October 9, 2008 by Matt Thomas
T-Mobile have today announced that they will be releasing the world’s first Android-powered phone, the T-Mobile G1. The G1 will be the first phone ever to use the Android platform – an operating system designed specifically for mobile phone handsets.
This is a huge moment in the brief history of Android, coming less than a year on from an announcement by the Open Handset Alliance – a group of thirty or so mobile and technology companies – that they would seek to create a custom designed mobile platform to enable the creation of new and advanced mobile applications.
The team behind Android are keen for developers to begin designing applications for the system, and so, have released several software development kits (SDKs) over the past year, culminating in the release of Android 1.0 SDK R1, today.
As part of the Android Developer Challenge, a scheme that offers $10 million dollars worth of awards to developers using the Android platform, over 1,700 applications have been designed so far and established names like Google are developing Android versions of many of their products.
The Open Handset Alliance’s enthusiasm for innovation doesn’t stop there, however. In an effort to further encourage developers they will be making the entire Android platform open source by the end of the year, allowing anyone and everyone to use the technology as they like.
Erick Tseng, Lead Product Manager of the Android Team calls the platform, “another step towards realizing the full potential of the mobile phone.” It’s hard to disagree with him.
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