As I’m sure you know, T-Mobile officially launched the Android-based G1 today to much fanfare (or for some lucky San Franciscans, is that how you say it?, yesterday). So you won’t bother to bore you with to many details; the blogosphere is already full of them.
For application developers and users alike there is a fair amount of new info you should know. First of all, Google and their Open Handset Alliance partners have made the entire Android mobile platform fully open source. Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean the specs for the G1 are available, but the software platform it uses, as Google says, from the ‘bootloader all the way up to the applications’. I’m really looking forward to what aspiring developers do with this, even outside of the mobile arena.
Second of all, the Android Maps API now requires an API key to work properly as the Maps API Terms of Service have been finalized. This is good thing, because the temporary ToS was full of restrictions really putting a damper on the type of location-based applications that could be built for Android. So, for all you developers, you’ll have to head over the Maps API sign-up, agree to the terms of service and you’ll be give a key in response. Then you have to place it either:
1. In the XML layer where you declare your MapView, or
2. At the creation of the MapView in the source code
If you don’t do this, when the MapView queries the system to match the application with your key, they won’t match and no map tiles will display. Bummer. You’ll also need a separate API key for both debugging your application with the emulator and for publishing the finished product.
Finally, and possibly of huge significance to Apple especially with Research in Motion also joining the app store party next March, is the launch of the Android Market. Right now the Android Market only has about 50 apps, all free, but starting next week we’ll likely see more apps being published for download eventually leading to the inclusion of paid applications in early Q1 2009. Developers publishing paid apps will receive 70% of the overall revenue (Google takes none), and they’ll be ranked basically according to supply and demand;i.e., based on usage stats, rankings, comments, etc.
Developers can start applying to have their app included in the Market starting next Monday and will have to pay a one-time $25 application fee.
By the way, Research in Motion will also be launching the Blackberry Application Storefront in March 2009 and has a 20 million user strong network to which they’ll be pushing their platform. Developers will receive 80% of the overall revenue for their paid apps, while RIM and Blackberry’s various carriers will likely receive the remainder. As a side note, iPhone application developers receive 70% of the overall revenue from their application sales.