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Why Google will stop developing Android
Posted by Jason Diaz Categories: Smartphones, Editorial, Features, Google, Software,
"It's important that Apple not be the developer for the world. We can't take all of our energy, and all of our care, and finish the painting and have someone else put their name on it." - Tim Cook, Apple CEO
The same statement rings true for Google. If others are reaping the rewards, and little to nothing is left for oneself, then what's the point? If a product does not meet the expectations set before it, then developing for it doesn't make much sense. If any given product is not self-sustainable, then it is not cost effective and eventually becomes a burden to the maker--even if users appear to enjoy using it. Make no mistake about it, Google is in the business of making money, and everything else is secondary (including good will.)
Google's co-founder and now recently-minted CEO, Larry Page, bought Android in 2005. He also brought along Andy Rubin, one of its creators, over to Google, who recently renounced his post as Senior Vice President of mobile Digital Content. Basically, the guy who was leading Android. It has been said that Sergey Brin, the other tandem co-founder, was not enthusiastic about the purchase. Former Google CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, now Chairman at Google had a similar reaction. These somewhat pessimistic receptions were also shared by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering. However, he recanted these thoughts at Google I/O 2010.
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Andy Rubin: There are now over 900,000 Android devices activated each day
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Handhelds, Software,
Android chief Andy Rubin took to Twitter yesterday, posting his eleventh tweet to shoot down a rumor started by Robert Scoble that said he was set to leave Google to join a company called CloudCar. Rubin responded by saying he has no plans to leave Google, and also dropped an impressive Android tidbit. According to Rubin, there are now over 900,000 Android devices activated each day. This is up from the 850,000 per-day that was touted just four months ago. Can't call that anything but impressive.
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Google says over 700,000 Android devices are activated each day
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News, Google,
Google's Android platform is steadily climbing toward 1 million daily activations. There are currently more than 700,000 Android activations every day, Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin, announced Tuesday night.
"For those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and 'activations' means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service," Rubin said in a followup post on Google+.
The news comes just one month after Google announced at its November music event that there were 550,000 Android activations each day. Back in June, Rubin said that number was at 500,000, up from 350,000 in April.
With numbers like that, it's not surprisingly that Android is one of the most popular smartphone operating systems around the globe. About 44.2 percent of those in the U.S. have Android-based devices, split largely between handsets from HTC (15.8 percent), Samsung (10.4 percent), and Motorola (10.7 percent), according to recent data from Nielsen.
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Google Music brings MP3 store, free cloud storage for your tracks
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Google, Music, Storage,
Google on Wednesday officially unveiled its music product, dubbed Google Music, which will let users store songs in the cloud for free and buy tracks directly from the Android Market.
Google's Jamie Rosenberg, director of digital content for Android, said Google Music is an expansion of Google Music Beta, introduced earlier this year, making it a "full end-to-end service."
"It's about the cloud, about the Web and about mobile," he said.
Google Music, accessible via music.google.com, is open to everyone in the U.S. now on the Web and will roll out to mobile users in the coming days. Users can store and stream up to 20,000 songs in the Google cloud for free, and add any selections they don't have by buying them from the Google Music store.
Google Music will allow users to share songs with friends, who will be able to play that song in its entirety once.
Google said it has sealed deals with more than 1,000 music labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI, as well as indie labels, like those from Merlin. In all, Google promised access to 13 million tracks, 8 million of which are available now.
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Google releases Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ source code
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News, Google, Software,
Yesterday Google finally released the source code for Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich.
But on the Google Forums, Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru, a software engineer on the Android Open-Source Project, warned that "this is a large push," so developers should expect that "it will take some time to complete".
"If you sync before it's done, you'll get an incomplete copy that you won't be able to use, so please wait for us to give the all-clear before you sync," Queru wrote.
The source code is Android 4.0.1, which is the version that will be released on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
The release also includes the source code for Honeycomb, but "since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want everyone to focus on Ice Cream Sandwich," Queru wrote. "So, we haven't created any tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the changes are present in the history.)"
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