I do continue to amaze myself with how truly nerdy I can be at times… For example, for the last 3 hours I have been diving into the enigma that is Google Android.
For those of you who may not know, Google Android is a mobile phone operating system and software environment. It’s all open source, based on the linux kernel, and primarily constructed with java. With all that being said, Google offers a development kit for anyone to download and use to dive into this mobile platform. And, I must say that it’s frickin’ awesome.
Google’s Dev kit includes a mobile phone emulator that launches and runs the Android environment; and for all intensive purposes it is a completely operational phone. I was blown away at how easy it is to start using the development kit. I installed Eclipse (A linux based development environment), I installed Google’s development kit, and finally I installed the Android plugins for Eclipse to build/open/run software applications.
Mainly I messed around with the phone and tried to see how Android is made. In the end I did end up writing a simple app to just output a ‘hello’ message “From Scratch” to the phone screen.
Long story short – I wish some company some where would actually release a phone that runs Android. I can’t find any information anywhere about anybody even beginning to run Android. Google’s own Android FAQ says “Nope” to the question: “Can I run Android on my current Cell phone?”. Well, somebody better get a phone out that can run it pretty fast. If interested, check out the youtube clip that shows a couple prototypes filmed by Google engineers.
Otherwise, some pics that I took of the emulator that came with Google’s SDK. I want that virtual phone. 🙁
Android Booting up…
The home screen of Android…
P4P in Android…
My stupid program in Android…
So you see… does it really get any nerdier than that??? I really can’t say that it does. At any rate, it’s something to look forward to – and i’m definitely getting a phone that runs Android whenever the hell they do finally come out.
i love your brother’s “phone number”.
Looks kind of clumbsy/blocky. What resolutoin does that emulate at?
Flo, yeah you like that Arnold quote reference? The emulator actually doesn’t make calls unfortunately.
Jja – The emulator includes 4 different “phones”. I don’t see any documentation for what their screen resolutions are, but they vary from MotoQ sized to Iphone sized(ish). :-/