First look to Android APIs

I'd like to step over the main platform overview, the important but - in the end -usual joy for the open platform and the OS based on the Linux kernel (2.6).

Working for almost five years with J(2)ME, the first thing I did when Android SDK was released, has been give a quick look to the APIs. The package list. The Java classes.

So, the Android Java library is neither J2SE nor Java ME. But, well, there's a lot of stuff to work with.

You know, reflection, regular expressions, concurrence, compression (zip and jar), sql...these are things you really miss when you work on mobile and, WOW, they're all here and ready to rock!!

We have the core Java classes to handle XML and the whole HTTP client library from Apache Commons (which I always use on J2SE projects and I miss so much in Java ME).

Plus, a package to handle JSON.

Then there are the "original" Android APIs. And, gosh, this is the real deal: low level access to GSM functions, to the OS core and more. We have a whole new UI framework, audio libraries, OpenGL based 3D graphics and -hear hear - a speech recognition package!

If this is not enough, you also have access to a package to integrate GMaps into your apps.

All this in a multi process VM (called Dalvik VM).

If this is not a giant leap, I don't know what else could be.

The first reactions from MS and Symbian are quite disappointing ("just a press release", "yet another platform"), but what can you expect from them? To open Symbian as soon as possibile?This is not very realistic, but I fear for them, it will became a due in the next years; at least, if Android takes off.

For now, LG, Motorola (gah), and Samsung are into Open Handset Alliance, as well as some important carriers such as T-Mobile and Telefonica. That's a thing I wouldn't underestimate.

By the way, Google guys have already achieved a result: many many developers want to try it.

And as soon as results from developers will come (read: new cool, more robust and portable apps), some will look at android in a different way.

I'll complain to Android people about one thing: why just an Eclipse plug in? What about a Netbeans one?