Google Android delay: Bluetooth, GTalk APIs

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 27 August 2008 05:34

Your IT - Mobility

Uh-oh... Two major features have been dropped from the APIs for version 1.0 of Google's Android mobile phone platform: Bluetooth and GTalkService (Google Talk).

Is the mighty Google slipping or are delays to a potentially world-beating smartphone platform nothing to worry about?

Bluetooth is clearly a major feature of modern mobiles, and the news that Google is delaying what should be an essential initial inclusion is somewhat surprising.

But don't panic. After all, the first Android handsets will include Bluetooth support for headsets and possibly some other functions. But as Bluetooth will not be accessible by developers, any capabilities must be explicitly programmed in by the team at Google.

So what happened? Engineer Nick Pelly explained "we plain ran out of time. The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some clean-up before we can commit to it for the SDK."

Part of the problem is that Android uses the BlueZ Bluetooth protocol stack developed for Linux, and that software has just undergone a major revision with the arrival of version 4.

"The bluez 4.x change requires us to carefully consider how to structure our API for the future. Again, remember that once we settle on an interface we need to support it for years going forward," said Pelly.

So what about the GTalk API? Please read on.