How the Google Android Phone Will Work

robots with no hearts like Josh and Chuck. We're gonna talk about We're gonna talk about Android, which is a phone platform, a phone operating system in software stack that is produced by Google or will be produced by Google, as it has yet to hit the wild Actually, when you mentioned Google Android, I thought you were talking about Brent Spiner doing a web search. Yeah, unfortunately no, And for those of you who don't know what that is,

go watch Star Trek next Generation. So we're talking smartphones, yes,

smartphones in general and Android in particular. The reason we're talking about this is a rumor has hit the interwebs, and the rumor is the from TM News which is an unofficial blog about T Mobile and says that T Mobile is going to be offering an Android phone on pre sale starting in mid September two eight, which is news to a lot of people because the previous information that was out there was that there wouldn't wouldn't be any Android phones ready for the market until the end

of two thousand eight, maybe the beginning of two thousand nine. So, um, that's got a lot of people talking about androids in general. Yeah, that would be something of a coup for T Mobile, which is the last time I checked at the fourth largest United States provider, um and of course a T and T has got the Apple iPhone, which the wait, the what phone? Apple? You know they make computers and

they have this Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, Um, Google basically, I don't even know how long ago was it that that Google announced that they were working on this hand, so it's been a couple of years actually. In fact, that caused a lot of of of rumor millmongering as well. Back in the day, like about a year ago, I'd say, there were tons and tons of rumors flying around about the G the Google phone. UM and Google denied that they were working on a on a Google phone multiple times.

Um they said, we're working on a software system, a software stack for phones, but not We're not getting into the hardware business. We're sticking with software. Um And, And it was funny how many people refused to believe Google when they were saying this. And now, of course it it comes to pass that Google was telling the truth the whole time. And part of the reason for that is that Google wants Android to be available on essentially any kind of hand set. You know, you could have

multiple manufacturers. We're not talking about Apple running OS ten on the iPhone. We're talking Google offering a platform that is that could run on phones from Nokia and Motorola and Samsung or you know whoever they partner with to adopt that. They could run it on multiple phones, and it could run on multiple carriers. So you wouldn't necessarily get locked into a specific carrier like I don't know, like iPhone and the a T and T carrier here

in the United States. Um. Now, according to this news that we're talking about here, T Mobile would get the jump on the other carriers. But again, T Mobile wouldn't become the exclusive carrier. Uh. Well, to really get into what Android is. It's it's important to kind of know what a software stack is. So software stack is UH, it's several layers of software that allow your phone or really any computer device to do what it does. But with phones specifically, you have you have your hardware, and

then you have the kernel. The kernel that's a k E R N E L. We're not we're not talking KFC kernel here. The kernel is a management system and it it interacts directly with the hardware. Then you have middleware, which is software that kind of acts as a liaison between the kernel and applications. So then you've got your application execution environment or a e UH and your application suite, and then you have some sort of user interface that

allows the user to access these applications. So that's kind of your stack. UM, and Android, like all smartphones, has its stack. It's very it follows pretty closely to that general model. They use a Linux kernel UM, and then everything else is custom made. Yeah, so that would be very open source in comparison to OS ten, which is proprietary to Apple or Windows Mobile which powers a lot

of other smartphones. UM, however, or would be sort of comparable to Symbion which is not popular in the United States but is now open source UM. And that was a huge deal and it's a big, big deal. And as a matter of fact, some people, uh, you know, Google actually said a little while ago UM that they may be partnering with Nokia to sort of work with symbion Um. So that would sort of be I don't know if it would be in direct competition with Android

or you know, they they that's sort of mysterious. They really haven't gotten into the details of how they would actually make that happen and whether it would be whether it would get rid of Android or whether it would be merged in you know. So I haven't really seen that much on exactly how that would happen. But I think it actually had some of the developers concerned that they were all the work that they had done on Android,

you know, might not might be just pitched right right. Yeah, it remains to be seen now when we talk about developers, UM, that's a really important part of the whole Android program. In fact, it's it's probably the most important we've seen that with the iPhone, with the new Application store. It's so popular because all the all the third party developers

are now able to develop applications. And that's what these Google UM you know, all the private developers for Google are doing now and at least according to some reports, UM developers are actually having fund developing programs for the iPhone. So that's a very important part is to make your software development kit accessible and easy to use and and and fun to program for UM Now, Google their approaches

is different from the iPhones approach uh. For one thing, Google's allow allowing developers to access far more of the the native devices capabilities than an iPhone would. UM. You can create processes you being if you were a developer, could create processes that could access uh uh deep levels of the software stack and even run in the background. That's something that that Apple refuses to do to allow

third party developers to do. And you could even do things like let's say the native email client that comes on your Android phone. Let's say that you don't like the way that looks. You could go out and look for or develop your own email client and replace it. You could you can take out things that are intrinsically important to the phone and change them, modify them any way you like. UM as a developer, so that's a that's a that's a lot more freedom than what you

would get with the iPhone. Um, the flip side of that is the iPhone has been out for a longer period of time and the applications have been out for a couple of well more than a month now, so they've already got a head start, so that there there's a little bit of an uphill battle to go there. But it's, uh, it's definitely something that sets Android apart well.

The uh we've also seen some report it's that, uh, it is highly unlikely that Android's going to be ready because um, they Google, for for once, is not making overtures to exactly everybody on their developer list. They actually released the newest version of their Software Development Kid or s d K, to h fifty winners of their application developing contests back in in July two thousand and eight. Yeah, yeah,

that contest. That contest launched in in late two thousand and seven, and uh, the contest was to develop applications using the s d K and the fifty best ones would win some amount of money and it was ten million dollars for the the entire the entire yeah, the entire pie was ten million dollars. No one actually one ten million bucks based on an application, but you know, the best one would win a certain amount of that prize and then the it would be parceled out as

he went down. Um. And so these guys, yeah, they're getting a little bit of preferential treatment. They're getting the sd case the updates earlier than everyone else. And that's kind of ticked off everyone else that and they haven't even Google hasn't even announced or didn't announced at the time when h the SDK would be available to everyone else. Not only did they say, you know, here you top fifty, here's the STK, they just failed to tell them when

it was coming out. So the rest of them are going okay, so when goodness it was a major miscommunication error on Google's part, definitely. Um, So yeah, that might have some fallout as well. So I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see, uh where this goes from here, because if the rumor is true, there might still be enough excitement on the part of the developers

to go after this. And I think that maybe from customers as well, because there are plenty of customers who are kind of fed up with some of the let's call them quirks that the iPhone has shown over the last couple of months, who are eager to see a smartphone that is not as locked down and not as restricted as the iPhone. So we may actually, uh and they may be able to turn this around after all,

even with these setbacks. Hopefully some of the Google developers will come up with a one dollar application that will just show a jewel on the screen. Though, as one of the iPhone developers did, well, that's crazy innovation there. Chrisy should definitely come out and go out there and and and market that as soon as possible for someone else figures it out. Now, if I could just get my hands on a n STK, No, you know there is available on the website. So I guess that about

wraps up this discussion on on Google Android. If you would like to learn more, you should read how Smartphones Work at how stuff works dot com and we'll talk to you again soon for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera it's Eddy. Are you