Comments on: Why is the Android Telephony API so limited (closed)?

By: Apple’s iPhone Evil May GIve them Android Killing Edge – Maemo Chance? « Chasing the Power Curve

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:48:49 +0000

[...] the fact (carrier meddling?) that they won’t even expose real telephony interfaces (read my blog about that) and it’s not the iPhone killer some seem tho think it [...]

By: gherlein

gherlein — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:49:00 +0000

The real problem is that to get LTAPI level support – meaning low level access to the telephony events, raw access to the audio stream, etc – then the hardware vendors have to provide enough data about the hardware interfaces to allow device drivers to be built.

I don’t quite buy the notion that the they didn’t expose the interfaces because there’s not enough interest or demand… they exposed a jillion other things that are likely to have little demand. I suspect that in reality it has more to do with non-disclosure agreements and the proprietary nature of some of the low level chips sets. That certainly slowed us down at Quicknet, and remains an issue with some hardware – especially advanced wireless chipsets.

By: Haseman

Haseman — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:59:18 +0000

I’m not a googler, so here are my informed opinions…

Android’s SDK is not particularly well locked down. Users are given one chance to allow an application permission to do what its Manifest says it has access to. This is a single pass/fail all/nothing check. I’d wager most users, just as they don’t read EULAs, don’t check what they’re giving applications access to. Further, because Android allows off-deck (out of app store) software, the potential for damage is fairly large.

Priority is another issue. The pool of people interested in re-implementing tapi or making a custom dialer is small.

For those people (such as yourself) I’d suggest staying out of the SDK (it’s going to be a lot slower than a native C/C++ app) and checking out the source code for Android. Make your modifications there and load a custom build on your device.

By: gherlein

gherlein — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:39:22 +0000

The critical path to implementing the LTAPI in Android would be access to the detailed hardware information to write the /dev/phone drivers for the phone. Without that we are stuck.

By: gherlein

gherlein — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:38:12 +0000

Compared to Blackberry certainly, if you believe the various posts I read (I’m a newbie BB developer). But the point isn’t “there’s plenty that you can do” it’s “why isn’t it more open?”

By: Android Owner010

Android Owner010 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:22:26 +0000

Hello gherlein,

Thank you for the work you Ed Okerson did on the Linux Telephony API.
I’m not a programmer, so I am probably off…
Yet,… can’t we just “re-hack” the Android?
Make a fork?

I am guessing the lack of openess if because of pressure from the mobile carriers.

Thanks for the post!

By: BillCPU

BillCPU — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:23:14 +0000

Closed (limited) compared to LTAPI or compared to other phone OSes? There is plenty of telephony stuff you can do without going through the dialer app.