| |||||||||||||
The Android Dev Phone 1The Android Dev Phone 1Posted Dec 30, 2008 17:50 UTC (Tue) by shahms (subscriber, #8877)Parent article: The Android Dev Phone 1
I can understand the arguments against storing all of this data on the Google-provided services. But after having used the phone for a while I can say that it is one of the strongest selling points. Particularly the calendar and contacts. Rather than requiring some Windows-only (or, if they're feeling particularly magnanimous, Mac OS X) software for synchronizing my contacts between the phone and a single computer, I can import them into Gmail from my workstation and they quickly show up on the phone. Linux support out of the box.
With previous phones I had a "choice" of using Windows to get properly sync'd services or having the phone be the sole repository of a good amount of personally important data.
(Log in to post comments)
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Jan 2, 2009 10:55 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
What phones has not supported SyncML in the last five years? Granted, it is often a bit tricky to use, but I've never had any problems with basic things such as phone book sync.
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Jan 2, 2009 19:37 UTC (Fri) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
Some LG phones, if I remember correctly. Also, a lot of Verizon phones have SyncML disabled in the firmware.
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Jan 7, 2009 21:53 UTC (Wed) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]
If Microsoft-only is not acceptable, why is Google-only acceptable?
Sure, you can access Gmail from virtually any computer. But then, you can access Windows from virtually any computer too (just run it in a virtual machine).
They're both proprietary. The only difference I see is the price of Gmail is $0 and the price of Windows is approx $100. But, frankly, if it's just about price you might as well buy a phone which is $100 cheaper.
If I had an Android phone, I'd like to use the calendar and email sync features, but I'd rather do it to another provider of my own choice, probably one which does a few things differently to Google.
Seems Android's software only works properly with Gmail though, and might stay that way.
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Jan 9, 2009 13:22 UTC (Fri) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Firing up a web browser to run a web app is ridiculously easy. Each web app takes little extra resource on the netbook client.
Installing Windows on top of Linux is a lot of work - buy a licensed copy of Windows (£140/$200+ in UK for XP Pro, via eBay sellers only as it's end-of-life), install it, get it activated by Microsoft (which can involve a phone call), install required Windows updates, then install antivirus, antispyware, personal firewall, Firefox, etc, etc. You need at least 1 GB spare to run XP comfortably with multiple apps, or 512 MB for a single main app.
There really isn't any comparison here.
You don't actually have to use the Gmail account required for Android, it seems, and forks of Android are legal. Removing XP product activation is illegal of course.
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Jan 10, 2009 2:12 UTC (Sat) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]
Sure, Google is easier. The question was about what's acceptable, not what's easy or difficult.
The ease-of-use-is-all people can go sit in the "we don't care about open source" corner I guess.
The original article says that you _do_ have to use Google's Gmail if you want sensible functionality from the built in apps. You can use other providers, but things which should work don't work with them. My question still stands: why is that acceptable?
It's good that I can fork it.
In other words, I can turn a Google-requiring phone into an equivalently functional non-Google-requiring phone with some effort.
That is than Microsoft and Windows. But worse than something which works out of the box with other providers of identical online services.
Whether that is a real issue, or just ideology, depends on whether it stays that way, or if Android (the one from Google) interoperates well with other services.
Having to fork isn't an insurmountable barrier for a few individual users wanting to do neat things, but it is rather anticompetitive to service providers, since most users won't use a fork as long as the Google-requiring version is good enough.
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Jan 10, 2009 2:30 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
if these people really were in the "we don't care about open source" corner you are saying they belong in, they wouldn't have put things under an open source license that would allow you to fork the code either.
building the defaults to use google but allowing you to fork it to use whatever you want seems like a very reasonable thing to do. most people wouldn't use the fork because they don't have the alternate servers in place to support things (and if you don't trust google with the data, why should you trust any other company?) but those that do can either fork things themselves, or use a fork that someone else has created.
The Android Dev Phone 1 Posted Feb 19, 2009 1:10 UTC (Thu) by thoffman (subscriber, #3063) [Link]
There are at least three major differences between using Google's services vs. Microsoft applications, besides the economic cost, which as you correctly point out is not really relevant to real freedom.
1. You can access Google's significant services using entirely Free software and open protocols. That is very different than running an entire proprietary operating system on your own computer, regardless of if its in a VM or not.
2. Unlike Microsoft's major products, there is no attempt at lock-in with Google's products. You can fairly easily download all your email, calendar appointments, and contacts from Google's on line applications, and upload them to a new provider of choice any time you want.
3. Google is very friendly to the Free Software / Open Source community, unlike Microsoft which is essentially at war with it. Google both heavily uses Free software, and also contributes back to the community. This is fundamental, with deep implications for the future of the two companies, and should matter to you, if you are deciding between using products from either Microsoft and Google - even if the Google product is proprietary.
Do you _really_ not see any difference other than the price tag?
|
|||||||||||||