Mobile Android, it’s the applications stupid …

It is too early to be sure that Google and its followers of the open handset alliance will really deliver every promises that the mobile Android platform imply , however it looks to us that this project take a refreshing approach on what a mobile platform shall deliver.

The emergence of Android could be much more disruptive than say the release of the Iphone, as it can reach everybody phone …

Linux as the base OS

Linux as an operating system for mobile handset is nothing new. A rapid look to projects like Palm access linux platform or community projects like open Moko may give the false impression that it has yet to take a meaningful market share.

Hybrid flavors of Linux are already used in a wide number of mobile handset, as an example of this Linux is said to power 40% of china mobile phone (see here for details). Overall some reports estimates that Linux already powers 25% of the mobile phone crowd.

There is an important consequence of this, it is that on the average it probably requires very little software development to ship a Linux powered handset out of today existing hardware. The OS drivers for the different component that needs to interplay are probably already here.

Java on Dalvik virtual machine

This is where Android innovates the most, and where we are eager to see how things are performing on real handsets. Currently people are familiarizing themselves with the concepts in Android by making analogy with Linux on the one hand and J2ME on the other hand. In our view there is more in Android than the reunion of those 2. Taking a few shortcuts on what Google has not yet clarify this is our reading of what stands out.

All applications are equals …

We anticipate that this will not be exactly true for security reasons (more on this in a future post), however we understand that all applications will use the same libraries accessible from “Java Dalvik” (some being proxies of Linux libraries, some others being developed in Java). This put at the disposal of mobile applications installed on the handset much the same resources (eg GUI libraries …) as the application originally on the device.

This is to be contrasted with a Java mobile application installed over the air onto a Java handset. Such application is a second class citizen on the device and run inside a container known as the AMS which is implemented by the device manufacturer. This is one the thing that hurt the most with J2ME as the quality of the implementation of this container vary widely across devices, this resulting in one of the nightmare of the seasoned J2ME developers known as device fragmentation sometimes summarized as write once, debug anywhere. There is a second problem with the approach currently taken on Java mobile devices and that you will discover after having courageously solved the issues that results from “platform” fragmentation. On many handsets, the container just sucks, you have down the best you could but for example the end users of your applications will have to interact with several menus before being in a position to start your app, or your app will have to be further customized to look good on a specific handset.

Android takes a different road, you install onto a device a well defined operating system (Android Linux ?) which provides a uniform container inside which to run all devices application. As every application are equals chances are high that fragmentation issues will have been addressed before they hurt you as for example you use exactly the same widgets as the applications central to the operation of the phone…

A framework to develop mobile application

One of the first thing you have to learn with J2ME is to forget about everything you know about Object Oriented programming. To limit the size of executables you generally end up embedding all the code in few classes that at most act as code container. Dalvik Java on the other hand proposes well structured construction (Activity, Intent…) that fits nicely onto what is a mobile application. Our engineers find the classes proposed by the framework quite intuitive to use, and a good help to efficiently code the application.

Focus on what you do best

Say you are constructing a mobile email application, after going through the basics you will rapidly be in need of viewer for pdf documents , images … On Android you will need to do very little to marshall the data to an application dedicated to this. An object bus is available to allow smooth collaboration/context switching in between different application each specialized on a single task.

Show us the devices

The explanations given by Google on how Dalvik on Android Linux can deliver good performance Java on low resources processor are sound but rather sketchy at this stage. The main questions are, how long will it takes before manufacturer starts shipping workable Android devices, and looking to the full spectra of mobile phones available today at which end of the scale will be the minimal android device (a 50 box mobile phone or several hundred box smart phone ?).

Given the pragmatic approach taken by Google it could be that we are very close from meaningful devices release, but many different factors can delay this. The fight for the conquest of the mobile world will be interesting to follow in the coming months…