Devoid Android
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 27, 2008 at 11:36 AM PT
Google’s Android mobile platform will become commercially available before year end, just as the company promised. But with one caveat: It will lack some of the features Google (GOOG) first intended. Seems that in order to get Android out the door in time for the holiday shopping season, the company has been forced to defeature it. Google has dropped planned APIs for Bluetooth and Google’s own GTalk instant-messaging service in Android 1.0, according to the Android Developers Blog. Seems there are issues with both APIs that need to be resolved before Google is comfortable releasing them into the wild, and the company couldn’t do that before the end of the year. “… We plain ran out of time,” said Android engineer Nick Pelly. “The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some cleanup before we can commit to it for the SDK. Keep in mind that putting it in the 1.0 SDK would have locked us into that API for years to come.”
Unless you simply kept it in beta for a few years like some of your other products. …
Comments
It’s an interesting question of whether it’s best to launch a product when it’s ready or to put out an early version which lacks certain features. I think many of us have developed an, “I need it now” mentality but at the same time I know people who will swear off a product if their initial experience is not what they expected.
Posted by Ken Okel at August 27th, 2008 at 12:53 pm