Android 2.2 is out , and it ’s moderately gracious ! But what ’s next for Android ? A better keyboard ? More sexy ? And how exactly does Google decide what start into each variation of Android anyway ? get ’s askLead Android Andy Rubin .
The highlights , if you do n’t require to read the interview below ( which is fairly interesting if you ’re into Android , if I do say so myself ):
• It ’s actually “ pretty random ” what go into every version of Android , and they do n’t plan more than one release out
• There ’s not much they can do about sound with custom UIs lagging behind on new versions of Android
• They have it off the keyboard could use some work
• HTC may very well be on their own with Apple ’s patent lawsuit
• The next 6 calendar month will “ blow your mind ”
Gizmodo : So my personal thing , the one question I desire to enquire personally , is when is the keyboard become to get better ?
Andy : I entail , it does need a piddling bit of improvement . I think we did a pretty good job given that it ’s pretty generic for all dissimilar CRT screen sizes — you have little screen , big screens , you have landscape painting , you have portrayal . But what I think you start needing is more specific for the gimmick . It ’s a model — middling generic — and we involve to do a little good job . The vocalism squad , I conceive , did a good line of basically make the keyboard kind of optional in some area . I talk to my phone when I ’m air SMSes . I talk to it , and chasten it a little bit with the keyboard . My primary use of goods and services pillow slip is representative , but I suppose you ’re right , we do require to be kind of repair it a small bit .
A lot of that , it ’s not needfully the software — a lot of the time it ’s the type of touch screen the OEM uses . You ’ve get word all those test where they have like the Droid touchscreen , the Nexus touchscreen — they’re all a little different and it ’s hard to make one keyboard work across all those different flavors of touch screens .
Gizmodo : We ’re up to Froyo 2.2 now , but we have devices with customs interfaces , which often lag behind former version of Android . People with , say , a Droid Eris or a Hero waited around 6 months or longer just to get to 2.1 , and now 2.2 is coming . So how do you plow that sort of issue and where does Google stand on that type of matter ?
Andy : I mean , if I was like a dictator I would enforce this poppycock and everyone would have to have the same version at the same metre and there would be a big switching with groovy ostentation , but it ’s just not in the batting order . So we ’ll do a great version , and if they decide to adopt it , they ’ll adopt it . The difference of opinion between those two models : The first theoretical account , it ’s really hard for people to severalise , everybody scram the same thing . So you are kind of commoditizing a whole slew of companies in the process and that ’s painful because the great unwashed will literally go out of business potentially . In our mannikin , it allows differentiation . At the platform stratum , it is still compatible , so the apps in the marketplace will still execute in the platform . But yeah , they have to modulate how quickly they can put their specialize features on top of the basis chopine , and that ’s a race .
Gizmodo : But if you ’re not running 2.1 , for example , you ca n’t get the prescribed Twitter app .
Andy : I mean there are apps written for Vista , just like Photoshop CS5 does not scat on Windows 3.1 . I mean it ’s just a fact , there ’s nothing new here . This is how it has always been and that ’s why I made the note of bequest . We have legacy and if somebody desire to employ a feature that ’s in the new atomic number 8 , they really ca n’t run that app on an older O . So it ’s just things are happening so quickly that it becomes really obvious that we went from 2.0 to 2.2 in a very short time material body . I recall that will decelerate down a small bit . I ’m actually advocating come in out with vent around the buying time of year , May and September , October .
Gizmodo : So how does the update operation go ? How do you adjudicate what goes into each release ?
Andy : It ’s pretty random . We roadmap one outlet out , so we do n’t plan out the class , or two years or five geezerhood like a mickle of other people do . It ’s more run like an internet company would prevail it , so there ’s a lot of looping and what we are rule is introduction total from all over the place . Like the Simplify Media guys , that was a company we acquire and now their stuff is in the Froyo release .
Gizmodo : HTC been in a variety of interesting position in terms of patents — they’re licensing technology from Microsoft . That kind of actually makes Android not complimentary for them to employ . Are you worried about that in the future ?
Andy : If I do an execution of an MP3 codec , down the line , the guy sell the gimmick — the guy that ’s make the money — he ’s going to have to devote a royalty to the MPEG association , the guys who own that noetic property around that . If I put through the ActiveSync communications protocol and let the cat out of the bag to Exchange servers , somebody ’s going to have to devote Microsoft for the royal line . And that happens in phone today — there ’s no difference between Android or something else .
Gizmodo : What is it you want to fix or add to an Android next ? Like what ’s on your listing of “ Things I Wished I Could Have Done ” ?
Andy : Well , even to me , when we liberate the first version , it did n’t feel like a 1.0 , it kind of feel like a 0.8 . If you look at where we were 18 calendar month ago and where we are today , that just take a shit the future smart . Because the pace at which we run from that kind of 0.8 to 2.2 was so loyal that we ’re just earning how to master that character of engineering — that eccentric of iterative technology — and all of the origination , I mean it ’s biz on . There is move to be stuff that ’s just move to go down on your mind . In 6 months . Before it was 18 months , now it ’s 6 months .
Gizmodo : So where do you want to see Android in a twelvemonth or two , in term of bigger goals ?
Andy : For Android it ’s a numbers biz . It ’s an final stage product with end OEMs and product class today , but what we demonstrated at IO was pretty unique . We demonstrated large filmdom and small-scale screen ; we certify ARM processor and Intel central processor , and we exhibit poppycock from unlike OEMs : HTC , and Sony on the TV side . So look , we ’re cross product category , cross manufacturer , cross CPU architecture , agnostic , and we have all the services pointed to the chopine , and the political program is just get going to go passably broad across those product categories . It ’s never been done before .
If you appear at it as a graph , we ’re veracious in the eye of a hockey spliff right now . You do n’t realize that you ’re veracious in the eye of it until after the fact and you ’re looking at it — oh that ’s where it was , but we ’re right-hand in the middle of it flop now . So I intend it ’s just going to be exponential in the amount of adoption .
Thanks to Google VP of Engineering , and psyche of Android Andy Rubin for speak to us !
AndroidAndy RubincellphonesfroyoGoogleGoogle I / OSmartphones
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