Android First Impressions

Summary:
The picture on the emulator Web site certainly looks intriguing. That was my first impression of Android, Google’s new operating system for handheld devices. The image I saw reminded me of Windows Vista, with a clock gadget and some folder icons on it.

To give Android a test run, I installed the emulator on my Windows machine. In this case, the emulator looks like a handheld device, and it has the entire Android OS running inside this “virtual device.” This is a way to actually try out the software without having a device at hand that can run Android. The emulator is a full ARM machine code emulator and an An-droid version of the Linux kernal, as well as supporting libraries.

Google Android was built for mobile devices, including phones. As such, it has telephony capabilities built into it. From my own experience, it’s vital that they get this part right.