Google Android on Your PC

Google Android

Google Android will not replace Windows as the operating system for your PC, but it may become the operating system for your next portable computer. Right now, you may test drive Google Android on your PC, and you may download programming tools to begin developing your own applications. Verizon and AT&T are already advertising small netbooks; four other major hardware manufacturers will introduce Adroid-powered netbooks early in 2010.

Your cell phone has evolved into a handheld computer

Although you still refer to the device as your cell “phone,” you hardly ever use it for simple conversation. Instead, you send text messages, get directions, play games, and check the links with your Facebook and Twitter. Your cell has evolved into a powerful handheld computer with more ROM and RAM than your desktop unit had just a few years ago. Until recently, Apple’s revolutionary iPhone owned the market, facing very little serious competition. Blackberry dominated the business market but accounted for only 15% of United States market share. At the end of October, 2009,
however, Verizon and T-Mobile introduced the American market to new phones built on the Google Android operating system. The Motorola Cliq and similar Google Android units raised the stakes in the rapidly expanding, now fiercely competitive 3G market.

Google Android Revolutionizes the Handheld Market

In October, 2008, T-Mobile launched its first Android system in the UK. Its sales of broadband devices immediately increase 250% over the last quarter of 2007, and the company gained nearly four million new contract customers. Rock solid market research supported the timing and target for T-Mobile’s United States debut of its Google Android operated Cliq: T-Mobile customers’ text message and access social networks from their handheld units more than customers of any other service provider. They were ready for the upgrade.
Google Android gives the Cliq Motoblur a distinct advantage over all of its rivals, combining text messages, e-mail, photo services, and social networks all on one home screen. Users need not open and manipulate separate apps to keep up with all their incoming messages and information. Less territorial and proprietary than iPhone and Blackberry, Google Android supports Facebook, Twitter, G-Mail and a host of other e-mail services; of course, it also connects with Google Maps and Picassa. The 5 mega-pixel camera built into the Cliq rivals most mid-priced stand-alone digital cameras.
As user-friendly as the Apple system and just as powerful, Google Android offers the most popular applications and web links, but still lags behind the competition in specialty apps and widgets. Capitalizing on its open-source design, Google cleverly has “outsourced” much of its new app development to amateur programmers and teen-aged computer wizards with time and ROM on their hands. Google plans to close the app-gap by inviting independent code writers to submit innovative apps for handsome rewards.

How to Use Google Android on Your PC

Caution: Google Android software for PC primarily provides programming and coding tools for development of new applications. Although its basic tutorials introduce you to features and functions in Google Android, it is not intended as promotional or demonstration material.
Do not attempt to download and install Android emulator software on your PC unless you have adequate back-up and restore capacity for your Windows operating system and reasonable proficiency with sophisticated software installation. Although the Android software comes directly from Google and poses no threat from viruses, malware, or adware, you load applications one at a time and not every application may be compatible with other programs running on your PC. If you do not feel comfortable working with your PC system, you should test drive the Google Android at your local T-Mobile, Verizon, or Sprint Retailer.
Industry analysts predict a dazzling array of new netbooks and “smartbooks” powered by Google Android will appear on the market early in 2010. During the summer and fall of 2009, smartbook makers showed their best new products at trade shows and consumer electronics exhibitions in Asia and Europe. Without exception, the new lightweight, low-battery, high-powered laptop/cell phone hybrids ran on the Android operating system, because no other software matches its power and versatility.
While you wait for Google Android netbooks to make their marketplace debut, you can test drive the system and experiment with its tools and apps using an Android emulator. You easily can download the emulator from Google’s software development page. Even with broadband, the download takes at least forty-five minutes, and extracting the files may take another thirty minutes. But the program files and applications include not only an advanced emulator and Google Android links but also a handsome collection of programming tools.

How to Download a Google Android Emulator

 

• Google’s own software development page remains the safest source of a free download.
• Simply choose your platform and click.
• When the file finishes downloading, unpack it to a secure location on your hard drive.
• Then, open the “Tools” file and double-click “emulator.exe.” Like all “.exe” files, this one will make the emulator functional on your PC.
• Once the emulator is up and running, feel free to play with programs and features as you choose.

Photo by textlad

Google’s Android emulator lets you experiment with almost everything you could do on a phone or netbook running the operating system. Google Android SDK provides an excellent preview of the environment, ways to adapt and customize it, and how to use the basic factory-installed applications. You can play with skins and screen resolutions, and you especially can discover the operating system’s seamless integration with Google applications on the web. Android links especially well with Google maps. Although you cannot actually place calls, you can simulate the calling function, and you easily can access the web.
If you elect to try the programming software, installing specific applications from the Android emulator becomes more complicated, because you must adjust your Windows environment to accommodate several of the applications. You will need to adjust your environment variables, adding the Android format—“.apk.” Then, you will install individual application files into your emulator tools. The process requires some patience and careful attention to the details in the documentation for your Windows system and Android. If you have the requisite experience, skills, and confidence, the developer software will give you a privileged glimpse into the next generation of mobile software and the wonders of open-source designware.