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As per my previous post, I have switched my time from learning to develop for iPhone to Android. Here is a rundown as to why I made that change.

Flexibility
--I can install (and already have) install the android SDK on any OS, so no longer do I have to only develop on my dual booted home PC w/ OSx86, I can now develop on my Ubuntu desktop and Windows 7 laptop.
--As popular as the iPhone appears, it is still only limited to AT&T customers. Android phones are already out on T-Mobile. Sprint and Verizon are coming before this year is over and AT&T will jump on soon as well. Why develop for a phone on 1 major carrier vs many phones on all the major ones? Why develop for a OS that's only on 1 phone vs 1 on many?

Personal Device
--The plan was to not only develop for iPhone, but also to purchase one. Honestly after deeply looking into one (w/ an expensive AT&T plan) it was not what I wanted. Which led me to look at other phones and led me to the HTC Hero and Android. Obviously the iPhone is king and I plan on developing for it eventually, but not owning one as my main device, so I'll wait till I make some money developing Android to jump onto iPhone.

Open Source
--After diving into the Linux world over 3 years ago, I've grown to love open-source. So after I heard Android was no longer just Google, that it was lead by the Open Handset Alliance, I felt it was more my kind of OS compared to Apple's.

AppStore vs Android Market
--Simple enough, why try to compete with the 60,000 apps of the iPhone when I can get in on the Android Market right before it (hopefully) gets big?

That's pretty much it I think.

Sidenote: If anyone knows a screen capturing software that works either in 64 bit Ubuntu or 32 bit Windows 7? I would like to take videos of my programs running in the Android emulator.

Here's what you see when you run Android code, it loads up a full phone and then once it's at the home screen it'll install and execute your code:

You probably thought I quit this blog, but I didn't! I'm here, but I did quit the iPhone! The plan was to learn how to develop for it by the time I was due for a new phone via my contract I would buy one. Well let's just say after weeks of researching phones on a consumer and developer level, I decided to stay away from the iPhone. I have my reasons, mostly because too many people have them. But that's what got me into iPhone development in the first place, it was hugely popular. For personal reasons I also want to use Google Voice and with that comes this announcement:



I've already created a SDK setup using the LATEST SDK on both my Linux desktop and Windows 7 laptop, have created Hello, World and even a short "To-Do List" application, and I plan to purchase the HTC Hero in the upcoming weeks.

Expect another post detailing more of why and how I decided to go with Android.

So maybe down the line I'll get back into iPhone development, but for now I'm devoting my time to Android.

Sidenote: please bare with me while I fix the blog's template.