Talk:Android (smartphone)
Interoperability and standards
There's a lot of discussion of features, which are important for the end user in the marketplace. So far, however, I don't see a significant discussion of how the Open Handset Alliance will ensure interoperability. Have they set up an interoperability testing laboratory, which could even be a distributed virtual private network.
That usually comes from a combination of standards, options selected in the standard, and agreement on things that don't lend themselves to standardization, such as the operating system. Apropos of standards, I do know that the W3C Consortium is working on standards for mobile devices. Has the Android taken a position on using, or not using them?
What does Android assume about the IP stack? Is it, as a number of newer mobile phones, dependent on IPv6? What's the multimedia architecture? Does it, for example, use the Session Initiation Protocol? MIME types?
Any speculation on bandwidth required to run these features, which clearly will affect infrastructure, and even where the Androids could be used?
Howard C. Berkowitz 12:14, 10 August 2008 (CDT)
- I had a brief chat with a guy at Google who works on Android recently while at a conference. I know that the browser on there is going to use the WebKit engine, and there is some interoperability built-in by having a standard library, a standard VM and a compiler for that VM that takes code written in the Java programming language and compiles it for the device. Beyond that, I'm not sure, but if you want to know, there is a mailing list where you can ask these questions. Perhaps we should invite Google and the Open Handset Alliance to become topic informants, both to improve the article and so we can nerd out about mobile stuff. --Tom Morris 17:56, 10 August 2008 (CDT)
disambig
At some point there is gonna have to be a disambig page for Android (and some possible renaming of articles), because there will surely be an article someday about the science-fiction androids that are human-like replicas (not robots!). Should you start thinking about this now, while your article is still evolving? Hayford Peirce 12:53, 10 August 2008 (CDT)
- Are you sure this article isn't being written by a science-fiction android? Turing-capable and all that? :-)
- "I'm afraid, Dave...." Hayford Peirce 13:39, 10 August 2008 (CDT)
- Yes, disambiguation will be needed. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:57, 10 August 2008 (CDT)
- +1. I think "Android (platform)" would probably do. --Tom Morris 17:52, 10 August 2008 (CDT)