Google on Monday released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone alliance for download, giving developers the ability to start writing software for phones due to start shipping in 2008 and $10 million in prizes to lure them.
The software development kit (SDK), an open-source package available for download for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X machines, shows that Java is indeed the programming language for software running on the Linux-based phones.
Accompanying the SDK is a raft of details that wasn't available when Google and its partners announced the Open Handset Alliance a week ago. The Android software includes the Google-created Dalvik virtual machine for running Java programs, a browser based on the WebKit engine, and support for many media and image file formats. (Note: I clarified that the browser is only based on the WebKit engine.)
And hardware abilities permitting, it also supports wireless communications using GSM mobile-phone technology, 3G, Edge, 802.11 Wi-Fi networks. Conspicuously missing from the list is the widely used CDMA mobile-phone technology developed by Qualcomm.
To jump-start the Android programming effort, Google is offering $10 million total in prizes, each ranging from $25,000 to $275,000, to programmers picked by a panel of judges.
