Google drops Android chat

 

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Posted on 28 Aug 2008 at 09:39

Google has decided to drop two features from its Android operating system for mobile devices — Google Talk instant messaging and full Bluetooth support.

Both features would have helped to distinguish Android handsets from the iPhone, to which they will inevitably be compared, but as Dan Morrill, Developer Advocate, explains on the Android Developers Blog, their are good reasons for the decision to drop them from the latest version of the software development kit (SDK).

Google Talk’s absence is down to security and privacy concerns arising from the different way that Google Talk, implemented as the GTalkService in the SDK, would be used on a mobile device compared to a computer.

“Google Talk friends are intended for a different purpose than that envisioned by the GTalkService,” Morrill says. “Your Google Talk friends can contact you at any time via IM. They can see your email address and often can see your real name. However, the idea of a Google Talk friend does not always line up with the types of people who may want to interact with via an Android application.”

For example if you wanted to chat to people playing a multiplayer game on the Android device, GTalkService would require that you add the players to your contacts list, exposing not only you real name but also your email address.

“You may not want to chat with these friends — and perhaps worse, you may not want them to know what your real name or email is,” he says.

Bluetooth will be limited to support for headsets, like the iPhone, and possibly other hardware, though non is mentioned by Morrill. Wider functionality is not currently provided simply because Google ran out of time.

“Rather than ship a broken API that we knew was going to change a lot, we chose not to include it,” Morrill says. “We absolutely intend to support a Bluetooth API in a future release, although we don't know exactly when that will be.”

But Nick Pelly, one of the Android engineers responsible for Bluetooth, believes that Bluetooth can play significant role in the mobile platform.

“I would love nothing more than to start seeing some neat third-party applications and games over Bluetooth,” he said. “In my opinion, Bluetooth is completely under-utilised on most mobile platforms and I’m excited to someday see what the developer community can do with Android.”

Author: Simon Aughton