offline gmail

Google demonstrated how gmail can be accessed offline along with its features such as search etc enabled on an iphone. This doesnt require any iphone specific software to be installed. Instead it makes use of HTML to enable this features. This is how it has challenged Apple allowing iphone uses to make use of Google's features at no extra cost. If the same was enabled though a software then apple would have taken a roality for making the application available on its apple store, but this wont be the case.

However, this has not been released in the open market. Anyway, we can expect it to hit the market very soon. Google demonstated this feature recently on iphone and Android G1

paid apps on android market

Paid android apps are to be available in the android market very soon. Google has announced that android developers can now put a price tag on the applications that they develop and post the same in android market.

More android phones inline

It looks like more android phone will make it to the markets this year. LG and Huawei has already announced that they going to come up with their android phone. While LG is remodelling one of its old phones (middle range phone) on android platform Huawei is going to launch android with one of their phones which looks very similar to iphone. We can expect these phones to be launched on the 3rd quarter of 2009. The extensible platform android has also forced some companies to think of introducing android on low end notebooks.

Brew Mobile Platform (BMP) Vs Google Android

Qualcomm's brew mobile platform (BMP) the latest version of brew has a lot of modifications compared to its previous version. The changes seem to be mainly targeting the challenge given by android, the open source platform from google. Qualcomm is a member of the OHA, a partner in the development of Android as well.

Programming support:
BMP has some unique featues like it supports lua scripts, flash programming, trigML, lua and trigML debugging capabilities. The combination of such powerful programming languages in one platform is a boon the developer.

Android on the other hand is programmed in java. In java you have libraries for all functionalities which make programming easy. The wide range of tools available to the developer makes application development a piece of cake.

Platform structure:
Brew platform is open which allows a wide range of applications to be developed. Even though the platform is open, the source is still not open. A lot of code is made open to the OEM's and not to the developer. Android code is also not completely open as well but comparatively this is more open.

Application Market:
One of the biggest disadvantages or advantage in being a BREW developer is that for the developer to post any application in the server and to be downloaded by the user the process is very lengthy and expensive. With the introduction of BMP Qualcomm claims that the certification process is greatly simplified and takes less than 2 days. But yet for the application to be available to the user it needs to be uploaded by the operator/carrier. This process may take lot of time. The same in the case of android market is very simple. The developer just needs to upload it in the market and the user can directly download it from there. The only difference is that the applications can be bug prone and its not certified. You may not get tech support for these apps.

Overall Result:
This has resulted in the google market having many app and very popular whereas the brew application market is closed and completely controlled by Qualcomm though its certification process.

Since many parts of BMP is closed there is only one BMP phone that has come into the market whereas it is now crowded with android phones everywhere. Surely it looks like time for open source...

What do you feel about BMP and android. Which platform do you prefer.

Related posts:

First BMP phone

Android phone

Possibly related posts:
Google TV vs Apple TV
Android vs MeeGo
Nokia adopts WP7
CDMA Iphone
MeeGo struggles

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