Basically this is a free cell phone service. Any phone with 3G connectivity will no longer need a calling plan, because google voice will let you call, and recieve calls, just like a real phone, through the internet, for free.
Google wanted to do this in the past and they tried to simply purchase a cell frequency to implement it, but they couldn’t do that, so now there doing it through the web, and thus 3G network.
What this means is, the cell phone of the future will only require the cost of a data plan. Maybe not even that if you live in a free wifi city.
And more than that, since Android is Google, then that means Android will probably be the first phone OS to have google voice thoroughly integrated into it, so Android is going to be the OS of the future cell phone.
What this means is that we need Unity to compile to android STAT because Android with Google voice is going to take over and is going to be the thing to focus on. I want to start preparing my Android apps! Screw the iPhone. Apple, ATT, Sprint, Verizon all just lost. Google and Android is going to dominate.
Android will not take over anything in relation to Unity.
I don’t say anything against it as an application platform, but for any kind of 3D visualization (which is what Unity is about and for primary / only), its just crap.
Even their flagship phone, the Nexus One comes with an OpenGL ES 1.0 graphic chip.
Thats just a totally bad and inacceptable joke from any “we dominate the world” perspective, as already the original stone age iPhone had a more advanced GPU (OpenGL ES 1.1), and since last year, the iPhones are on ES 2.0 and shaders.
That would be the same when apple would come around with a G4 claiming that they can dominate the performance ranking against Core i7. People wouldn’t even laugh anymore about such a totally unrealistic, arrogant “joke”
They are performance and capability wise apart by an order of magnitudes. I’m not sure that Unity can run on the ES 1.0 at all, but its granted that the missing VFP definitely won’t help it.
While internet-based calling may very well become the norm some day, it won’t be exclusive to Google, nor would it suddenly make the Android marketplace become dominant if it were - there are plenty of other issues Google has to worry about besides just marketshare (such as a fragmented hardware lineup and a moronic 24-hour no questions asked refund policy).
I know the current android devices are somewhat lackluster. But this is really inconsequential to the point. Android is not a device, Android is an open source operating system that can be implemented into any device, by any company. This is not Nexus One vs iPhone. This is free voice service + integrated OS vs subscription voice service. I’m not saying the current Nexus One will take over, but rather, free voice calling service, which any OS could support, but Android will probably support the most readily, will take over. Having to only pay $30 a month for a 3G data plan will win over having to pay $30 a month for 3G + whatever calling service costs. It’s a simple equation of cost, cheaper with more features will have a larger userbase. And being able to compile Unity apps for the device with the largest userbase will be important. This has not come to pass, but I see no reason why FREE is going to lose to subscription, especially given that it’s done by Google, and all of Googles free services in the past have been top notch.
I too am holding my breath on the ultimate Android device. Personally I’m hoping for an Android device with the next gen Nvidia Tegra chip integrated into it. But once google voice is integrated into Android, and running smoothly, Android is going to be a hot ticket. And since android is open source, any company can make a device for it. This is not Google device vs Apple device, this is battle of software and services. We are not waiting on Google for a device, any company can bring it to the market. It’s only a matter of time.
And I don’t see why you couldn’t get Unity running on OpenGL ES1.0, but thats really inconsequential as well. I do not want a Unity compiler for the Nexus One, I want the unity compiler for the future android devices that are going to have google voice integrated into them. Unity developers could start making the compiler right now, with support for OpenGL ES2.0 functioning, because the Android SDK supports opengl ES2.0, and then when a more advanced android device comes along it would already work… Or just wait for a new android device. I just hope unity team is not ignoring android.
Actually, now that I think of it, Android is linux based. So if Unity team is listening to the feature wish list http://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/15792-unity
and implementing linux support, then Android support would be right around the corner
A skype iphone app is going to be nothing in comparison to a phone thoroughly integrated around all of googles free services. Also doesn’t full skype service cost money on it’s own?
And other companies probably will produce free voip services. But Google is already way ahead of the pack and who could really do this better than google?
and since android is open source, there is going to be potentially alot of different hardware using it, shitty or not. But I’d prefer that over closed source, tight standards, high cost for development iPhone OS
I prefer higher costs but a well supported, documented and tuned OS over a hack it yourself OS with tools for which MS and Apple would be shot if they would be insane enough to call that stuff development environment.
