September 29, 2008 • 11 mins
After years of rumors, Google and T-Mobile are releasing a cell phone designed to use Android, Google's new open-source software platform. Tune in to this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the development of Google Android.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi kids,
Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm
an editor at how Stuff Works, and today with me
is Jonathan Strickland, one of our writers. How do you
(00:22):
How's it going pretty good? So, um, today we're going
to talk about Android, and uh, I don't I don't
mean to disappoint you, Chris. We're not talking about humanoid
robots with no hearts like Josh and Chuck. We're gonna
talk about We're gonna talk about Android, which is a
phone platform, a phone operating system in software stack that
(00:45):
is produced by Google or will be produced by Google,
as it has yet to hit the wild Actually, when
you mentioned Google Android, I thought you were talking about
Brent Spiner doing a web search. Yeah, unfortunately no, And
for those of you who don't know what that is,
go watch Star Trek next Generation. So we're talking smartphones, yes,
smartphones in general and Android in particular. The reason we're
(01:09):
talking about this is a rumor has hit the interwebs,
and the rumor is the from TM News which is
an unofficial blog about T Mobile and says that T
Mobile is going to be offering an Android phone on
pre sale starting in mid September two eight, which is
news to a lot of people because the previous information
(01:33):
that was out there was that there wouldn't wouldn't be
any Android phones ready for the market until the end
of two thousand eight, maybe the beginning of two thousand nine. So, um,
that's got a lot of people talking about androids in general. Yeah,
that would be something of a coup for T Mobile,
which is the last time I checked at the fourth
largest United States provider, um and of course a T
(01:55):
and T has got the Apple iPhone, which the wait,
the what phone? Apple? You know they make computers and
they have this Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, Um, Google basically,
I don't even know how long ago was it that
that Google announced that they were working on this hand,
so it's been a couple of years actually. In fact,
that caused a lot of of of rumor millmongering as well.
(02:19):
Back in the day, like about a year ago, I'd say,
there were tons and tons of rumors flying around about
the G the Google phone. UM and Google denied that
they were working on a on a Google phone multiple times.
Um they said, we're working on a software system, a
(02:39):
software stack for phones, but not We're not getting into
the hardware business. We're sticking with software. Um And, And
it was funny how many people refused to believe Google
when they were saying this. And now, of course it
it comes to pass that Google was telling the truth
the whole time. And part of the reason for that
is that Google wants Android to be available on essentially
(02:59):
any kind of hand set. You know, you could have
multiple manufacturers. We're not talking about Apple running OS ten
on the iPhone. We're talking Google offering a platform that
is that could run on phones from Nokia and Motorola
and Samsung or you know whoever they partner with to
adopt that. They could run it on multiple phones, and
(03:19):
it could run on multiple carriers. So you wouldn't necessarily
get locked into a specific carrier like I don't know,
like iPhone and the a T and T carrier here
in the United States. Um. Now, according to this news
that we're talking about here, T Mobile would get the
jump on the other carriers. But again, T Mobile wouldn't
become the exclusive carrier. Uh. Well, to really get into
(03:42):
what Android is. It's it's important to kind of know
what a software stack is. So software stack is UH,
it's several layers of software that allow your phone or
really any computer device to do what it does. But
with phones specifically, you have you have your hardware, and
then you have the kernel. The kernel that's a k
(04:02):
E R N E L. We're not we're not talking
KFC kernel here. The kernel is a management system and
it it interacts directly with the hardware. Then you have middleware,
which is software that kind of acts as a liaison
between the kernel and applications. So then you've got your
application execution environment or a e UH and your application suite,
(04:27):
and then you have some sort of user interface that
allows the user to access these applications. So that's kind
of your stack. UM, and Android, like all smartphones, has
its stack. It's very it follows pretty closely to that
general model. They use a Linux kernel UM, and then
everything else is custom made. Yeah, so that would be
(04:50):
very open source in comparison to OS ten, which is
proprietary to Apple or Windows Mobile which powers a lot
of other smartphones. UM, however, or would be sort of
comparable to Symbion which is not popular in the United
States but is now open source UM. And that was
a huge deal and it's a big, big deal. And
(05:11):
as a matter of fact, some people, uh, you know,
Google actually said a little while ago UM that they
may be partnering with Nokia to sort of work with
symbion Um. So that would sort of be I don't
know if it would be in direct competition with Android
or you know, they they that's sort of mysterious. They
(05:33):
really haven't gotten into the details of how they would
actually make that happen and whether it would be whether
it would get rid of Android or whether it would
be merged in you know. So I haven't really seen
that much on exactly how that would happen. But I
think it actually had some of the developers concerned that
they were all the work that they had done on Android,
you know, might not might be just pitched right right. Yeah,
(05:54):
it remains to be seen now when we talk about developers, UM,
that's a really important part of the whole Android program.
