Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi kids,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor at how Stuff Works, and today with me
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Strickland, one of our writers. How do you
Speaker 1: How's it going pretty good? So, um, today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Android, and uh, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: mean to disappoint you, Chris. We're not talking about humanoid
Speaker 1: robots with no hearts like Josh and Chuck. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about We're gonna talk about Android, which is a
Speaker 1: phone platform, a phone operating system in software stack that
Speaker 1: is produced by Google or will be produced by Google,
Speaker 1: as it has yet to hit the wild Actually, when
Speaker 1: you mentioned Google Android, I thought you were talking about
Speaker 1: Brent Spiner doing a web search. Yeah, unfortunately no, And
Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: go watch Star Trek next Generation. So we're talking smartphones, yes,
Speaker 1: smartphones in general and Android in particular. The reason we're
Speaker 1: talking about this is a rumor has hit the interwebs,
Speaker 1: and the rumor is the from TM News which is
Speaker 1: an unofficial blog about T Mobile and says that T
Speaker 1: Mobile is going to be offering an Android phone on
Speaker 1: pre sale starting in mid September two eight, which is
Speaker 1: news to a lot of people because the previous information
Speaker 1: that was out there was that there wouldn't wouldn't be
Speaker 1: any Android phones ready for the market until the end
Speaker 1: of two thousand eight, maybe the beginning of two thousand nine. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's got a lot of people talking about androids in general. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be something of a coup for T Mobile,
Speaker 1: which is the last time I checked at the fourth
Speaker 1: largest United States provider, um and of course a T
Speaker 1: and T has got the Apple iPhone, which the wait,
Speaker 1: the what phone? Apple? You know they make computers and
Speaker 1: they have this Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, Um, Google basically,
Speaker 1: I don't even know how long ago was it that
Speaker 1: that Google announced that they were working on this hand,
Speaker 1: so it's been a couple of years actually. In fact,
Speaker 1: that caused a lot of of of rumor millmongering as well.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, like about a year ago, I'd say,
Speaker 1: there were tons and tons of rumors flying around about
Speaker 1: the G the Google phone. UM and Google denied that
Speaker 1: they were working on a on a Google phone multiple times.
Speaker 1: Um they said, we're working on a software system, a
Speaker 1: software stack for phones, but not We're not getting into
Speaker 1: the hardware business. We're sticking with software. Um And, And
Speaker 1: it was funny how many people refused to believe Google
Speaker 1: when they were saying this. And now, of course it
Speaker 1: it comes to pass that Google was telling the truth
Speaker 1: the whole time. And part of the reason for that
Speaker 1: is that Google wants Android to be available on essentially
Speaker 1: any kind of hand set. You know, you could have
Speaker 1: multiple manufacturers. We're not talking about Apple running OS ten
Speaker 1: on the iPhone. We're talking Google offering a platform that
Speaker 1: is that could run on phones from Nokia and Motorola
Speaker 1: and Samsung or you know whoever they partner with to
Speaker 1: adopt that. They could run it on multiple phones, and
Speaker 1: it could run on multiple carriers. So you wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: get locked into a specific carrier like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like iPhone and the a T and T carrier here
Speaker 1: in the United States. Um. Now, according to this news
Speaker 1: that we're talking about here, T Mobile would get the
Speaker 1: jump on the other carriers. But again, T Mobile wouldn't
Speaker 1: become the exclusive carrier. Uh. Well, to really get into
Speaker 1: what Android is. It's it's important to kind of know
Speaker 1: what a software stack is. So software stack is UH,
Speaker 1: it's several layers of software that allow your phone or
Speaker 1: really any computer device to do what it does. But
Speaker 1: with phones specifically, you have you have your hardware, and
Speaker 1: then you have the kernel. The kernel that's a k
Speaker 1: E R N E L. We're not we're not talking
Speaker 1: KFC kernel here. The kernel is a management system and
Speaker 1: it it interacts directly with the hardware. Then you have middleware,
Speaker 1: which is software that kind of acts as a liaison
Speaker 1: between the kernel and applications. So then you've got your
Speaker 1: application execution environment or a e UH and your application suite,
Speaker 1: and then you have some sort of user interface that
Speaker 1: allows the user to access these applications. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of your stack. UM, and Android, like all smartphones, has
Speaker 1: its stack. It's very it follows pretty closely to that
Speaker 1: general model. They use a Linux kernel UM, and then
Speaker 1: everything else is custom made. Yeah, so that would be
Speaker 1: very open source in comparison to OS ten, which is
Speaker 1: proprietary to Apple or Windows Mobile which powers a lot
Speaker 1: of other smartphones. UM, however, or would be sort of
Speaker 1: comparable to Symbion which is not popular in the United
Speaker 1: States but is now open source UM. And that was
Speaker 1: a huge deal and it's a big, big deal. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, some people, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Google actually said a little while ago UM that they
Speaker 1: may be partnering with Nokia to sort of work with
Speaker 1: symbion Um. So that would sort of be I don't
Speaker 1: know if it would be in direct competition with Android
Speaker 1: or you know, they they that's sort of mysterious. They
Speaker 1: really haven't gotten into the details of how they would
Speaker 1: actually make that happen and whether it would be whether
Speaker 1: it would get rid of Android or whether it would
Speaker 1: be merged in you know. So I haven't really seen
Speaker 1: that much on exactly how that would happen. But I
Speaker 1: think it actually had some of the developers concerned that
Speaker 1: they were all the work that they had done on Android,
Speaker 1: you know, might not might be just pitched right right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it remains to be seen now when we talk about developers, UM,
Speaker 1: that's a really important part of the whole Android program.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's it's probably the most important we've seen
Speaker 1: that with the iPhone, with the new Application store. It's
Speaker 1: so popular because all the all the third party developers
Speaker 1: are now able to develop applications. And that's what these
Speaker 1: Google UM you know, all the private developers for Google
Speaker 1: are doing now and at least according to some reports,
Speaker 1: UM developers are actually having fund developing programs for the iPhone.
