We told you we would be there, and we were. We haven't picked up on what happened at Google's most important event of the year, and in light of recent events (WWDC 2010), we thought it was about time we gave our views on this year's Google I/O. If you want to jump back in time, and live Google's largest developer event from within our eyes, we suggest you hit the link underneath, and jump back in time.
We have arrived at San Francisco on May 18th, less than ten hours before registration opens. It is quite late and we we're tired, so we've just left our baggage at the hotel room, grabbed something to eat, set up the alarm, and we're about to sleep. As well as missing the I/O BootCamp which was today, we also need to wake up early to register before the crowds arrive. We're hoping a lot of Android related news from this event, and we can't be more excited.
Day One
As we promised, we arrived early, registered, picked up our Nexus One, and took the stairs up to the third floor of the Moscone West Center, where we had some tables set up for breakfast, including some coffee from Starbucks. The wait for the first keynote which was at nine o'clock this morning passed quickly after meeting some people, and soon enough, it was half past eight and we were waiting to get inside. We rushed in with all the developers, and got a good seat.
But to be honest, the first keynote was a bit disappointing. Android was mentioned at the beginning by Google Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra, and that was it. Vic assured us that there were plenty of surprises in store for us during tomorrow's keynote, but Android was left out of the opening day, and more importantly, Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt did not make an appearance like he did at last year's I/O. The keynote went on discussing the power of the web, specifically HTML5, as well as demos such as MugTug, Clicker, Mozilla, WebM (which is Google's open-source alternative to H264), Adobe, and Sports Illustrated among others, and while I have to admit web-based technologies are fairly interesting, because mobile apps pull a lot of information from the web, this wasn't the reason why we have traveled all the way to San Francisco in the first place. To top it all, the keynote took longer than expected; around 2 hours and 10 minutes instead of 90 minutes; this meant today's sessions started later, and it also meant our time to have lunch was shortened.
Once the keynote was over, it was time to head on to our sessions, and the first thing we noticed, was that Android sessions were over-crowded. The first session, "A beginner's guide to Android" by Reto Meier, was so full, people had to stand out of the room and just try to listen; because we stayed until the end of the keynote, we had to stand for the most part of it. Even so, the session was quite a surprise, since Reto made it more interesting for non-beginner developers, and it was more than worth our time. Next was the session on "Writing real-time games for Android redux", and instead of attending, we spent some time having lunch and walking around the second floor where the Developer Sandbox was being held, visiting booths under the Android logo. We found Unity, developing their own tools for programming Android 3D games, Laminar Research showing X-Plane for Android (we tried it on the Motorola Droid instead of the Nexus One), Electronic Arts with Madden NFL, Polarbit and their upcoming games and Facebook demoing a new API for Android among others. It was a pleasant surprise to find Sony-Ericsson with their Xperia Androids, Samsung with their Galaxy S (we'll give some well-deserved love to this device, don't worry), Motorola (we played with a Droid and a Milestone!), and… HTC. Undoubtedly, both HTC and Motorola have been Android's most powerful hardware partners since 2008, and among all Android hardware manufacturers (including others like Acer, Asus, Garmin, Huawei, Lenovo, LG or Sharp), to date, HTC has proven to be the most faithful, and we were happy to play with the Droid Incredible, and the Big Daddy, the HTC Evo 4G.
After that, we attended three more sessions, and it was time to go; first day of I/O 2010 was over.
Day Two
We woke up a bit later than yesterday, got our Nexus One ready (leaving our first-gen devices behind), and left our hotel. Since yesterday, it was fairly obvious to us that today would be the day of Android. At last year's I/O, the second day keynote was devoted entirely to Google Wave, and seeing how much Google's been pushing Android, it was a no-brainer to think that if Android was absent from the opening day, it would be the star of the show during the second and final day of Google's most important developer event. The queues waiting to get inside the keynote hall were more anxious than yesterday, and unlike then, two doors were being opened at the same time. We took the one that opened later but offered a straighter route; anyway, we ran into the hall, and found a good spot at the front, on the left-center side. Just looking at the stage, it was obvious we were in for a very, very big treat for Android developers and smartphone enthusiasts alike.
