First Android Release Will Have iPhone-Style Crippled Bluetooth, No Google Talk

Over on the official Android Developers Blog, Googler Dan Morrill has news of what won’t be making it into Android 1.0—a full featured-Bluetooth stack and data messaging via Google Talk API. Android 1.0 will work with Bluetooth headsets, but won’t do other things like send files or link up to a PoGo printer, just like the iPhone. Google Talk will be missing completely. Thankfully, the reasoning behind both decisions seems to make sense: Google Talk’s security is nowhere near where it needs to be in order to function as the core IM service for a huge mobile platform as intended, and a full Bluetooth API simply isn’t done yet, but both should show up in future iterations. Apparently any frameworks in the 1.0 SDK would be impossible to greatly change down the road, so it sounds like Google’s taking the smart route and not rushing out inferior code. [Android Developers Blog via PC Mag]

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Google Talk for the iPhone

Google has just announced Google Talk for the iPhone (and iPod touch). You won’t have to wait for the App Store to use it, since this is a web app designed for the iPhone’s browser (remember when Apple wanted us to believe that web apps were just as good as fully native apps? My how times have changed).

All you have to do is point your iPhone to www.google.com/talk and soon you’ll be chatting away with your Gmail contacts. Since this is a web app, Google Talk for the iPhone only works when it is the active window in Mobile Safari. Close the web broswer, or switch to a different window and you’ll show up as unavailable in Google Talk.

[via Lifehacker]

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