Google/OHA Android speculation at fever pitch

It's IT Blogwatch: in which we eagerly await Android, the smartphone OS from Google and the Open Handset Alliance. Not to mention the unstoppable march of storage space...

John Edwards reports:

As it readies its long-anticipated open mobile OS for public release, Google is behaving in a way that threatens to permanently taint its relationship with many Android developers. The company's actions -- including restricting access to key development tools and allegedly treading on open source principles -- have created, if not a full-fledged revolt, at least a sense of disappointment and disillusionment among many in the tightly knit Android development community, which numbers perhaps 2,000.
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With Apple's iPhone 3G grabbing sales records and headlines, the recent news that Symbian is going open source, and the fact that Android remains months away from release, Google is facing the possibility that its platform may become nothing more than a follow-up act, lost in a sea of mobile OSes ... Other marketing options open to developers include Microsoft Windows Mobile and Palm OS. Yet many developers view both of these platforms as unexciting and dated. more

Paul Thomasch adds:

Now this should be one good duel ... T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software. And it will go on sale… soon!

Talk about anticipation. This is right up there with Apple’s introduction of the new iPhone, which, of course, is only appropriate since the two high-end phones will directly compete with one another in an Olympic-worthy battle.
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The phone will have a touch screen that slides out to offer a five-row keyboard ... one person who has seen the HTC phone confirms that it matched the one in a recent video on YouTube. more

Kasper Jade calls the leaked phone, "awkward":

A video of the handset leaked on the Internet reveals a device which lacks the elegance that's already drawn millions to Apple's iPhone.
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The HTC-manufacturered handset [is] known amongst Internet circles as the "Dream" ... Like the iPhone, the Dream has a full touch-screen and will be able to run a slew of applications written by third-party developers ... While the Dream is "apparently a hot item to show off in Google's cafeterias these days," those familiar with the device describe it as "big and bulky," and nowhere near as sleek as iPhone ... The Android software itself is similarly not up to par with standards set by Apple, leaving it feeling "less-elegant, less-user-friendly" just months before its slated to be unleashed into the wild.

Still, the Dream is just one of "several devices" Google is testing with its new mobile software. more

Olga Kharif has more deets:

Software is, in fact, what will make or break this gadget, which some call the gPhone. There have been plenty of touch-screen iPhone clones already, several of them from HTC. They’ve done well, but not nearly as well as Apple’s iPhone. Could the Android phone change that? Perhaps.
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[But it] raises all those old, hairy questions about just how much control Google will exercise over the Android project. Lots of the world's best independent developers and software companies actually compete with Google. And if they sense that Google is always getting the upper hand with Android, they will not back this phone. End users will suffer, as they won't have access to the best applications out there. more

Erick Schonfeld runs with that thought:

Questions are being raised again about whether Google’s Android ambitions will stop at cell phones ... Android could one day spread beyond mobile phones and set-top boxes to a multiplicity of devices. After all, if we are moving towards an Internet of things, those things will need an operating system. In this case, however, the operating system will reside partially in the cloud, and applications written on Google’s App Engine, for instance, will work across devices and the Web.

That is easier said than done, and Android will have a hard enough time simply establishing itself on mobile phones. But the more devices Android apps can work across, the more appealing it will be to developers and startups.

And for at least one other device, it does make sense. In fact, I’ve been hearing similar rumors in regards to a Google set-top-box project that I first caught wind of last year. As far as I know, that project is still alive and is very Android-like in its aspirations. more

Yes, but when? Michael Martin adds two and two:

There has been a noticeable trend in the reports on Android for the past few months as Google and the Open Handset Alliance members echo the party line ... Since Google is not talking lets look at the news using a combination of Google Trends and Alerts plus some logical filtering of unreliable sources.
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it is logical to predict that some news organization around early September will exclaim Android is delayed yet again. This time its a delay only to an artificially speculated arrival date of October 2008 if it in fact launches in November or December, but its never really a delay since this falls in both the 2nd half and by the end of 2008 official line from Google.
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My prediction from sources is that a new Android SDK will be announced by the end of August and barring any complication from the FCC in September a joint announcement from Google and the Open Handset Alliance on the debut of an Android enabled phone, else the easy money is on trend of hearing for some time "we do not provide comments on rumors and speculation". more

And finally...

• It's never enough
  

Buffer overflow:

• Richi Jennings: On Microsoft Online Services
• Matt Asay: Firefox to surpass IE? Yes, but only among the geeks
• Joe Weinman: Is the Cloud Right for You? Ask Yourself These 5 Questions
• Paul Venezia: The Terry Childs case on pause, and an apparent new security issue for SF
• Larry Dignan: The end run around the OS is underway

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Seth Weintraub: Dell going after iTunes/iPod ecosystem with openness...FAIL
• John Traenkenschuh: What do you want in your next operating system?
• Preston Gralla: Big fix for networking Windows with Linux
• Barbara Krasnoff: Quick Look: Kodak's ScanMate i1120 and NewSoft's Presto! BizCard
• Eric Ogren: Streaming applications along
• Michael R. Farnum: A poor little bulletin board
• SJVN: Linux to Windows and back again with Samba
• Eric Lai: Pixar's rendering software - big on Linux servers, not Mac
• Robert L. Mitchell: Tech visionary offers "real dope" on Amelia Earhardt
• John Brandon: So what is Web 2.0 anyway?
• Douglas Schweitzer: Car 54 where are you? Does GPS stand for Good Police Surveillance?
• Shark Tank: Now that wasn't so hard, was it?
• Shark Bait: The user blamed me for this!

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 21 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• EXTRA: Microsoft triumph; OOXML appeals quashed
• Windows 7 weblog drip-feeds fresh info
• Open source licenses *are* enforceable, FTW!