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June 1, 2008

Google said yesterday its Android Division will offer an iPhone-like app store for its users, offering developers a central means of distributing applications on its soon-to-be-open-source mobile platform.

Google Android project leader Andy Rubin didn't officially announce an Android app store, but he nevertheless guaranteed that Google has started the project and that everything is on schedule.

Google is currently working with more than thirty mobile industry players on the development of its Linux-based mobile stack, including handset makers and service providers.

But when Google officially releases Android sometime in the second half of 2008, it plans on open sourcing the platform under a free Apache license. This means third-parties can develop with it as much as they want, and that there are no restrictions, provided they abide to Google"s terms of use.

Rubin added "it would be a great benefit to the Android community to provide a place where people can go to safely and securely download content and where a billing system would allow developers to get paid for their effort."

"We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t provide something that helps developers get distribution," said Rubin.

This goes for entire APIs (application programming interfaces) as well - an obvious point of concern for some developers mulling over applications for the platform. "I see Android and I see all its APIs. What's to stop someone from turning off all those APIs?" one developer asked Rubin.

"They can add to it. They can remove from it. They make it their own," Rubin said. "They can even rip out all the Google stuff and put in all Yahoo stuff, it that's what they want..."

There's nothing to stop them, Rubin said.

However, Rubin warned that Google will provide tools that enable developers to easily verify the make-up of each Android handset.

"We're providing a piece of technology - I can't go into a great amount of detail - that tests the APIs," he explained. "This will be a script that you'll be able to run and determine whether all the APIs are there."

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Source: Google.