Time was going on, and again and again, the only thing we could think about is that we couldn't have chosen a better I/O to come to. It was going to be the first event hosted by Google dedicated to Android, and even though I didn't like the idea, the stage background seemed to confirm the rumors about Google building a TV with Sony-Ericsson, Logitech and Intel based around Android. Even so, the disappointment from yesterday was going to be wiped out, as the event was clearly about the green bots we love so much. Finally, the music and the lights kicked in, and Vic Gundotra came on stage yet again. We were all excited, and we couldn't stop thinking about what were we going to see; Froyo, or Android 2.2, seemed like a no-brainer. Vic began telling us a story about his first day at Google, meeting Andy Rubin, and listening to his vision about Android; Vic was apparently skeptical about Andy's vision, and interrupted him, making the question so many people have asked frequently "why did Google have to bring another mobile operating system to the table?" Andy's answer was, what we can in fact see today: OEMs, carriers and developers are free (or nearly) to innovate at any level of the mobile stack, from hardware all the way up to the user's applications. It is true, Android is not completely open, but we will discuss this in another post. The second point earned the first cheer from all of us Android supporters in the so-called war against Apple, and in Vic's own words: "He (Andy) argued that if Google did not react, we faced a Draconian future. A future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice. That's a future we don't want." Perhaps, amongst all of them throughout the first half of the keynote, this was Vic's most direct attack to Steve Jobs' crown jewel, and even if it seems logical to believe it was made up, it was part of Vic's show to simply entice us to become soldiers under the Android banner.
I must admit it; coming from the real world, were everybody just knows what an iPhone, a BlackBerry and a touch phone is (it doesn't really matter if it's a Windows Mobile, a webOS or an Android device), it was inspiring to find ourselves surrounded with people and from a company which wants essentially the same as us: see Android become mainstream.
Vic then revised Android's current market status, and began announcing the latest iteration of Android: Froyo. But since yesterday, a couple of thoughts were running through my mind. During the session World of ListView, in the Q&A section, a developer asked whether Froyo had been announced, to which Romain Guy, UI engineer and one of the session's speakers, answered "Nothing's been announced yet." This simply strengthened my belief that it was going to be announced today, and it also gave in to a conversation with a man sitting behind me, who had known Android since the beta days, before the HTC G1/Dream was released to market on October 2008. This developer was longing for a feature he called XMPP, which essentially allowed us developers to "push" messages to an Android device. We will cover this better on our post on Froyo, but for now, the concept is that XMPP meant we could tell the Android device something has happened, and make it react accordingly without any delay. It was the feature I was looking forward to, as a surprise, since I had not heard about anything similar in the blogosphere ever. In fact, it's so powerful that it took me days to fully understand what XMPP really meant.
But what really confirmed me that Android 2.2 was going to be announced came during one of the last sessions of yesterday, "Android UI Design Patterns", where Froyo was mentioned and shown (in pictures) nearly as if it had already been announced, which made me believe the dedicated keynote might've been a late decision. Also, one of the speakers, said, and I'm quoting "in the new version of the Android Market […]" Of course, what changes had been made to the Android Market we didn't know, and in the weeks preceding Google I/O, we were all just dreaming about what we wanted to see in Android, and just praying for it to happen during this event.
So, why was all of this important? Because, as you know, it all turned out to be true. Again, we'll cover Froyo better in a couple of posts, but it did happen. Vic enthusiastically announced Android's new features, and even gave us sneak peeks of what is in the pipeline, and within those features there was a Cloud to Device Messaging API (offering the same functionality we longed for after knowing about XMPP) and new features for the Android Market. With the Android Market Demos, we saw what looked like Google's new music store, and more importantly, a new Android Market website from which we could browse all the apps. Moreover, Vic emphasized on the word "Internet", showing how buying an app (and later, a song) means it gets downloaded into your selected device (you can have multiple devices registered in this new Market) like system updates do, over-the-air. Underneath, Google's using (I believe) the same Cloud to Device Messaging API. Then I guess, came Google's real counter-strike, their announcement of AdSense For Mobile Apps, or AFMA. We will leave this behind for now and let our minds reflect on it.
Next was, I believe, one of the turning points of the whole event. Vic got walked to one of the tables on the stage, and began speaking words I believe I'll take a long time to forget: "One of the most powerful ways to demonstrate what I talked about at the beginning, that innovation comes from all levels of the stack, is to highlight one of my favorite devices." At which point he took the device we had played with yesterday at HTC's booth in the second floor, and raised it:
"This is the device by HTC. It's the Evo device. Now there are several things I love about this device. One thing I love about this device is its absolutely gorgeous 4.3 inch screen. I also love how fast it is. I love the great work HTC has done to add value. I love the Sprint network. It's a 4G network. […] I love the fact that this device has a great little stand. You can set in on the desk, or if you're on an airplane, just set it there and watch your content. It's got a great battery. It's got HDMI output. It's got a camera that's 8 megapixels and that will do 720p recording". Can you just imagine, for a second, how we felt? We loved this device ever since it was announced at CTIA this year. Remember what we said about the HTC HD2? We said, back in January "The HTC HD2 is far from perfect, but if you add in a Android 2.1 dual-boot (or Maybe just Android 2.1), you'd really have the best smartphone money can buy today." And there it was, the Android powered HD2 lookalike being thrown in our faces, when Vic concluded: "And do you know what I love most about this device? Is that in partnership with Sprint and HTC, Google is going to make this device available to every one of you today."
