Android's New Version To Support Upload to YouTube?
Google's mobile phone OS "Android," will soon be updated with several new features as a part of a major roadmap update. One of those features will include support for a video recording mode that will also let users share the content. The update, code-named "Cupcake," has many speculating what that video sharing feature will actually look like. Some have suggested the possibility of being able to upload videos from the phone directly to YouTube. Now that's something we would like to see!
One of the only drawbacks to Apple's widly popular iPhone is its lack of support for video recording. Of course, you can jailbreak your iPhone, a process that removes the restrictions put in place by Apple, and then install your preferred video recording application on your newly free device. However, the regular "Joes" of the world who are purchasing the phone don't necessarily know how to do this or care to learn. If the "other" big smartphone offered video recording support, that would be a great selling point. (Then they would just need some apps.)
We may be jumping the gun a bit in saying that there's the possibility of video upload to YouTube just around the corner for Android - the roadmap does not specify this. There's a vague reference to "video intent," but no mention of YouTube or any other video sharing web sites. Still, we can't help but hope for that feature, as it would make the Android OS an even more compelling choice for those of us who want a more open smartphone.
Upcoming Features
The "Cupcake" update does include some other features we can get excited about though, including:
- Copy and Paste will come to the web browser in addition to its new WebKit rendering engine
- Inline search will help you find text on the web page you're viewing
- A port of the "SquirrelFish"Javascript engine from Google's Chrome browser
- Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) profile support and Bluetooth Remote Control (AVRCP) support
- Support for 3rd parties to make their own onscreen keyboards
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
This is all exciting but I hope something can be done with the apps - on the G1 apps must be placed on the device memory - with a limit of only 48MB! There is no option to host apps on an SD card.
"...There's a vague reference to "video intent," but no mention of YouTube or any other video sharing web sites."
"Intents", in the context of Android, are programmatic functions ( post may be incorrectly defining the word intent ). Website can use intents to call apps installed on an Android phone, access the handset's sensors.
Should cupcake add video support, any web site could be the target of a direct upload, not just YouTube. That ultimately could mean Qik style live broadcasting for all without a locally installed app.
More here:
http://code.google.com/android/reference/android/content/Intent.html
P.S. Is the update's name, "Cupcake", influenced by Ariel Waldman's Cupcake Camp?
http://cupcakecamp.org/
@Todd: Thanks for the explanation - very informative. That's even more exciting!
SquirrelFish is part of the Webkit project, not Chrome. http://webkit.org/blog/189/announcing-squirrelfish/
Chrome was released with its own javascript interpreter. I'm assuming it was an optimized version of the first rev of Squirrelfish because it makes little sense for Google to build one from scratch. Within two weeks of Chrome's release, Squirrelfish Extreme was released by the Webkit project:
http://webkit.org/blog/214/introducing-squirrelfish-extreme
The fact that Android's browser is based of November's Webkit is good news though. The last few months have seen major improvements in Webkit. Those same improvements should land in future versions of Safari and Mobile Safari as well.
I posted pretty much same thing except that I know the release date already ;)
Seem mah blog for updates if u like...
As a former Treo user, I've been really disappointed with the whole camera side of the G1 - both the lack of video and overall poor camera performance. The camera is basically useless unless you're in bright sunlight or a very well lit room. And even then, its slow enough that capturing anything but still life is tough. Kids move - fast! So I'm not sure how practically useful video support will be at least for the G1 installed base. I guess we'll see.
Via reshare http://friendfeed.com/e/9ed9d92e-4efa-4544-9424-8b5586d8460d/Android-s-New-Version-To-Support-Upload-to/
Posted by: Sarah Perez
|
December 19, 2008 10:05 AM
Now that would be awesome. Esp given my iPhones lack of ability to take video (native, that is), this would give phones like the G1 a great edge.
Posted by: Alex Wilhelm
|
December 19, 2008 10:11 AM
Correction: "SquirrelFish" is the JS engine for Safari; the Chromium JS engine is "V8". (I don't know which is supposed to be coming to Android.)
@ Matt W...
I think the camera is not bad for a phone. It just needs a few corrections made via a software update.