There’s an interesting interview with Andy Rubin at cnet. Here are a few points I would like to highlight…
“A single product is going to have, eventually, limitations. Even if that was two products that’s going to have limitations. But if it’s a hundred products, now we’re getting somewhere, to the scale at which Google thinks people want to access information.”
This is how I feel about the iPhone. Unless Apple bring out some new form factors I can’t see the iPhone growth continuing.
“Remember people used to trumpet “write once, run everywhere”? Well, I think we’re actually there. I think when we start talking about the possibility of exploring things like Netbooks and car navigation systems, you have potentially different processor architecture types. You have Intel, you have ARM, set-top boxes have MIPS.
We have all sorts of different processor architectures, and the guys who are steeped in legacy have trouble addressing those markets with a single solution. I actually think Android is the potential single solution that can address all those markets, and it’s new, it’s revolutionary. It will change the game.”
This is interesting because it shows Google/Android/OHA now has ambitions well beyond phones. The unusual route of doing as much as possible in Java, including most of the OS itself, makes cross architecture implementations easier. However, I am curious to know whether Google initially looked beyond ARM and beyond phones or whether all this is now incidental.
“And so a huge benefit to this open platform is that it’s complete, it’s basically everything you need to build a phone.
“By the way, we’re confident enough in our advertising business and our ability to help people find information that we don’t somehow demand they use Google. If somebody wants to use Android to build a Yahoo phone, great.”
“it’s absolutely 100 percent free, it’s complete, it’s everything you need to build a phone”
I am not sure it’s as complete as it could be. You can build a phone but not necessarily one using all Google services. This is strange given the aim to entice people to use Google services if at all possible.
