January 12th, 2009 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: AndroidOS | 1 Comment »
Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of a new Android based mobile phone hitting the market. Though this sounds good at first, this strategy might bring the same problems that J2me has been facing for a long, long time.
It all started with Kogan. The company announced the world's second Android based mobile phone which was in a Blackberry form factor. That automatically means that the screen is only used in a landscape position.
Next came the new Gizmondo announcement. Unlike the G1 and the Kogan, the device doesn't feature a full query keypad, but is focussed at the true mobile gamers. Again, bringing exceptions for the development community.
Today, a company called Touch Revolution announced to have a landline phone ready for the market. It's based on Android and has a huge 7″ touch screen. No doubt it's an interesting device, but it probably doesn't feature nifty things like GPS (why would it).
In just three examples, we already find various differences in comparison to the original G1 from HTC. We aren't developers, but we feel that a problem might be rising for all those that have their focus at this new operating system.
I’ve got my eye on this also having just started looking deeper into Android very recently.
Personally I think I’ll only support the G1 in 2009 alongside everything else I produce content for else it would be too much for me now.
At least that is a good start anyway and better than nto supporting it perhaps as a small developer.