Android Shedding Features
As the deadline for a working Android phone rushes towards us and the HTC Dream is apparently all ready to take up the hardware duties, the actual OS from Google is facing the realities of a competitive and time sensitive market. Not EVERYTHING in the marketing Powerpoint may be able to crammed into the actual release.
In order to rollout the release on time, Google has announced that certain previously promised features will need to be removed from the initial version, namely formal Bluetooth implementation, and Google Talk, Google’s instant messaging software.
Google said that despite being taken out of the API, the first Android phones will still have essential support for Bluetooth hands-free devices. Since the companies building the actual hardware, such as HTC, won’t have access to the API for Bluetooth in the OS, apparently that functionality will have to be added completely by Google independent of any hardware. Google has stated the Bluetooth functionality will be added to a later release.
Asked about the Bluetooth removal, Android engineer Nick Pelly wrote the following:
The reason is that we plain ran out of time. The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some clean-up before we can commit to it for the SDK. Keep in mind that putting it in the 1.0 SDK would have locked us into that API for years to come.
The concerns about Google Talk apparently had to due with security issues which could not be adequately addressed before release. According to sources, these concerns included such heavyweights as the exposure of private information on the Web and the lack of security technologies to prevent the widescale spread of a virus via Google Talk.
The removals are effective as of the new .9 Beta release, and will carry over into the 1.0 release.
(Source – PC Magazine)
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