Google for the first time unveiled what could be a nearly completed version of its Android operating system, which includes a touch screen and tools that look a lot like Apple's iPhone. During its developer conference in San Francisco, Google demonstrated an Android home screen user interface with icons that look similar to the iPhone, including finger swipes used for interacting with applications. The Android applications were running on a prototype WCDMA device from an unknown vendor operating over an HSDPA broadband connection.
Related: See this video of the live Android Demo
The applications and features demonstrated included Google Maps street map view that included an interactive compass that responded to the phones movements for navigation; the ability to make shortcuts to Web sites on the home screen; a home-screen status bar for managing emails, appointments and phone calls; a zoom-in tool for viewing Web content and a Pac-Man type of video game.
Unlike the iPhone, the demonstration was touch-screen based, not multi-touch. Google, however, said the issue had to do with hardware and that Android is made to be compatible with a multi-touch hardware sensor as well as with phones equipped with trackballs and other navigation tools.
To find more about the Android demonstration:
- read this article from Telephony
Related stories:
- Google leaks updated Android SDK to ADC finalists. See this Android SDK story
- Verizon Wireless spurns Android for LiMo Foundation. Read this Verizon Linux story