“Innovative features include touch-screen; user interface features and compass capabilities show Google’s mobile platform is making progress.”
New York — Google last week unveiled new features for its much-anticipated version of the Android operating system; including touch-screen technology, compass capabilities and games.
Last week, at the Google I/O developers conference here in San Francisco, Google updated on several of its Web-related initiatives and Steve Horowitz, engineering director for Android, demonstrated the touch-screen capabilities by using a swiping gesture to light up dots on the demo phone in the form of a “G” to unlock the phone for use.
To enable the device, users draw an individually specified sign — possibly easier to remember than a combination of numbers — across an on-screen square made up of nine points using their finger tips. Users can define whatever sign they wanted to serve as a “password” to unlock the phone, Horowitz said.
A prototype phone from an unnamed manufacturer was shown running Android software during the keynote. The new phone is loaded with amazing features, including an unlocking tool that allows users to create a secret shape that must be drawn on the screen. Besides, the device featured a touch screen display and a startup screen full of colorful icons for launching programs and Web services, such as Gmail, with the touch of a finger.
A quick flip of the finger from a status bar calls up pending actions such as an imminent appointment or unread e-mail.
Andy Rubin, director of mobile platforms at Google, said some of the features were shown today publicly for the first time. Google bought Rubin’s company, Android, in 2005. The Android software is the centerpiece of the Google-led Open Handset Alliance (OHA), which aims to create an open source mobile platform for developers.
The phone will, as expected, feature the Google Web browser, Google Mail and Google Maps. The Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth that provides 360-degree panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level.
The phone also includes a compass, magnifying tool and a version of the game Pac-Man. Its touch-screen technology will be similar to that of an Apple iPhone, but it will also be able to work with a tracking ball. The phone displayed included an accelerometer put to good use by Google. The demo showed Google’s Street View being used along with a compass feature that let you change your view as you turned with the device. That feature got a healthy round of “oooooohs” from the packed hall of developers.
Horowitz also showed zooming features for magnifying things on the Android screen, a new notification system for calendar events, missed calls or new e-mail, a desktop-like application launcher and a version of the Pac-Man game.
The list of incoming messages is accessed at the top of the display. The virtual desktop is larger than the display and can be moved at the touch of a finger. A magnifying glass helps with selecting the correct section before zooming, for example, into a web page. With Android’s help, future smart phones with integrated compass are planned to automatically integrate the geodata from Google Maps.
Although Google and the OHA (Open Handset Alliance) of 34 companies developing Android have been criticized for not opening up development of the platform, Rubin said he still considers it an open-source effort in that the OHA will release the code to the community once it is finalized.
Rubin said there are different types of open-source projects.
“We think there is a window where there is a need for an open system,” he said. “And we said it would be better to do this in a structured way with the 34 companies in OHA and then open it [Android] up.”
Google is not making the phones, just working to develop the Android operating system that manufacturers will install. Companies such as Samsung and Motorola have said they will make phones that run on Android.
Rubin adhered to previous company statements when asked when Android-powered phones might be available to consumers. “The second half of 2008,” he said. Rubin also underlined Android is a complete software stack with all the security and features to produce a new generation of mobile phones.
“Many of the devices used today are based on 20-year-old platforms, when security was not really thought about,” he said. “Starting from a clean slate has its advantages. This is a platform that will let the carriers to more innovative things.”
Rubin also did not rule out the possibility that Android could be adapted to run on existing phones if a phone provider or developer wanted to try that.
According to a conference report, the eventual use of Android is not to be restricted to high end phones -– users of mass produced budget phones are also to benefit from some of the open operating system’s features.
Google said more than 2,900 developers had signed up for the two-day I/O conference, exceeding expectations.