With all the research I have been doing over the past couple of weeks for my internship here at “Family on the Phone”, I have seen the term “Android” plastered all over the internet in relation to some new cell phone technology.
For Sci-fi enthusiasts like me, the term “android” brings to mind characters such as Mr. Data on Star Trek. In fact, according to Wikipedia, “An android is a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human.” So, what in the world does that have to do with cell phones? I decided to find out.
Here it is in a nutshell. Android is not a new phone or network or handy-dandy app. It is a completely new, Linux based, and free) open source operating system for mobile devices.
Google initially began development on this project a few years ago. It was later taken up by the Open Handset Alliance and was officially released on the market in October2008.
Now, I am not a developer or software geek so I won’t even begin to try to explain something I am not familiar with. However, I do think it is very interesting that an open source operating system is coming to the cell phone market. Here is a site which explains the benefits of the Android open source software
When a software is “open-source“, that means that (within some restrictions) anyone can work on it. It can be tweaked, added to, changed, etc. to meet the individual needs of real end users. That doesn’t mean the average person will know how to do this but believe me, there are lots of tech savvy people out there who just love digging into this kind of thing. Ultimately, this should provide end users with more software options and a wide base of customer support.
What phones will Android work on?
The Android platform will work on both CDMA and GSM networks. It originally hit the market on the HTC Dream (also marketed as T-Mobile G1 in Europe and the US.
There are several phones on the market now which use Android as their operating system. If you do a Google search for your preferred cell phone brand and tack on “Android cell phone” to the search phrase, you should be able to find several to investigate.
The future of Android
The Android platform looks promising in the number of choices it could open up to end users. There are some who feel Android will even give the iphone a run for its money. However, there is evidently some legal trouble brewing with Google and the distribution of the Android platform code so we will have to wait and see what happens. If you would like more information on this problem, please visit Phandroid.
More Information
Visit the official website for Android
Visit Wikipedia for more information on the Android Operating system.
So what do you think of this new alien force in the cell phone world? If you are in the market for a new cell phone, is Android appealing to you?
photo credit: alexkerhead
Written on September 29th, 2009 at 12:00 pm by Nikki Brown
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