Productivity dominates, as it makes the different for me between releasing something and not releasing it.
The same goes for a somewhere modern, consistent platform.
What does the open source help if 90% of the hardware does not even fullfill DX7 class requirements that are a decade old, when the competition (palm, iphone) even at worst have hardware that flattens it like an old bag of trash …
The idea of the android itself might somewhere be great (somewhere because the monopolism problem imposed by google is worlds worse than anything the competition ever could come up with as google controls a fair amount of the internet thanks to the control over google search), but from the developer point of view, especially the commercial developer point of view and the game dev point of view, the platform is a joke.
I would prefer having a Pandora over an Android phone any day, sorry
Also in that whole discussion, we omited the fact that Unity does not run in java, it requires real C and the NDK does not expose 95% of the functionality, just the “math related base” more or less (neither opengl es is exposed, nor sound, nor input handling nor anything). Porting hundreds of thousands of lines to a platform thats basically dead as a commercial game dev platform due to above is not really likely to happen.
People can dream of it sure, but expecting it to happen before Android has a granted modern gpu base on all new sold devices (which isn’t going to happen thanks to the nexus one) isn’t realistic.
If apple has to fear a platform as game platform, then its much more the Palm side than the Android.
The Nexus One would potentially have been an acceptable competitor if it was released with the os etc 3 years ago around the original iphone.
but now its just too old, too weak, not smooth enough and comes with a store that even after all those iterations still punches any commercial dev hard into the face by making it clear that open source is the prefered thing, not closed source.
I doubt that interested Android devs are really interested to pay $2000 for Unity Android Basic (the market is significantly smaller so less people pay the whole share and the dev costs for porting are significantly higher due to the lack of C and java beeing of use on the android only, no reuse on other platforms) when they can get the whole iphone related hardware + contract + unity iphone for less.
I don’t understand why you think the Android OS is not well documented or supported and just a ‘hack it OS’. Android is not some whatever thing, its a Linux Kernel. It is a fully open source linux kernel. You can do anything with it. Yes this might make it difficult for the less than top tier linux programmers to produce for it. But thats inconsequential if you could compile Unity apps to it.
And to assume that new Android devices will not be made is absurd. This is not a battle of GAME devices, this is a battle of cell phones. I am talking about cell phones, for the purpose of calling and communication. People don’t give a shit if there phone doesn’t have pixel shaders, what they do care about is how much it costs and how much it lets them do. That is going to be the deciding factor in market share, and the pixel shaders and fancy chips are going to follow that, not the other way around. More android devices are coming, and there will be a point when the majority of the devices have a fancy gfx chip in them. The only deciding factor here is time. Google voice has no competition as it stands.
And why the hell would unity android cost $2000? If they implemented the ability to compile to linux, which would be available in Unity Indie, then compiling to android would not be that much more. Linux support is Android support, android support is not that far out of the way. If the Unity Team is actually listening to the wishlist, they should already be implementing linux support. The majority of whats needed for Android support should already be underway.
No, at least not until Google agrees with you.
At the time you have the NDK and the NDK is more than just insufficient for the purpose, see the posting above.
Just because there is a linux kernel below it does not mean its the same linux you know from the desktop, not even remotely.
Also, nobody said its not documented or supported, but its dev tools are compared even to apples XCode and iPhone Pipeline just bad.
The open source aspect is something that I personally as commercial dev see as a problem, not as something good, because the user has the possibility to inject code right into the os to bypass my security. As it is on the OS level, I an’t do anything against it at all. (think of jailbroken iphones, just without the effort to jailbreak them through reverse engineering).
Might be that you had plans for open source development, but at least I don’t intend to pay serious money for a middle ware if I have 0 chance to make it back in the somewhere near future.
Also, Unity Linux support on the desktop would have 0 impact on the price of an android port. See Unity iPhone ↔ OSX (and OSX was Unity native home platform for years!)
That it will sell much lower numbers than Unity iPhone is granted, because you need to have much more hardware knowledge to get a game run on an acceptable speed on the joke gpu in android phones. if you didn’t achieve 40FPS+ on the iphone 1st gen, you can basically skip the dream of android.
Not if Unity is part of the equation as unity is for games and 3d visualization, not for “cell phone applications”. Thats what the provided tools are for.
