As smartphone manufacturers improve on the hardware included in their devices, the possibilities for mobile app developers continue to expand. With the speedy new mobile processors and the high resolution cameras, image recognition apps have become very popular on smartphones, and companies like Occipital , makers of RedLaser on the iPhone, make it easy to embed barcode scanning technology into apps. For Android, however, there are fewer solutions, which is why ScanLife , developers of 2D barcode scanning technology, are providing an SDK for Android developers to leverage its scanning application. Sponsor Available now, the SDK allows developers to include a button in their app that will launch ScanLife’s scanning application, or download it if the user doesn’t have it on their phone. After scanning, the user is sent back to the original third-party app with their results. It’s a bit of a strange work-flow compared to RedLaser’s embeddable branded scanner on the iPhone, but it’s a decent solution for Android developers. The app can also be launched from a mobile website by adding a special link in the HTML code of the site. The SDK is free to use and supports several forms of 2D barcodes, including EZ codes, Datamatrix, QR codes and standard UPC barcodes. Right now the software development kit only supported on Android, but ScanLife says they are working on releasing an iPhone version soon. It’s great that more options are out there for developers to use emerging mobile technologies, but it would have been better to see ScanLife offer a more embeddable version of their scanner to foster more unified customer experiences. Having the ability to use the technology is one thing, but providing users with a smooth customer experience is a much higher value add for developers. Discuss

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Fennec (aka Firefox Mobile) is now available for phones running Google’s Android OS. This highly-anticipated web browser is a mobile-ready port of its desktop cousin, Mozilla Firefox. Like its predecessor, Fennec offers tabbed browsing and add-ons. It also offers an optional add-on called “Weave” which allows you to sync your Fennec history, passwords, bookmarks and tabs between the mobile and desktop versions of the browser. But before you rush out to install Fennec now, be warned: this download is “pre-alpha,” which means you should expect to see some bugs, kinks and other issues. Sponsor According to Mozilla developer Vladimir Vukicevic , the current version of Fennec has the following limitations: It has only been tested on the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One. (In other words, other Android users are in for an unknown set of issues). Bugs might cause your phone to stop responding, requiring a reboot. Memory usage of this build isn’t great – the Fennec developers have not done a lot of optimization yet. This could cause some problems with large pages, especially on low memory devices like the Droid. You’ll see the app exit and re-launch on first start, as well as on add-on installs; this is a quirk of the install process and it’s being worked on. You can’t open links from other apps using Fennec; the next build will address this. This build requires Android 2.0 or above, and likely an OpenGL ES 2.0 capable device. This build must be installed to internal memory, not to a SD card. That said, the current pre-alpha release of Fennec does have some interesting features, most notably, the Weave integration mentioned above. The experimental version of Weave installs as a Fennec add-on and then you’ll need to restart the browser before it will work – just like Firefox on the desktop. However, once installed, the add-on lets you synchronize all your mobile activity back to Firefox on your desktop. (If it works for you, that is. Some people have had issues). Fennec also offers a combined search and address bar, much like Google’s Chrome web browser does. And it comes with integrated search engines like Google (the default), plus site-specific engines like Amazon, Twitter and YouTube. If you’re test-driving Fennec, you may want to also download a utility called “White Killer,” which helps you force-stop an unresponsive Android app. Otherwise, you’ll likely need to do the following when you run into issues: go into Android Settings, select “Applications,” then “Manage Applications,” select “Fennec,” then tap “Force Stop.” To download Fennec directly to your Android phone, go here: http://bit.ly/fennec-android . Discuss

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Hacker Planetbeing has apparently ported the Android to the iPhone. The Android OS is, in this video, apparently running successfully on the Apple phone. Planetbeing has offered the Android-to-iPhone ” pre-built images and sources ” as a torrent download For the time being, it looks like the porting only works on first-generation iPhones. Sponsor “It should be pretty simple to port forward to the iPhone 3G,” says Planetbeing. “The 3GS will take more work. Hopefully with all this groundwork laid out, we can make Android a real alternative or supplement for iPhone users.” As Alexander Vaughn points out on AppAdvice , “Just like you can do Bootcamp on your Mac to access PC apps, you’ll be able to go on Android to try all these apps that don’t exist, or were not allowed on the iPhone.” Discuss

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As we mentioned briefly last night , Google is going to attempt to reintegrate Android into the main Linux kernel – the code had been booted in December because it was “no longer being cared for,” according to Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Novell developer who maintains the staging, USB and driver core for Linux. The reintroduction process will take years , says Google open source programs manager Chris DiBona. On the one hand, it’s good to see Google trying to do the right thing by the open source community, but on the other hand, the argument could be made that Google appropriated Linux for its own for-profit ends without giving back. Sponsor This move has been dubbed by some as “evil,” (in reference to Google’s infamous company motto, “Do No Evil”). The issue: Google forked Android’s development into private branches, implemented a closed code review process and and then trademarked the “Android” name all while providing an incomplete public software developers kit which is missing several key items needed to build a Android-based handset. Open? No. But is that evil? The Arguments as to Android “Openness”…or Lack Thereof Vision Mobile’s research director Andreas Constantinou makes these same points and more over on the blog run by the market analysis and strategy firm. The post, entitled ” Is Android Evil? ” is worth reading in its entirety. But we’ll summarize some of the main points here by snipping out a handful of his top arguments as to why Android isn’t really open source software: Private branches: As noted above, select partners (OEMs mostly) have access to private codelines that are estimated to be 6+ months ahead of the public SDK. This allows them to stay competitive. Close review process: All code reviewers work for Google. Few outside contributions get in with no explanation as to why. Speed of evolution: Google innovates on Android so quickly that OEMs have no choice but to remain close to the company in order to get in on the new features and bug fixes. Incomplete software: The public SDK lacks radio integration, international language packs and operator packs. Android is a trademarked name. Private roadmap: The published roadmap is a year out of date . You have to contact Google to see the private one. Constantinou makes a few other arguments, too, like how the Android Marketplace is controlled by Google for example, but that’s not really as important to this issue – especially since there’s no Apple-like review process when it comes to accepting new applications. Another argument to Android’s not-so-open nature is that Google chose the Apache license so the derivative code doesn’t have to be contributed back. Google’s DiBona dismissed this, claiming differentiation is good and enables commercial vendors to succeed, according to the ZDNet report . Profit Isn’t Evil Commercial success with Linux isn’t a new (or “evil”) idea, though. Distributions like Redhat, SuSE, Oracle Unbreakable Linux – heck, even Tivo – among many others have turned a profit thanks to Linux. That’s not evil, that’s just good business. But the issue here is that Google is succeeding commercially on top of Linux while making changes to Android that are not shared with the community. Meanwhile, they get to promote “Android” as “open,” when, in reality, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The question we ask now is this: does this make the Android business “evil?” Or does Google get a pass since Android is far more open, comparatively speaking, than most other mobile operating systems today? Where does Android fall on Google’s “evil meter? in your eyes? Discuss

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Google Earth for the Android phone is now available on the Verizon DROID , according to Peter Birch, writing on the Google LatLongBlog . Google Earth for Android launched in early March, but the specific needs of adapting it for Verizon’s phone and service took an extra month. According to Birch, Google Earth for Android is compatible with most Android devices running 2.1. More Android phones will accommodate Google Earth as they adopt Android 2.1 or higher. Sponsor “Google Earth requires hardware floating-point acceleration, so it will run on devices such as DROID and Nexus One, but not on devices such as myTouch 3G and DROID ERIS.” Discuss

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