John Battelle's Searchblog

The Android platform is the first step in this direction -- a fully integrated mobile "software stack" that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications.

Huh? What does this mean? "Fully integrated"? Last time I heard that line, from Microsoft in 1996, a fully integrated software stack meant that IE was an unseparable part of Windows. Now it is being reported that Google's (ahem, sorry, "Android's") platform also has applications that are fully integrated with the operating system?

So, fine, you can add other applications to this platform. But from this language above, it sounds like you cannot take Google's applications off. You cannot have the OS without the Google (ahem, sorry, "Android") applications.

Un. ac. ceptable.

Will someone please clarify this? Am I reading this correctly?

From the press reports of what the Google execs actually said, it's quite clear that the Google apps will not be locked in, in the way (for example) MS does with Windows Mobile. And if they really do release it as open source, anyone will be able to remove anything they don't like.

This appears to be aimed directly at Windows Mobile and the big carriers, to try to make the mobile phone market more like the personal computer market and less like cable TV.

Hiroko, could you send links to some of those press reports you are talking about? Because from the press report above, the only quote from a Google exec is Schmidt saying that he hopes the Google platform will power thousands of different mobile phones. This says nothing about the ability to wipe such a phone completely clean of any and all Google applications (esp. the advertising applications), and only retain the bare operating system.

Please, post the links where this is clarified.

"mobile" is they say the future of the net. Anybody know if google plans to do anything major with shopping for its mobile platform? maybe something like mosh?
Thanks
nebby