In fact, it's it's probably the most important we've seen
that with the iPhone, with the new Application store. It's
so popular because all the all the third party developers
are now able to develop applications. And that's what these
(06:17):
Google UM you know, all the private developers for Google
are doing now and at least according to some reports,
UM developers are actually having fund developing programs for the iPhone.
So that's a very important part is to make your
software development kit accessible and easy to use and and
and fun to program for UM Now, Google their approaches
(06:41):
is different from the iPhones approach uh. For one thing,
Google's allow allowing developers to access far more of the
the native devices capabilities than an iPhone would. UM. You
can create processes you being if you were a developer,
could create processes that could access uh uh deep levels
(07:02):
of the software stack and even run in the background.
That's something that that Apple refuses to do to allow
third party developers to do. And you could even do
things like let's say the native email client that comes
on your Android phone. Let's say that you don't like
the way that looks. You could go out and look
for or develop your own email client and replace it.
(07:24):
You could you can take out things that are intrinsically
important to the phone and change them, modify them any
way you like. UM as a developer, so that's a
that's a that's a lot more freedom than what you
would get with the iPhone. Um, the flip side of
that is the iPhone has been out for a longer
period of time and the applications have been out for
a couple of well more than a month now, so
(07:48):
they've already got a head start, so that there there's
a little bit of an uphill battle to go there.
But it's, uh, it's definitely something that sets Android apart well.
The uh we've also seen some report it's that, uh,
it is highly unlikely that Android's going to be ready
because um, they Google, for for once, is not making
(08:10):
overtures to exactly everybody on their developer list. They actually
released the newest version of their Software Development Kid or
s d K, to h fifty winners of their application
developing contests back in in July two thousand and eight. Yeah, yeah,
that contest. That contest launched in in late two thousand
and seven, and uh, the contest was to develop applications
(08:35):
using the s d K and the fifty best ones
would win some amount of money and it was ten
million dollars for the the entire the entire yeah, the
entire pie was ten million dollars. No one actually one
ten million bucks based on an application, but you know,
the best one would win a certain amount of that
prize and then the it would be parceled out as
he went down. Um. And so these guys, yeah, they're
(08:57):
getting a little bit of preferential treatment. They're getting the
sd case the updates earlier than everyone else. And that's
kind of ticked off everyone else that and they haven't
even Google hasn't even announced or didn't announced at the
time when h the SDK would be available to everyone else.
Not only did they say, you know, here you top fifty,
here's the STK, they just failed to tell them when
(09:18):
it was coming out. So the rest of them are
going okay, so when goodness it was a major miscommunication
error on Google's part, definitely. Um, So yeah, that might
have some fallout as well. So I guess we're just
gonna have to wait and see, uh where this goes
from here, because if the rumor is true, there might
still be enough excitement on the part of the developers
(09:41):
to go after this. And I think that maybe from
customers as well, because there are plenty of customers who
are kind of fed up with some of the let's
call them quirks that the iPhone has shown over the
last couple of months, who are eager to see a
smartphone that is not as locked down and not as
restricted as the iPhone. So we may actually, uh and
(10:02):
they may be able to turn this around after all,
even with these setbacks. Hopefully some of the Google developers
will come up with a one dollar application that will
just show a jewel on the screen. Though, as one
of the iPhone developers did, well, that's crazy innovation there.