Unity can not create anything that does not require acceptable 3D performance
vAnd why the hell would unity android cost $2000? If they implemented the ability to compile to linux, which would be available in Unity Indie, then compiling to android would not be that much more. Linux support is Android support, android support is not that far out of the way. If the Unity Team is actually listening to the wishlist, they should already be implementing linux support. The majority of whats needed for Android support should already be underway.[/quote]
Yes it would, android does not support native applications. You have to develop in Java and have the option to push some performance critical stuff to C through the NDK, but the NDK does not give access to the vast majority of critical things (graphics, sound, etc), exactly those things to which access is a must to run a 3D engine.
Also Linux != Linux. Just because its the same kernel its not even remotely equal to deploy to it, especially not if a significantly restricted platform as a cell phone with own OS on top of the kernel comes in.
This is your problem. People think of Android as an iPhone competitor because all the Android phones are touch screen with iPhone resolutions. They’re also too gutless to do 3D, as has been noted.
Sure, it’s a ‘platform’ with no fixed hardware specs, but that just makes it worse - so when/if a hypothetical future Android device comes along that can do 3D well enough to make Unity worth doing, it will exist in a sea of stuff labelled “Android” that can’t run your game.
Any way you cut it it just seems like a super unattractive proposition.
What about that? I’m pretty sure someone could get it working reasonably. The entire thing is open source, you can write code at as low a level as you want.
Unity may be for games and visualiztion. But its also for development of games for handheld devices. And if google voice pans out, android could be a very prominent handheld platform which will be of concern to unity. I don’t see why you wish to shrug that potential off.
And the current chip in the nexus is completely inconsequential to my point, I am looking at another year or so down the line here. The handheld devices will advance. I agree the Nexus is nothing glorious but I am talking about Android as an open source OS and the potential advent of free voip becoming the standard.
Also why could you not make money back for developing software for an open source platform? Plenty of companies release commercial applications on open source platforms just fine.
Why is the ability for a user to inject code into a device he owns wrong? That seems like the ideal way to do it. The person owns the device they should be able to do with it whatever they want. Why would you be putting security on something to lock a person out of their own device?
I just stumbled upon this
Powered by android, using the nvidia tegra 2 chipset, rumored out in june 2010
that would mean an android device would exist with literally more than twice the horsepower of any of apples mobile offerings. And if you watch the video where he shows the graphics, he says that that it is not going through the NDK java, but is rather native code to the tegra chip. So it is entirely possible to make native code for graphics apps on android.
And I know, how many people will own a notion ink adam? Probably not many. But thats just the begining. The devices are coming. It’s best to start getting Unity up to speed now. In an open standards world your not going be waiting a year or more for a new device to be released like Apple, new devices are going to come quicker and quicker, and from more and more places.
Also the Google Smartbook is Nvidia Tegra based as well, which I assume might run android if its to be a tablet PC competitor.
Handheld devices will be just like pc’s in the respect that, you gotta know your tech specs and that some applications will run and some won’t. I don’t see where the problem is in this. It’s part of open standards and helps the platform develop faster. We don’t need to dumb down an entire market because grandma might have trouble understanding how to operate some of it.
Right now it might be more of an issue because some android devices are radically underpowered. But in another 3 years or so, the majority of android phones will probably have enough power that it won’t really matter.
Have you used Google Voice? It’s not really what you say it is. Maybe it will someday support VOIP endpoints via SIP, but right now it doesn’t do that. You can rig your own SIP endpoint to do that with third-party apps, but it’s not in Android out of the box.
Android devices (aside from the Nexus One) are sold by carriers. None of the carriers offer an Android handset with just a data plan. Nor does T. Mobile offer that for Nexus One buyers.
I agree that it will be very interesting to see what VOIP apps work on the iPad’s data-only plan. Not sure Android gets there first.
Not even that. It’s a completely different product.
It’s more like a voice mail/call forwarding management system. You could choose which of your phones ring when the number is dialed. You could have multiple phones ring. You could have custom voice mails depending on the caller. You could manage your voice mails online. You could do conference calls.
But only the management is internet based. The actual calls are through your provider.
Thats just what it does in the browser on a computer.
When it’s integrated with the phone, you can call from your google voice number, through google voice lines from the web, without other carriers involved.
look here
Still not yet a fully fledged replacement for a service carrier, but it is still rather new into beta.
It’s not just a intricate call forwarding system and message box, it’s going to be a complete web based calling system.
