Smart Phone Test Drive

Friday, July 16, 2010

Recently, I noticed that Android was gaining momentum as an alternative to the iPhone. I like having a choice, so that was good news in a sense, but that got me no closer to purchasing a smart phone. Too many user interfaces and gadgets are too poorly thought-out for me to want to go right out and spend my money. It's hard enough to find a phone I like. What if I hate the OS?

What's a gadget-maker -- or someone who writes software for one -- to do about people like me? One way would be to make me able to test it without throwing money away.

Android is the latest mobile OS to take the world by storm, but everyone doesn't have access to the latest mobile devices. Thankfully, there's an easy way to run Android on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. Google provides an Android emulator with their [software development kit], which is designed to let developers test their apps on Android before running them on handsets. We can use this to test drive Android on our computer, here's how to do it.
While its emulation software was really meant for developers, this does allow potential customers to see whether they like the OS and, if they do, concentrate on finding a phone they like.

-- CAV

3 comments:

Shea Levy said...

Some phone companies (I know Verizon and probably AT&T too) let you return your phone within 30 days and you pay nothing except for the data/minutes/texts you used.

Fernando said...

No need to worry about the smart phone market. Senator Schummer is "on it".

http://schumer.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=326405&

The arrogance of politicians never ceases to amaze me.

Gus Van Horn said...

Shea,

That's good to know. Thanks for the tip.

Fernando,

Great. That idiot's invading an area that has been relatively free from government "help" for some time, and has therefore been showing spectacular results.

Gus