Android system the talk of cellphone conference
The open source Android system has been making the most news at a major mobile phone industry conference. Announcements at the Barcelona event include several new handsets using the system, a paid application store and a viewer for Microsoft Office files.
HTC, the firm which created the first Android phone, T-Mobile’s G1, demonstrated its second Android device. Dubbed the Magic, it adds video recording and a touchscreen keyboard. The latter will come as welcome news to enthusiasts who want to get open source systems running on an iPhone but have previously struggled because Android originally only supported physical keyboards.
The Mobile World Congress event also saw an unscheduled hardware announcement when an Acer spokesman confirmed the firm is planning to join those making Android-based devices. Meanwhile Nvidia showed off a chipset which should be able to display live television on Android phones.
On the software front, Intrinsyc announced an Android edition of its Destinator software for GPS navigation. Eventually this should synchronize with Google Maps plus several handset features such as the phonebook and even the camera, with pictures automatically tagged with their geographic location.
QuickOffice, which produces an open source office package for mobile devices, announced an Android edition which will include a viewer for Microsoft Office files such as Word and Excel documents which were previously incompatible with the system. However, users won’t be able to edit the documents.
The QuickOffice application will be among the first chargeable downloads on Google’s Android Market, it’s take on the iPhone App store. Previously the Android Market, which has more than a thousand applications, has only been available for free downloaders. Firms can now use it for commercial applications with Google taking a 30 percent cut, the same proportion as in the Apple store. The paid downloads will be exclusive to the United Kingdom and United States at first before being extended to several Western European markets in the next few weeks.
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February 23rd, 2009
I like Android and want to see more. I like Apple too but hate to see any player too far out in front on any technology front. I guess that is because I like choice.