Chrisy should definitely come out and go out there and
and and market that as soon as possible for someone
else figures it out. Now, if I could just get
(10:23):
my hands on a n STK, No, you know there
is available on the website. So I guess that about
wraps up this discussion on on Google Android. If you
would like to learn more, you should read how Smartphones
Work at how stuff works dot com and we'll talk
to you again soon for more on this and thousands
(10:44):
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera it's Eddy. Are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi kids,
Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm
an editor at how Stuff Works, and today with me
is Jonathan Strickland, one of our writers. How do you
(00:22):
How's it going pretty good? So, um, today we're going
to talk about Android, and uh, I don't I don't
mean to disappoint you, Chris. We're not talking about humanoid
robots with no hearts like Josh and Chuck. We're gonna
talk about We're gonna talk about Android, which is a
phone platform, a phone operating system in software stack that
(00:45):
is produced by Google or will be produced by Google,
as it has yet to hit the wild Actually, when
you mentioned Google Android, I thought you were talking about
Brent Spiner doing a web search. Yeah, unfortunately no, And
for those of you who don't know what that is,
go watch Star Trek next Generation. So we're talking smartphones, yes,
smartphones in general and Android in particular. The reason we're
(01:09):
talking about this is a rumor has hit the interwebs,
and the rumor is the from TM News which is
an unofficial blog about T Mobile and says that T
Mobile is going to be offering an Android phone on
pre sale starting in mid September two eight, which is
news to a lot of people because the previous information
(01:33):
that was out there was that there wouldn't wouldn't be
any Android phones ready for the market until the end
of two thousand eight, maybe the beginning of two thousand nine. So, um,
that's got a lot of people talking about androids in general. Yeah,
that would be something of a coup for T Mobile,
which is the last time I checked at the fourth
largest United States provider, um and of course a T
(01:55):
and T has got the Apple iPhone, which the wait,
the what phone? Apple? You know they make computers and
they have this Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, Um, Google basically,
I don't even know how long ago was it that
that Google announced that they were working on this hand,
so it's been a couple of years actually. In fact,
that caused a lot of of of rumor millmongering as well.
(02:19):
Back in the day, like about a year ago, I'd say,
there were tons and tons of rumors flying around about
the G the Google phone. UM and Google denied that
they were working on a on a Google phone multiple times.
Um they said, we're working on a software system, a
(02:39):
software stack for phones, but not We're not getting into
the hardware business. We're sticking with software. Um And, And
it was funny how many people refused to believe Google
when they were saying this. And now, of course it
it comes to pass that Google was telling the truth
the whole time. And part of the reason for that
is that Google wants Android to be available on essentially
(02:59):
any kind of hand set. You know, you could have
multiple manufacturers. We're not talking about Apple running OS ten
on the iPhone. We're talking Google offering a platform that
is that could run on phones from Nokia and Motorola
and Samsung or you know whoever they partner with to
adopt that. They could run it on multiple phones, and
(03:19):
it could run on multiple carriers. So you wouldn't necessarily
get locked into a specific carrier like I don't know,
like iPhone and the a T and T carrier here
in the United States. Um. Now, according to this news
that we're talking about here, T Mobile would get the
jump on the other carriers. But again, T Mobile wouldn't
become the exclusive carrier. Uh. Well, to really get into
(03:42):
what Android is. It's it's important to kind of know
what a software stack is. So software stack is UH,
it's several layers of software that allow your phone or
really any computer device to do what it does. But
with phones specifically, you have you have your hardware, and
then you have the kernel. The kernel that's a k
(04:02):
E R N E L. We're not we're not talking
KFC kernel here. The kernel is a management system and
it it interacts directly with the hardware. Then you have middleware,
which is software that kind of acts as a liaison
between the kernel and applications. So then you've got your
application execution environment or a e UH and your application suite,
(04:27):
and then you have some sort of user interface that
allows the user to access these applications. So that's kind
of your stack. UM, and Android, like all smartphones, has
its stack. It's very it follows pretty closely to that
general model. They use a Linux kernel UM, and then
everything else is custom made. Yeah, so that would be
(04:50):
very open source in comparison to OS ten, which is
proprietary to Apple or Windows Mobile which powers a lot
of other smartphones. UM, however, or would be sort of
comparable to Symbion which is not popular in the United
States but is now open source UM. And that was
a huge deal and it's a big, big deal. And
(05:11):
as a matter of fact, some people, uh, you know,
Google actually said a little while ago UM that they
may be partnering with Nokia to sort of work with
symbion Um. So that would sort of be I don't
know if it would be in direct competition with Android
or you know, they they that's sort of mysterious. They
(05:33):
really haven't gotten into the details of how they would
actually make that happen and whether it would be whether
it would get rid of Android or whether it would
be merged in you know. So I haven't really seen
that much on exactly how that would happen. But I
think it actually had some of the developers concerned that
they were all the work that they had done on Android,
you know, might not might be just pitched right right. Yeah,
(05:54):
it remains to be seen now when we talk about developers, UM,
that's a really important part of the whole Android program.
