Defying Google's pathologically closed [1] approach to its open mobile platform, someone has posted video [2] of a top-secret Android phone to YouTube.

The video's a bit blurry. And even if it wasn't, it wouldn't tell you much. But if you want a glimpse of the current Android SDK, this is the only way to get it. For more than five months, in a display of perverse cruelty [3], Google has hidden SDK updates from all but a select few mobile developers.

Apparently, this is the HTC Dream - an Android handset under development at Taiwenese-based manufacturer High Tech Computer. Word is that this will be the first Android device to market sometime later this year.

When he demoed [4] Android at Google's San Francisco developer conference in late May, engineering director Steve Horowitz was likely handling an earlier version of the Dream. You can see [5] it on YouTube too.

The newer video shows off a retractable keyboard. But more importantly, it shows off some rogue developer breaking Google's strict code of secrecy. ®

Bootnote

A tip of the hat to Nicolas Gramlich [6].

Links

1. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/14/android_developer_unrest/
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggR18cBzd8I
3. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/15/google_adc_email/
4. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/29/google_android_demo/
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arXolJrLVEg
6. http://www.anddev.org/htc_dream-ing_once_again-t2686.html

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