Google releases Android programming tools

The Google Android logo

(Credit: Google)

Google on Monday released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone alliance for download, giving developers the ability to start writing software for phones due to start shipping in 2008 and $10 million in prizes to lure them.

The software development kit (SDK), an open-source package available for download for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X machines, shows that Java is indeed the programming language for software running on the Linux-based phones.

Accompanying the SDK is a raft of details that wasn't available when Google and its partners announced the Open Handset Alliance a week ago. The Android software includes the Google-created Dalvik virtual machine for running Java programs, a browser based on the WebKit engine, and support for many media and image file formats. (Note: I clarified that the browser is only based on the WebKit engine.)

And hardware abilities permitting, it also supports wireless communications using GSM mobile-phone technology, 3G, Edge, 802.11 Wi-Fi networks. Conspicuously missing from the list is the widely used CDMA mobile-phone technology developed by Qualcomm.

To jump-start the Android programming effort, Google is offering $10 million total in prizes, each ranging from $25,000 to $275,000, to programmers picked by a panel of judges.

A diagram of the inner workings of Google's Android software for mobile phones.

(Credit: Google)

Android programmers can use the open-source Eclipse programming tool, founded by IBM and now supported by many companies, along with an Android plug-in for Eclipse.

The SDK includes an emulator so programmers can write software even without phone hardware. However, as programmer Jason Chen cautions on his blog, "The look and feel of the user interface in the emulator is a placeholder for a final version that is under development."

The SDK also describes application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable programmers to take advantage of underlying support for location-based services, video and audio streaming and playback, and 3D graphics. However, support for Bluetooth and 802.11 wireless networking APIs isn't yet available, though they'll be added to the SDK, the site said.

Google mentions support for two APIs for using Google services, too: Google Maps for displaying maps and XMPP for device-to-device communication tasks such as playing checkers.

[easymf]

wonder what kind of jvm ..

is google going to use. is it j2se, j2me or some other jvm with some other subset of features?

The funny thing is also that NetBeans and its great Mobility tool is no supported by default.

I just wonder what are guys at Sun management taking their money for - this event should be a huge announcement and it should be done both by Sun and Google together.

Leaving the Google to profit from this, I do not know whether I should be happy or not - it looks like Google is going to be next m$.

[Thad Boyd]

Webkit

Webkit is not a browser, it's a rendering engine.

I take this to mean Google is using a new Webkit-based browser?

[bean_mrbean]

NO CDMA??!??!???

When are they gonna learn to use the better networks in the US?

CDMA has better call quality, faster and more reliable DATA, (my M610 from sprint surfs the internet with the opera mini browser (mini.opera.com) than an iphone will.

GOOGLE ->> get with it and support a truly "open" device in an open market with different network technologies.