I am not a big fan of copy protection, DRM or anything that prevents the freedom me and how I handle products I bought in future. Is it an app I bought with the G1 and copying it onto my Nexus One, or an old LP that I want to use on my new LP player. Therefore, I am always kind of skeptical when it comes to copy-protection mechanisms. Of course, as a mobile application developer for about 6 years (that’s longer than people know the word iPhone) I have to admit that I thought about those kind of thing a bit in the past. However, IMHO my time is better invested in adding new features to apps, create new apps and hook up with all the users to figure out what the heck they actually want – rather than trying to punish them with copy-protection mechanisms that are just annoying.

With Google recent announcement of the License Server for Android I have to say, they put out a good piece for developers and for users. I haven’t used the License Server yet, but from what I read in the blog article and Android docs (see links below) it looks like a solid mechanism that allows developers some basic protection via verifying whether an app has been bought or not. And to be honest, that’s all you need!

Here is what it does:

Developers can now easily verify whether the current user (more specifically the current GMail account) purchased an app. Developers can implement such verification methods in a jiffy into their apps and after getting verification (or not) they can decide what to do after that. IMHO, this is a very open, very free approach to this delicate topic and I love it! Here is the official chart of how the procedure works:

License Server via Android Market

By leveraging the Android Market infrastructure this library actually puts more value to developers if they use the Android Market. Honestly, the Android Market could use a major round-up upgrade of features and usability. However, it works so far and it gets better. Step-by-step, but hey, it gets better!

My conclusion:

Well done Google. I like this approach and I will definitely use it in future apps as well as in exsiting apps. It’s time for an app update week!

• License Server Blog Post
• License Server – Android Licensing Documentation

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Again, I read an article about the Android system and this time with the title: Open Source Developers Pick Android Over iPhone.

I am not really an open source developer, though I truly believe in that concept, I just don’t have enough spare time to put into it. Damn I don’t even have enough time to blog right here. Anyway, I was wondering if there are readers of you who develop Android application for the sole purpose of open source licensing. Apparently there are 357 open source projects for the Android platform existing by now. Most of them are not finished yet, but still, this is quite a number. I hope this number grows significantly this year. It will give the Android platform more exposure, more functionality and therefore, grow the platform to a level where it is widely accepted.

Are you an Open Source Developer? Leave a comment!

I just read that article Nexus One: Failure or a Late-Bloomer? I am bit confused by the article and wanted to share that. If I am wrong in any point, please feel free to correct me. The author says:

Slow and steady may work for the tortoise against the hare, but sluggish sales of Google’s Nexus One smartphone has the blogosphere calling its approach a failure.

First of all, the “blogosphere” (oh god, I hate this word!!!11!!!eleven!!!) does not care about sales. The real blogosphere one at least!

Secondly it is talking about:

it took Apple [...] 74 days sell one million units of the original iPhone back in 2007. [...] Google, meanwhile, has sold only about 135,000 Nexus One units, according to Flurry.

I don’t know where Flurry has their numbers from, but when I went to the Android Developer Labs 2010 two weeks ago, the official Google/Android representative was saying during their presentation that they are currently shipping 60,000 phones a day! I call that a success.

It is done. Google Earth for Android has been published. I just ran it on my Nexus One and it seems to work fine. Very smoothly, nice 3D graphics and all the layers in there with your favorite restaurants. Zooming in and out as well as panning in the 3D world works totally fine. Besides that it is not doing much, but it shows your current location on the earth, of course. Still, well done Google!

Check it out here:

• Desktop Site
• Mobile Site

Though the Nexus One does not seem to be a best-seller, it seems it found its way into Linus Torvalds’ hands. You know, the “Finnish software engineer [who is] best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel and git revision control system” (Quote from wikipedia).

I already wrote some stuff about the Nexus One and even about unboxing my device. Now Linus has one too and guess what he wants to use it for? He didn’t get it for the phone function or messaging because that would be too distracting during work. Well, he is right. It seems his favorite is “Google Navigation”; perhaps I should check that out too, some day?

Image source: wikipedia.org

I just read that article on the Android Developers Blog about Live Wallpapers.

The interesting fact in there – which many people might not know – are the possibilities what we developers can do with such live wallpapers. Just imagine you have a massive screen in the background of the phone desktop where you can do pretty much everything with. Kind of like a separate application, but the user will always see it behind his normal icons.

It is a very neat concept which you won’t find on the iPhone (afaik, you might want to correct me if I am wrong). Developers like you and me could show most recent stock info on there (check out Google Finance APIs), a list of the latest Google News or something else. You are only limited by your own imagination here. So hack attack and get freakin’ going!

Like mentioned before, I ordered a Nexus One. Just 5 days after ordering the phone, it arrived here (in Hong Kong). The phone’s box looks kind of like an Apple product box. Plain white, not much written on there and a bit stylish. However, it doesn’t reach the Apple “stylishness”.

It still looks nice and delivery via DHL was no problem at all. I could track the package since it started shipping from the US. Google Checkout showed that the package was sent out from “Google Phone Webstore” and then the DHL tracking stepped in and everything was easy going. Anyway, I hope the phone is charged soon so I can start playing around with it

Here are some unboxing photos in chronological order:

As you can see, the phone comes with:

• Battery
• US Power Cord
• Micro-USB cable
• Phone bag with little Android

From the last picture you can see that there are three little contacts. Though there is no docking station delivered with the device I guess this is for a future docking station (probably provided by HTC or other accessories manufacturers).