Google planning to introduce App Store

Google has also started talking about their plans for Android Market, which is similar to the App store used for the iPhone. Ars Technica's coverage points out a blog post by Google's Eric Chu which notes that early handsets running Android will have a beta version of Android Market enabled. Initially, users will at least be able to find free applications there. After that, Google expects to update the market to allow users to buy and download paid content.

Though Android Market is similar in concept to Apple Inc.'s App Store, but it differs in some ways. For instance, because all iPhones run on the same software, developers don't have to create different versions for different phones. Android is open, and handset makers may decide to include different hardware capabilities or opt not to support all Android features, which has an effect on the way applications work. Perhaps there will be features for the Developers to upload different versions of their applications for different mobile handsets that might work better on different devices but we will have to wait and watch.

First Android Phone to be launched soon

T-Mobile's upcoming phone will try to combine the best elements of many of the new smart phones, and will be using Google's Android software.

"The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the 'dream,' will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video. The phone's release date depends on how soon the Federal Communications Commission certifies that the Google software and the HTC phone meet network standards. Executives at all three companies are hoping to announce the phone in September because they would benefit from holiday season sales."

Single Consistent Platform for Mobile Application Development

In the mobile development community there has been a constant uproar to find a platform which is supported by many, if not all, mobile manufacturers.

Recently Adobe announced a series of changes. The changes include:

--The next version of the mobile Flash runtime will be free of license fees. Adobe also confirmed that the mobile version of the Air runtime will be free.

--Adobe changed its licensing terms and released additional technical information that will make it easier for companies to create their own Flash-compatible products.

--The company announced a new consortium called Open Screen supporting the more open versions of Flash and Air. Members of the new group include the five leading handset companies, three mobile operators (including NTT, DoCoMo and Verizon), technology vendors (including Intel, Cisco, and Qualcomm), and content companies (BBC, MTV, and NBC Universal). Google, Apple, and Microsoft are not members.

Adobe said that the idea behind the announcements is to create a single consistent platform that lets developers create an application or piece of content once and run it across various types of devices and operating systems. That idea is very appealing to developers and content companies today. It was equally appealing two years ago, when then-CEO of Adobe Bruce Chizen made the exact same promise:
If we execute appropriately we will be the engagement platform, or the layer, on top of anything that has an LCD display, any computing device -- everything from a refrigerator to an automobile to a video game to a computer to a mobile phone.

Microsoft had tried to do the same by the launch of Microsoft Silverlight and in that sense Adobe has still to do a lot of follow up with Microsoft.

Also, the most important changes appear to apply to the next version of mobile Flash and the upcoming mobile version of Air -- meaning this was in part a vaporware announcement. Even when the new runtime software ships, it will take a long time to get it integrated into mobile phones. So once again, Microsoft has a long runway to maneuver on.

Still, the changes Adobe made are very useful. There's no way Flash could have become ubiquitous in the mobile world while Adobe was still charging fees for it. The changes to the Flash license terms remove one of the biggest objections I've seen to Flash from open source advocates. The Flash community seems excited and the list of supporters is impressive. Looking through the obligatory quotes attached to the Adobe release, two things stand out:

--Adobe got direct mentions of Air from ARM, Intel, SonyEricsson, Verizon, and Nokia (although Nokia promised only to explore Air, while it's on the record promising to bundle Silverlight mobile).

--The inclusion of NBC Universal in the announcement will have Adobe people chuckling because Microsoft signed up NBC to stream the Olympics online using Silverlight. So NBC is warning Microsoft not to take it for granted, and Adobe gets to stick its tongue out.


What does it all mean?
Nothing much in the short term. As I mentioned earlier, this is mostly a vaporware announcement (other than the license changes). Some people are speculating that this will put pressure on Apple to make Flash available on the iPhone. That's possible, if Apple's real concern was that they didn't like Flash Lite. Now they can port full Flash, or someone else can do it. But if Apple is in reality unwilling to let anyone else's platform run on the iPhone then we'll see other objections to Flash emerge.

