Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 19th Feb 2009 22:45 UTC
Google "Last night we had a geek outing with our favorite hacker, Brian Jepson, who you may remember from our feature on Hacking the XO laptop. This time around Brian got a hold of a development G1 and hacked around with cupcake. Included in the video is a demonstration of the on-screen keyboard, prettier transitions, some fun in the Linux shell, and more. We also have some photos (the video was a little blurry) of the skateboarding androidsâ€"which come up as you hackâ€"and the obligatory Snake game on the Android OS."
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underwhelmed
by poundsmack on Thu 19th Feb 2009 23:25 UTC
poundsmack
Member since:
2005-07-13

Am I the only one who seems completely underwhelmed with Android? I just can't get excited about it no matter how hard I try. Sorry android, I just don't care about you. ;)

Edited 2009-02-19 23:26 UTC

Reply Score: 3

RE: underwhelmed
by robojerk on Fri 20th Feb 2009 00:09 UTC in reply to "underwhelmed"
robojerk Member since:
2006-01-10

You expect too much from a phone that can also be used to watch videos, take pictures, surf the web, and play games on?

Reply Score: 2

RE[2]: underwhelmed
by poundsmack on Fri 20th Feb 2009 00:13 UTC in reply to "RE: underwhelmed"
poundsmack Member since:
2005-07-13

well when you compair it to other OS's used in the embeded/phone world, it just doesn't have the same geek apeal as say Symbian/QNX/WinCE/others which have a really rich background and are, dare I say, "fun" to code for.

Reply Score: 3

RE[3]: underwhelmed
by liamdawe on Fri 20th Feb 2009 00:19 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: underwhelmed"
liamdawe Member since:
2006-07-04

Are you kidding me? Android is an awesome platform and a great phone OS, i have the White G1 and it is the best phone i have ever used, everything is so easy to use.

Reply Score: 1

RE[4]: underwhelmed
by memson on Fri 20th Feb 2009 09:37 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: underwhelmed"
memson Member since:
2006-01-01

Is the G1's battery life as bad as everyone says it is? iPhone has fairly poor battery life - if I use the iPod function for 2 - 3 hours and surf the web on edge and do a few podcast downloads on WIFI/3G, I get 2 days life out of the battery (don't frequently use the phone to make calls during the day, as it's a personal line.) If I don't use much other than EDGE and apps, I can squeeze 3.5 days out of it. I heard the G1 has significantly less battery life in comparison. Is that true?

Reply Score: 2

RE[5]: underwhelmed
by helf on Fri 20th Feb 2009 16:55 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: underwhelmed"
helf Member since:
2005-07-06

damn. I'm doing good to get 2 days out of my Treo 800w with its horribly small stock battery. I haven't had a chance to get an extended one, yet.

*sigh*, I miss the week long battery life of my startac.

Reply Score: 2

RE[3]: underwhelmed
by Lobotomik on Fri 20th Feb 2009 09:35 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: underwhelmed"
Lobotomik Member since:
2006-01-03

Symbian, QNX and WinCE are FUN to code for?

You might not the only one underwhelmed by Android, but I'd say you are in a very, very small group.

I do find the G1 unattractive, but just you watch that space for everything that's coming.

WinCE is just going to be blown out of the water. And although the iPhone is fantastic (with all its self-imposed limitations), we'll see what happens now with its market share once Motorola, Samsung, HTC, LG, SonyEricsson start delivering Android.

Operators which were not favored with a deal with Apple will get a competitive platform they can market without selling their soul to Apple. No income sharing for internet traffic, and they keep the profit from the software store. Interest is guaranteed.

Even given all that, you can still find Android technically underwhelming, but I just cannot see why. Still, the Free Software license means that improvements to the code from all participants will snowball, so fast progress is very likely.

Reply Score: 2

RE[4]: underwhelmed
by Windows Sucks on Fri 20th Feb 2009 15:24 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: underwhelmed"
Windows Sucks Member since:
2005-11-10

Windows Mobile sucks. iPhone OS is nice but too fat for phones (Which is why you cant have background processes running outside of the ones Apple approves)

Android is the most open and one of the most easy to code for. If you can code in Eclipse then you are good to go.

I see Android being everywhere in the next 12 to 18 months.

We know that to keep up MS is going to have to copy Apple as always and make a unified App Store to try and stay relevant. But Windows Mobile is so 90's

The G1 phone it's self sucks, but HTC was just testing the water with this first phone to see if Android would be popular so thy made a cheap phone and people still love it.

I see Android moving to the #2 spot in the future behind Symbian

Edited 2009-02-20 15:27 UTC

Reply Score: 1

RE[5]: underwhelmed
by KAMiKAZOW on Sat 21st Feb 2009 19:03 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: underwhelmed"
KAMiKAZOW Member since:
2005-07-06

Windows Mobile sucks.

Wow, a very suprising comment from someone with your user name....

Reply Score: 2

RE[6]: underwhelmed
by Windows Sucks on Sat 21st Feb 2009 19:08 UTC in reply to "RE[5]: underwhelmed"
Windows Sucks Member since:
2005-11-10

Wow, surprising reply, with nothing to back up while my statement is not true, name or not.

Reply Score: 1

RE: underwhelmed
by mitchaki on Fri 20th Feb 2009 01:23 UTC in reply to "underwhelmed"
mitchaki Member since:
2009-02-20

You're not the only one underwhelmed. But then again, I didn't get excited over the iPhone either.

Edited 2009-02-20 01:24 UTC

Reply Score: 4

RE: underwhelmed
by helf on Fri 20th Feb 2009 03:09 UTC in reply to "underwhelmed"
helf Member since:
2005-07-06

*gasp* You don't worship the Jesus OS, either?!?!

Be careful, someone might shank you ;)

Reply Score: 4

Comment by adkilla
by adkilla on Fri 20th Feb 2009 06:20 UTC
adkilla
Member since:
2005-07-07

I dunno, maybe calling an OS release Cupcake is to blame?

For their sake they better not call it Tinkletoes (or some other gay innuendo) for their next release.

Reply Score: 1

RE: Comment by adkilla
by zorglab on Fri 20th Feb 2009 07:44 UTC in reply to "Comment by adkilla"
zorglab Member since:
2007-11-06

Actually, "cupcake" is just the name of the internal branch at google, which has been opened since some time. It is by NO means a release of the os.

As for the "first" look, there has already been plenty of them over the web since weeks...

Reply Score: 1

NITDroid
by memson on Fri 20th Feb 2009 09:33 UTC
memson
Member since:
2006-01-01

The N800 port of Android has been using and regularly syncing the source with the cupcake branch since January. Nothing to see here, move along :-)

Reply Score: 2

Regarding Android
by kaiwai on Sat 21st Feb 2009 00:46 UTC
kaiwai
Member since:
2005-07-06

The vast majority of the excitement regarding android has to do more with the Google effect than the actual device or software itself. Its amazing to see how much slack is given to Google even though a good number of their desktop applications are horrible. The desktop search and integration is simply awful (it was preloaded onto the Aspire One I'm using now (since upgraded from Windows XP to Linux (Windows versions were the only ones available))).

I'm always surprised how Microsoft puts out a mediocre product and there is swearing and cursing - yet a competitor/third party does a similar thing with their own product and not a single thing is said. There is the Reality Distortion Field and now we have the 'Google Effect' - where all critical thinking is thrown out in favour of venerating the multicoloured Google logo.

Edited 2009-02-21 00:49 UTC

Reply Score: 3