Speaker 1: So that's a very important part is to make your
Speaker 1: software development kit accessible and easy to use and and
Speaker 1: and fun to program for UM Now, Google their approaches
Speaker 1: is different from the iPhones approach uh. For one thing,
Speaker 1: Google's allow allowing developers to access far more of the
Speaker 1: the native devices capabilities than an iPhone would. UM. You
Speaker 1: can create processes you being if you were a developer,
Speaker 1: could create processes that could access uh uh deep levels
Speaker 1: of the software stack and even run in the background.
Speaker 1: That's something that that Apple refuses to do to allow
Speaker 1: third party developers to do. And you could even do
Speaker 1: things like let's say the native email client that comes
Speaker 1: on your Android phone. Let's say that you don't like
Speaker 1: the way that looks. You could go out and look
Speaker 1: for or develop your own email client and replace it.
Speaker 1: You could you can take out things that are intrinsically
Speaker 1: important to the phone and change them, modify them any
Speaker 1: way you like. UM as a developer, so that's a
Speaker 1: that's a that's a lot more freedom than what you
Speaker 1: would get with the iPhone. Um, the flip side of
Speaker 1: that is the iPhone has been out for a longer
Speaker 1: period of time and the applications have been out for
Speaker 1: a couple of well more than a month now, so
Speaker 1: they've already got a head start, so that there there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of an uphill battle to go there.
Speaker 1: But it's, uh, it's definitely something that sets Android apart well.
Speaker 1: The uh we've also seen some report it's that, uh,
Speaker 1: it is highly unlikely that Android's going to be ready
Speaker 1: because um, they Google, for for once, is not making
Speaker 1: overtures to exactly everybody on their developer list. They actually
Speaker 1: released the newest version of their Software Development Kid or
Speaker 1: s d K, to h fifty winners of their application
Speaker 1: developing contests back in in July two thousand and eight. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that contest. That contest launched in in late two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, and uh, the contest was to develop applications
Speaker 1: using the s d K and the fifty best ones
Speaker 1: would win some amount of money and it was ten
Speaker 1: million dollars for the the entire the entire yeah, the
Speaker 1: entire pie was ten million dollars. No one actually one
Speaker 1: ten million bucks based on an application, but you know,
Speaker 1: the best one would win a certain amount of that
Speaker 1: prize and then the it would be parceled out as
Speaker 1: he went down. Um. And so these guys, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: getting a little bit of preferential treatment. They're getting the
Speaker 1: sd case the updates earlier than everyone else. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of ticked off everyone else that and they haven't
Speaker 1: even Google hasn't even announced or didn't announced at the
Speaker 1: time when h the SDK would be available to everyone else.
Speaker 1: Not only did they say, you know, here you top fifty,
Speaker 1: here's the STK, they just failed to tell them when
Speaker 1: it was coming out. So the rest of them are
Speaker 1: going okay, so when goodness it was a major miscommunication
Speaker 1: error on Google's part, definitely. Um, So yeah, that might
Speaker 1: have some fallout as well. So I guess we're just
Speaker 1: gonna have to wait and see, uh where this goes
Speaker 1: from here, because if the rumor is true, there might
Speaker 1: still be enough excitement on the part of the developers
Speaker 1: to go after this. And I think that maybe from
Speaker 1: customers as well, because there are plenty of customers who
Speaker 1: are kind of fed up with some of the let's
Speaker 1: call them quirks that the iPhone has shown over the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, who are eager to see a
Speaker 1: smartphone that is not as locked down and not as
Speaker 1: restricted as the iPhone. So we may actually, uh and
Speaker 1: they may be able to turn this around after all,
Speaker 1: even with these setbacks. Hopefully some of the Google developers
Speaker 1: will come up with a one dollar application that will
Speaker 1: just show a jewel on the screen. Though, as one
Speaker 1: of the iPhone developers did, well, that's crazy innovation there.
Speaker 1: Chrisy should definitely come out and go out there and
Speaker 1: and and market that as soon as possible for someone
Speaker 1: else figures it out. Now, if I could just get
Speaker 1: my hands on a n STK, No, you know there
Speaker 1: is available on the website. So I guess that about
Speaker 1: wraps up this discussion on on Google Android. If you
Speaker 1: would like to learn more, you should read how Smartphones
Speaker 1: Work at how stuff works dot com and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again soon for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think. Send an email to
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera it's Eddy. Are
Speaker 1: you