Android is now available

Today is a huge day for Android, the Open Handset Alliance, & the open-source community. All of the work that we have poured in to the mobile platform is now officially available, for free, as the Android Open Source Project.

You'll be hearing a lot about Android devices. We have all put a lot of hard work in to the first Android tool, & I am happy with the way it turned out. But one tool is the beginning.

Android is not a single piece of hardware; it is a complete, end-to-end application platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations. Everything is there, from the bootloader all the way up to the applications. & with an Android tool already on the market, it's proven that it's what it takes to truly compete in the mobile arena.

Even if you are not planning to ship a mobile tool any time soon, Android has a lot to offer. Interested in working on a speech-recognition library? Looking to do some research on virtual machines? Need an out-of-the-box embedded Linux solution? All of these pieces are available, right now, as part of the Android Open Source Project, along with graphics libraries, media codecs, & a number of the best development tools I have ever worked with.

This is an exciting time for Android, & we are getting started. It takes a lot of work to keep up with the changes in the mobile industry. But they require to do over keep up; they require to lead the way, to try things out, to add the new features that everyone else is scrambling to keep up with. But they cannot do it without your help.

Have a great idea for a new feature? Add it! As an open source project, the best part is that someone can contribute to Android & influence its direction. & if the platform becomes as ubiquitous as I hope it will, you may finish up influencing the future of mobile devices as a whole.