In fact, it's it's probably the most important we've seen
that with the iPhone, with the new Application store. It's
so popular because all the all the third party developers
are now able to develop applications. And that's what these
(06:17):
Google UM you know, all the private developers for Google
are doing now and at least according to some reports,
UM developers are actually having fund developing programs for the iPhone.
So that's a very important part is to make your
software development kit accessible and easy to use and and
and fun to program for UM Now, Google their approaches
(06:41):
is different from the iPhones approach uh. For one thing,
Google's allow allowing developers to access far more of the
the native devices capabilities than an iPhone would. UM. You
can create processes you being if you were a developer,
could create processes that could access uh uh deep levels
(07:02):
of the software stack and even run in the background.
That's something that that Apple refuses to do to allow
third party developers to do. And you could even do
things like let's say the native email client that comes
on your Android phone. Let's say that you don't like
the way that looks. You could go out and look
for or develop your own email client and replace it.
(07:24):
You could you can take out things that are intrinsically
important to the phone and change them, modify them any
way you like. UM as a developer, so that's a
that's a that's a lot more freedom than what you
would get with the iPhone. Um, the flip side of
that is the iPhone has been out for a longer
period of time and the applications have been out for
a couple of well more than a month now, so
(07:48):
they've already got a head start, so that there there's
a little bit of an uphill battle to go there.
But it's, uh, it's definitely something that sets Android apart well.
The uh we've also seen some report it's that, uh,
it is highly unlikely that Android's going to be ready
because um, they Google, for for once, is not making
(08:10):
overtures to exactly everybody on their developer list. They actually
released the newest version of their Software Development Kid or
s d K, to h fifty winners of their application
developing contests back in in July two thousand and eight. Yeah, yeah,
that contest. That contest launched in in late two thousand
and seven, and uh, the contest was to develop applications
(08:35):
using the s d K and the fifty best ones
would win some amount of money and it was ten
million dollars for the the entire the entire yeah, the
entire pie was ten million dollars. No one actually one
ten million bucks based on an application, but you know,
the best one would win a certain amount of that
prize and then the it would be parceled out as
he went down. Um. And so these guys, yeah, they're
(08:57):
getting a little bit of preferential treatment. They're getting the
sd case the updates earlier than everyone else. And that's
kind of ticked off everyone else that and they haven't
even Google hasn't even announced or didn't announced at the
time when h the SDK would be available to everyone else.
Not only did they say, you know, here you top fifty,
here's the STK, they just failed to tell them when
(09:18):
it was coming out. So the rest of them are
going okay, so when goodness it was a major miscommunication
error on Google's part, definitely. Um, So yeah, that might
have some fallout as well. So I guess we're just
gonna have to wait and see, uh where this goes
from here, because if the rumor is true, there might
still be enough excitement on the part of the developers
(09:41):
to go after this. And I think that maybe from
customers as well, because there are plenty of customers who
are kind of fed up with some of the let's
call them quirks that the iPhone has shown over the
last couple of months, who are eager to see a
smartphone that is not as locked down and not as
restricted as the iPhone. So we may actually, uh and
(10:02):
they may be able to turn this around after all,
even with these setbacks. Hopefully some of the Google developers
will come up with a one dollar application that will
just show a jewel on the screen. Though, as one
of the iPhone developers did, well, that's crazy innovation there.
Chrisy should definitely come out and go out there and
and and market that as soon as possible for someone
else figures it out. Now, if I could just get
(10:23):
my hands on a n STK, No, you know there
is available on the website. So I guess that about
wraps up this discussion on on Google Android. If you
would like to learn more, you should read how Smartphones
Work at how stuff works dot com and we'll talk
to you again soon for more on this and thousands
(10:44):
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera it's Eddy. Are
you
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