The marketing competition to control the future of mobile apps is continuing to heat up. Microsoft is trying to take the whole thing proprietary by creating a comprehensive architecture, Adobe is trying to drive its own platform, Sun is trying to re-energize J2ME, Google is making its own moves with Android, and so on. Plus, of course, most mobile app developers today are happy with what they're using now and have little economic interest in switching to any unified development platform.

It's an enormously complex situation, and it's going to take months, if not years, before we can start to see who's winning and who is losing.

Android

Very interesting stuff coming.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/28/live-from-google-io/

Google Domination

There is no doubt that Google is the center of the Search Engine universe. The web is “Googlecentric” so to speak. But with little market share left to claim, Google has set it’s crosshairs on emerging markets in which it can similarly dominate.

Two of the tech industries biggest buzzwords are currently “mobile” and “social networking”. We already know how Google is altering the gravitational pull of the mobile industry with one such launch of Andriod, putting themselves in the center of that universe, but what about Social Networking? Are they doing anything in that space as well??

Android Developers Challenge

Google did a good thing by launching the Android Challenge much before the device hits the market. This has motivated lot of SV's to start developing applications and it's almost certain that most of them would be available on the device from the day of it's launch thereby giving a headstart for Android vis a vis the so popular iPhone.

It is almost certain that with launch of Android, some of the key mobile software vendors such as ours (http://www.techendeavour.com/) who have initiated and developed applications on this platform are set to leverage their position in this market.

Listed below are the results from the first round and some of the ideas are worth pursuing:

1. AndroidScan - Use your phone to scan a barcode, get pricing information from dozens of stores, product reviews and more. Never make a bad purchase again! (by Jeffrey Sharkey)
2. Beetaun - Social network around geographical content created by people and for people (from your neighborhood, from your city, from your country, from all over the world). By Sergey Gritsyuk and Dmitri Shipilov
3. BioWallet - A biometric authentication system for Android. This application features iris recognition and can act as a password safe and provide single sign-on for other Android apps. Jose Luis Huertas Fernandez
4. BreadCrumbz -Navigate your route using pictures instead of a map (there’s also a map, if you like). Easily record routes using your smartphone. Share them with your friends, share them with the world. By Amos Yoffe
5. CallACab - Konrad Huebner and Henning Boeger
6. City Slikkers - a Pervasive Game (alternatively Location Based Game) which takes place in the real-existing city. It is designed to connect a large number of players through-out the world and change the way the surroundings are seen. The central idea behind the concept is to give people the opportunity to symbolically interfere with the everyday urban environment and come into contact with previously unknown people. By PoroCity Media and Virtual Logic Systems.
7. Commandro - Commandro shows where are your friends REALLY are and what they’re doing at the moment. Using GPS location information, it will display 100% true real-life event and location information with regards to you and your friends. By Alex Pisarev, Andrey Tapekha.
8. Cooking Capsules -Simply “watch” a very short cooking show, “shop” with the grocery list, and “make” using the handy step-by-step recipe directions. If you are out of your usual neighborhood you can use the ‘find nearest market’ gps feature. If your friend is stopping at the market, simply hit the ’send to friend’ button to text your list to them. By Mary Ann Cotter and Muthuselvam Ramadoss
9. Diggin - Daniel Johansson, Aramis Waernbaum, Andreas Hedin
10. Dyno - Virachat Boondharigaputra
11. e-ventr - The domain is password protected, but a Whois Lookup shows it is owned by the developer named by Google. By Michael Zitzelsberger.
12. Eco2go - Reduce your carbon footprint. Eco2go finds and suggests public transit alternatives for your trips - right on your phone. By Taneem Talukdar, Gary Pong, Jeff Kao and Robert Lam
13. Em-Radar - Em-Radar is a revolutionary mobile product that alerts you about emergencies and severe weather anywhere, any time. By Jack Kwok.
14. fingerprint - Robert Mickle
15. FreeFamilyWatch - Navee Technologies LLC
16. goCart - Rylan Barnes
17. GolfPlay - give support to all the real time necessities of a golf player during a game, using GPS location and an online querying site where it is possible to access to their game statistics, tournament creation and a social network to exchange impressions with other users about the sport that links them: golf. By Inizziativa Networks
18. gWalk - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus ten Hagen, Christian Klinger, Marko Modsching, Rene Scholze
19. HandWx - Delivers 7-Day weather forecasts to your phone. By Weathertop Consulting LLC.
20. IMEasy - Yan Shi
21. Jigsaw - Mikhail Ksenzov
22. JOYity - Coming soon. By Zelfi AG.
23. LifeAware - Mobile Tracking Service formed to help people be aware of where their friends and family are. A quick search on the Internet shows that approximately 700,000 children are classified as missing annually. The intent of Life Aware is to help you be aware of where you family and friends are. Gregory Moore, Aaron L. Obrien, Jawad Akhtar
24. Locale - Locale is one of 7 Android applications submitted by MIT students. It enables you to set up location- and time-based profiles for your phone, so you can make it shut up when you’re at work, forward calls to your landline when you’re at home. Clare Bayley, Christina Wright, Jasper Lin, Carter Jernigan.
25. LReady Emergency Manager - A quick Whois Lookup shows the domain is owned by Chris Hulls, named by Google as a developer of LReady. By Chris Hulls, Dilpreet Singh, Luis Carvalho, Phuong Nguyen.
26. Marvin - Marvin allows you to publish and browse geo-localized objects around you. Objects can be static or move by themselves and follow you. You publish and browse where you are, based on your current location or where you virtually are on the map. By Pontier Laurent.
27. Mobeedo - Mobile Search. By Sengaro GmbH.
28. Multiple Facets Instant Messenger - A Whois Lookup shows the website is owned by Virgil Dobjanschi who is named by Google as the creator of this application. By Virgil Dobjanschi.
    MyCloset - Mamoru Tokashiki
29. PedNav - an application that helps you plan your activities efficiently when moving around and interacting with an urban environment. Like a good personal assistant, PedNav first inquires about your general plans for the day. By RouteMe2 Technologies Inc.
30. Phonebook 2.0 - Coming soon. By Voxmobili.
31. PicSay - Eric Wijngaard
32. PiggyBack - Christophe Petit and Sebastien Petit
33. Pocket Journey - connects your location to the voices of a global community of artists, historians, architects, musician, comedians, and others so you can quickly know everything about anywhere. By Anthony Stevens and Rosie Pongracz.
34. Rayfarla - Rayfarla turns your phone into a musical instrument as well as providing a variety of mini games that are music related. I’m not saying too much about Rayfarla at the moment as I’m now in competition with 49 other semifinalists but suffice to say there will be some interesting twists when it is finally released on hardware. By Stephen Oldmeadow.
35. Safety Net - Michael DeJadon
36. SocialMonster - Ben Siu-Lung Hui and Tommy Ng
37. SplashPlay - SplashPlay offers the next generation in musical tuition and learning to play the guitar just got a whole lot easier. Simply attach the pod and light panel to your guitar and start strumming to your favourite songs in minutes. Songs are sent to the pod from a mobile phone or computer using a USB or Bluetooth connection, giving total portability. Other features include a guitar tuner, guitar metronome and a hands free, Bluetooth foot pedal. The product will provide an easy, portable and fun method of learning music.
38. Sustain- Keeping Your Social Network Alive - Niraj Swami
39. SynchroSpot - Shaun Terry
40. Talkplay - Sung Suh Park
41. Teradesk - José Augusto Athayde Ferrarini
42. The Weather Channel for Android - The Weather Channel Interactive Inc.
43. TuneWiki - Our goal is to have the lyrics always on, always available, always synchronized to music - on any device that can play music back and connect to the internet. By TuneWiki Inc.
44. Wikitude-the Mobile Travel Guide - Find points of interest based on your current location. By Philipp Breuss.
45. Writing Pad - ShapeWriter is an innovative, original, fun, and highly efficient method of entering text into touch screen mobile phones. ShapeWriter lets the user to simply draw a continuous stroke from letter to letter on a soft keyboard and lift to complete the word. The resulting trace is recognized as the intended word. For example: to write the word “fun”, land the pen (or mouse cursor) on the F key, drag to the U key, continue to the N key and lift up the pen. ShapeWriter recognizes the curso trace F-U-N as the word “fun”.By ShapeWriter Inc.

[List via Google's ADC Blog]