Now we can touch and feel Android in Oxagile office not only on screens of our mobile phones. We have got quite a full-fledged idol and can address it in terms of worship.
Artist Andrew Bell talked with guys from Google and together with Dyzplastic he created something what can be called as “designer toy”. This creature in the flesh represents a popular logo that has become favorite one for those who work at application development for Android OS.
Android is available in variety of skins from the 10th of February (with international delivery services!). Its head rotates, as well as hands, its price is about seven dollars, and the height is three inches.
Mobile software developers working for Oxagile think that Android toy can become the same legendary hero as Be@rbrick and Memobot.
In the fourth quarter of 2009 world smartphone supply grew by 39% and reached a record peak of 54.4 million devices. Apple was the most active player in the smartphones market. Nokia was still on the first place by the quantity of produced devices (this figure grew to 20.8 million units, while market share was 38.2%). The second place gone to Research in Motion with 10.7 million smartphones. So the market share of the popular BlackBerry smartphone producer was increased to 19.6%.
According to the forecasts from business analytics more and more people in the world will gradually switch to smartphones. It means that mobile applications for such platforms as iPhone, BlackBerry, WM and Android will come to be in great demand.
Results for 2009: the companies produced 174.2 million smartphones and it was a 15% increase in deliveries comparing with the past year.
As we know, the Motorola Corporation refused to sell its mobile unit. Now the management of this American electronic giant is betting on Android, an operating system developed by Google. Motorola plans to release from 20 to 30 new models of smartphones during the year 2010. And all these devices will use the Android OS. This information was reported to Electronista.com by some unnamed top-manager of the company. So Electronista, a popular online source of news about such mobile application platforms as Android, iPhone, BlackBerry etc., published this informal announcement without delay.
As for other “simple” Motorola cell phones, new models will use either the Qualcomm Brew platform or a special mobile platform that was developed by Motorola.
Now the company has three working groups of mobile developers and all their activities are somehow connected with the Android platform. First group works in the U.S., the second one works in China and the third one applies its ideas in industry in Korea. Their results can be seen in practice. Motorola has already announced four devices based on Android: Cliq, Droid, Backflip and Motoroi. But soon companies that work at application development for Android will offer their mobile soft not only for these four models.
Steve Wozniak admitted in his last interview for NBC Bay Area, that he is a happy owner of the Google Nexus One smartphone. He so wanted to test this new gadget that bought it on the first day of Nexus One sales. Moreover, according to Mr. Wozniak’s words, now Google phone is one of his most favorite gadgets. Although he is still using iPhone as the main phone for communication.
Wozniak said that he regularly buys new models of mobile phones from different popular manufacturers. Besides Google Nexus One he used phones based on such mobile application platforms as iPhone and BlackBerry, also he tested the Motorola Droid Phone.
RIM products caused the most serious complaints from Apple founder. Mr. Wozniak has been using BlackBerry phone for a few months and as a result he has remained dissatisfied with it. And as for Droid and Nexus (which mobile apps were developed on Android OS), he considers them as excellent phones, stressing, however, that not every phone with the Android platform on board will be as good as Nexus One.
If to consider the near future of mobile application development (2-3 years ahead) Android OS seems to be a very interesting option. Why? Because number of devices based on this OS is growing before our eyes. Such a giant as Google develops and supports this system, so it guarantees that Android won’t be lost and won’t be forgotten.
Analysts forecast that Android devices will overtake iPhone and even Windows Mobile in 1012-1013 years. Also, we must note that Google begins to inform its users (we mean users of Android phones) that mobile software will be provided in both variants, free and paid, as well as the company expands the list of countries, where can be accepted payment, also it expands payment options for users. These steps will have a positive influence on turnover of those companies who provide application development for Android (developed mobile apps –> money).
Google Android wins our hearts by its open source: any developer can write apps without any licensing applications. All development tools are also available in source code and free.
All mobile apps developers always face choice of the right platform. The existing abundance of mobile operating systems can easily throw you into confusion. Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian — which of them is the best one? And moreover we should take into account a large number of the applications and frameworks developed by manufacturers of cell phones, communicators, PDAs and smartphones. Let’s come to know the particulars of all this mobile stuff.
First of all, a developer should define the main objectives:
professional development of commercial mobile software or amateur development (open source);
target audience;
competitive abilities and competitive environment.
All this seems rather complicated. With relation to monetization (commercial development) it’s better to choose such leading OSes as iPhone and Windows Mobile. This variant has some significant pluses. For example: a large number of users who are ready to pay for their software. But at the same time you will have to compete with more than 200,000 developed mobile applications for Windows Mobile and iPhone. And as is well known Apple follows a quite tough policy of apps submission. That is why it may take a long time before your new program is approved and appears in App Store.
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