Google Android Developer Forum and Free Code

Like many people, I bought into the hype and purchased a first generation iPhone and iPod Touch (second generation) when they first came out. Mostly I just wanted a phone that had all the cool new features, partially because I wanted to be trendy, but also because some of those options included were pretty useful for both personal and business stuff. There were always issues faced when using the device, and while the dropped calls weren’t really Apple’s fault, it made me want to switch phones entirely, perhaps even back to a BlackBerry. Awesome things like a web browser, and all those apps were sort of stupid since you couldn’t do simple things like copy/paste, and run more than one app at a time. At the height of my iPhone frustration, Google announces their release of Android 2.0, a mobile OS that competes with the iPhone and goes further by allowing developers (like me) to hack around on their phone and customize it in ways not possible on Apple’s hardware without illegally (at least, unethically) ‘unlocking’ the security featured on an iPhone.

So I made the switch, and bought some cheap Android enabled phone, moved away from AT&T and have nothing but positive things to say. The Android OS is pretty incredible, and can be compared to how a computer enthusiast using Windows Vista would feel after switching over to Linux. It is a world of difference, and a lot of fun to program and hack up my own apps and games, and do things like creating my own calendar script that lets me schedule things in a way that makes sense to me. On the iPhone, I’d have to pay a $100 developers ‘fee’, and maybe require a lawyers signature, only to wait four weeks for Apple to allow my app into its walled garden of silliness. Of course, I could make money off it, but that isn’t the point.

Moving forward, when I find cool and useful things like Android, I figure out ways to help out other people who might find it interesting, and so I’m announcing a new site I’m launching, called DroidSDK.org. I bought the .com as well, and will use both, and hopefully grow the site into a popular destination for like minded devs who found out just how much better the Android is than the iPhone.