NewsGoogle Open Source Guru Comes Clean About Android Development

Google Open Source Guru Comes Clean About Android Development

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Cade Metz at The Register has today’s story about Google open source boss Chris DiBona’s “Cranky Geeks” interview and Google’s fast and furious Andriod development cycle.

DiBona “acknowledged that the company’s freewheeling approach to building a mobile operating system can cause a few headaches for developers, with unfamiliar versions of its Android OS appearing on new phones with little warning. But, he says, that’s not developers’ main concern – nor Google’s.”

What is the main concern?

“This is going to sound really cynical,” DiBona said, “but the only thing that really matters is how many of these we ship – how many Android phones. There is a linear relationship between the number of phones you ship and the number of developers.”

The theory is that the more phones shipping with Android installed, the more more applications will need to be built. So more phones will equal more developers. DiBona may be right, how many applications exist for the closed source iPhone?

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