That was only half of the keynote. That was only half of what Google was throwing upon on Android. Next came the presentation of what we didn't want to see, Android covered with a UI and thrown inside our TVs. Nevertheless, it is (or will be) a part of the Android ecosystem, so a few thoughts on it are necessary. Still, it is not our intention to cover it here, so we just want to move on. If you want to get close to the experience we felt during the keynote, you can hit the embedded video above; we believe all Android fans & devs will have a really nice time. What we will say about the second half of the keynote is, that we found surprising to have so many CEOs sitting so close and trying to sell the world (in our opinion) their latest product. At least we got to see Google Chief Executive Officer Dr. Eric Schmidt in person.
Next, was time for the second day's sessions. Since the keynote had taken (again) more time than expected, we got our lunch time severely cut down; in fact, we didn't even have lunch! We made our timetable, and decided to attend as many sessions as possible, keeping in mind two special sessions: Fireside chat with Android handset manufacturers and Fireside chat with the Android team. Since we don't want to bore you guys more, we'll get quick to the point. Why wasn't HTC at the handset manufacturers fireside chat? Especially after seeing how we I/O attendees got HTC's current flagship device, how could HTC not be in this fireside chat? We had Motorola (whose PR I believe, was the most honest out there), LG, Samsung and Sony-Ericsson. Now, I understand all of them, except LG, are manufacturing high-end flagship Android devices around the world, and that a manufacturer building "normal" devices had to be there to provide some balance, but even then, the other manufacturers also build and sell low and mid-end devices, so why wasn't HTC there? I can't find any excuse that's good enough, I just can't. On the fireside chat with the Android team, I didn't find anybody missing, and if I did, it was probably because I didn't look hard enough. What do I mean? In this fireside chat room, I believe, were many (if not all) the members of the Android team, including Android visionary Andy Rubin, of whom I caught a glimpse.
If I had to chose one moment from each of these chats, I'd choose the following question from the first one: "Android is a fully open source Operating System, when are we going to see the first fully open source Android device?" The answer to this question is far from simple, and it wasn't too hard to see all of them were scared to answer: "It might not be possible." Because this is far from being something we can explain in one paragraph, we'll dedicate a whole post to this subject, but if you want to know more, we can tell you what this developer wanted: a device with root access which could be programmed at the hardware level, not on top of an existing layer of software, which in this case would be the Operating System (Android). This matter is involved with what we said before, that Android is not completely open, because most devices aren't. There were more interesting questions in this chat, (albeit not like this one), but we don't want to spoil you all the fun. Oh, and of course, I forgot to mention. I believe Samsung was asked about what did they think about Android, seeing how they're developing their own mobile OS, Bada. The answer was, in short, Android and Bada have different consumers and developers in mind; in other words, Bada is for the emerging markets (China, India, maybe Africa,…) and Android is for the developed world (America, Europe, parts of Asia, etc.) Not bad, as long as they carry this distinction to their hardware and users. About the fireside chat with the Android Team, there was a question, I believe, everyone has wanted to do since last fall, when we started to see some devices running Android 1.6 whilst others were still on 1.5. The answer? Fragmentation, as this has been called throughout the web, does not exist in Android. Let me explain; Dan Morrill, whom some will remember from his video on YouTube when Android was announced back in 2007, is the open source and compatibility lead for Android. Now, what this means is that Dan and his team are responsible for making our apps (developer apps) work across all Android devices, without we having to suffer device incompatibilities. Because there are different versions of the Android OS running in different devices at the same time, that doesn't mean that the OS is fragmented, it only means that there are devices compatible with all apps and devices which aren't. What's closer to their definition of fragmentation would be an app targeted for Android 1.5/1.6/2.1 which does not run properly on Android 2.2 or above, because as developers, we're guaranteed forward compatibility of our apps (meaning they will work with newer versions of the OS, but not older), and if this doesn't happen, then we all have a problem, and it's the team at Google's responsibility to fix this. If this is not enough for you on this matter, don't panic, because it looks like something that's never going to end.
No comments:
Post a Comment