Android Development; the beginnings.
Android SDK 2.0 phone emulation
Google continues to out do themselves with the release of the android SDK 2.0 and the event of the new Verizon phone coming out this month. I was incredibly impressed with the developer resources available to jump right into Android development. Google's www.android.com site provides easy to understand information and tools to work with their framework. The design of the framework is one of much forethought, with their 4 component pattern application integration and code reuse will be second nature for Android developers.
In comparison to Apple's iPhone SDK, the first thing that will draw developers to Android is that it is free and cross platform. You don't need to buy a Mac or spend hours trying to do a hackish install of OSX through VMWare to get started. iPhone development has an extremely large entry blockade which pushes away any casual developers. This elitist mentality is continued with the high level of review to get an application placed in the Apple store; nevertheless, the iPhone platform is a strong performer as Apple does design and elitist marketing very very well.
Given a few years and the continued devotion of Google, the Android platform will be a top contender when considering a cell phone. Coincidentally, cellphones are likely to become much similar to todays laptops and further promote the idea of ubiquitous computing (Information Weekly - Google CEO Images Era of Mobile Supercomputers). This is the world top executives at Google predict and they are trying hard to position themselves accordingly; as such, I plan to do the same and get into mobile device development before I'm too far behind.
Considering the user base of the two platforms you'll be sure to see the geekier software developer types signing alliance with Android, while the creative and trendy aligning with iPhone. With Blackberry & Trio still commanding much of the Business sector, it will be a task of deciding the right audience for your goals to decide your development platform.
With my lack of direction at this point Android is the clear winner with its low entry requirements and open source licensing. It will be interesting to see the user base for Android as more and more phones become available.
