Google's Android: Paradise for mobile developers?

Alright, I am too excited not to post about this. So, like me and millions of other mobile developers out there, you've heard or seen Google's mobile operating system named Android and what it can do. I have just started downloading the SDK. I am so excited about this, I do not think I will be sleeping over the next few days. I've already dispatched a few mails out to some of my friends asking them to check it out and their thoughts. I wish we could have a discussion about it right here on this blog to make it public. I will try to set this up in the next few days.

Here are my initial thoughts so far:

• The architecture is awesome and clean.


• Java is on top of everything: I've got nothing new to learn except use the supplied APIs.


• It's built for developers and to allow people to do serious stuff on mobile devices. After one full year of doing exactly this kind of development and having come to the conclusion that there is too much fragmentation in it as well as the fact that device manufacturers do not necessarily build them for developers to take full advantage of the device capabilities, this new initiative from Google is more than welcome.


• Interesting stuff: SQL-Lite for persistent storage, Location Manager API, XMPP API built in, the concept of Intents and what the developer can do in the middle of the end-user navigating from one intent to the other, the Application Service Manager, and of course with WebKit, we don't have to worry anymore about javascript support on mobile phones (AJAX and all that...) and many more interesting goodies...


• This seems to be the mobile development paradise I've been looking for all along.

Here are a couple of links to start checking out:

The Android SDK: http://code.google.com/android

Some very nice videos: http://www.youtube.com/androiddevelopers

Some discussions I've started about the possibility of Apple releasing a version of their iPhone device with Android installed on it: New iPhone Software Next Year?


To conclude this, let's see what I come up with over the next few days of playing around with it. Seriously, I love the fact that I cannot sleep much anyways. Time to hack the hell out of "ze Android"!