An interesting patent lodged by Google has been mentioned by New Scientist and Engadget amongst others. It would allow for a consumer to decide which network (cellular, wifi or other) they want to use in a particular location and time based on price and other factors.
This could make picking your voice and data tarriff more like choosing which drink you prefer with your lunch. I think this would make nice change from signing your life away (well… 18 months of it) to an operator.
Google do file plenty of patents so this isn’t necessarily going to get the carriers quaking in their boots just yet. However, it does look interesting and makes a lot of sense if the technology will allow for it.
Developers for Android currently have a number of challenges writing their code for a device that they can’t yet buy.
An example is testing the accelerometer on the device. There are apps out there to model tipping the device and developers have also come up with some ingenious ways of simulating this. One such example is linking up a Wiimote to their laptop whilst running the Android emulator (below).
It will be interesting to see how many European developers are willing to pay a monthly contract to T-Mobile in the UK just so they can see how their code runs on a real device. I suspect many will wait until they can purchase one outright without a contract.
It begs the question: will be a cheaper ‘iPod Touch’ type device coming out with Android within the next year? I would have thought a device with no phone would be ideal for developers as well as people who plan to use a separate phone. Users could run over wifi without being tied in to a contract. It would also enable developers to test more freely how their software runs on a device without a monthly overhead.
