SDK downloads very carefully over the next few weeks…
–Simon
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