Google has published an SDK and an emulator for his new mobile operating system called Android. This new operating system is based on Linux and shall be pre-installed on some mobile phones soon. Maybe it will also be possible to install Android on existing smartphones, which currently run, for example, Palm OS or Windows Mobile.
Below there are some screenshots of the emulator which currently includes a browser, Google Maps, a contacts application and some demo applications.
HTML Browser
Using the WebKit layout engine, this browser displays almost every web site I opened correctly. Pages can be rendered in different zoom levels and look always like on a desktop computer. The speed is also O.K. – even using this emulator. Unfortunately, Flash contents couldn’t be displayed, at least not on YouTube.com.
Contacts / Address Book
Google Maps
This application has the same features like on other operating systems: a normal map view, traffic view, satellite view, different zoom modes and a routing mode.
Android is not availible on real-existing phones yet, furthermore, the system – at least on this emulator – has only very few applications and I am missing many additional ones. But many things concerning Android could and probably will change in 2008. At the moment, the base system with its APIs seems to be stable and powerful so that it will be able to run a lot of programs (some developers have even started developing for Android).
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Are there already information about the input methods?
The emulator offers a keyboard and the PC keyboard, of course. But right now there seems to be no input method in Android itself… at least I didn’t see anything.
Wow, Android seems great.
For me it seems Android is the new Palm OS for mobile phones. For Palm OS we have a lot of applications – because they have given free development standards which resulted in many many free and commercial applications.
Google is doing a great job with Android, publishing a free and public available SDK.
We have already seen that with Windows, when developer got the possibility developing applications for an OS platform.
Looks like Google is going to be the leader in mobile phone OSes, and it’s great for me to watch that.
Hi Peter,
I am not sure if Android really has the potential to become a new Palm OS – licencees can change too much about it.
Lets be honest – one of the things that made Palm great was the somewhat “universal” OS across many devices – this is not something I consider likely with Android…keep in mind that we ARE dealing with carriers here…
Just my 2 cents worth though
Best regards
Tam Hanna
[...] Android screenshots By Alexander Gratz After my first article in February, I have tested another version of Google’s Android emulator. There are some differences to [...]