

Android's Achilles' Heel (for the rest of the world) - The Sim Toolkit - nicpottier
http://blog.nyaruka.com/androids-achilles-heal-the-sim-toolkit

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antonlitvinenko
I am actually subscribed to Sim Toolkit request/issue in Android issue tracker
and each week it gets about 1-2 new requests.
(<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=15070> and
<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6666>). And currently is
not a single response from anybody representing Android team there.

My personal problem with this is that in Estonia MobileID (fancy way to
authenticate yourself and authorize transactions in banks, public services and
other web services - advertised as a more secure way comparing to
username/passwords and one time tokens) works through Sim Toolkit.

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bergie
It is a shame none of the modern smartphones support SIM Toolkit applications.
They're used for example in the M-Pesa mobile payments system that is popular
in Africa and elsewhere.

I wrote something about M-Pesa when I was in Kenya over the new year:
[http://www.qaiku.com/home/bergie/show/5035411811ce11e088577f...](http://www.qaiku.com/home/bergie/show/5035411811ce11e088577f7b44ee56fe56fe/)

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metageek
> _Build a browser that does wire compression before sending it down_

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2514020>

I don't know whether Android's browser is using SPDY yet, but it seems like an
obvious step.

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jrockway
_If you want Android to be relevant anywhere apart from the West, then start
thinking about how we live day to day._

The point of Android is to sell search ads. So I don't think they want Android
to be relevant anywhere but "the West". If you want to use Android and have it
support your obscure legacy technology, bust out your IDE and start
programming. If there is as much demand as you say, the money will flow right
in.

~~~
nicpottier
This is an incredibly narrow view of the world. There are billions in China
and India alone without even counting Africa. If you don't believe Google
wants those eyes then you haven't been paying attention to how much effort
they have been putting into Africa.

And no, you can't build this stuff in userland. Everybody could go install
Cyanogen on their handset, but that's obviously not tenable for the general
consumer.

~~~
ravimc
If anyone in India and China needed this, they would have written it by now.
This toolkit thingy is not used in India AFAIK

~~~
potatolicious
> _"If anyone in India and China needed this, they would have written it by
> now. "_

This is a puzzling concept. If there's a need for a product, it would've
already been created? By that definition, we should just shut down HN, since
there is no more need for startups! Why waste our time here when every piece
of software with significant demand has already been written by somebody else?

Goofing around aside, there is a _lot_ of Ameri-centricity in both iOS and
Android. For one thing, I cannot believe Apple is shipping the iPhone in Japan
without a QR code reader.

The whole "translate it and ship it" attitude to globalizing products is a
poor one, and explains why some scrappy locals can often take on big, cash-
flush corporations.

~~~
lmz
My Samsung Android phone (running Froyo) has a SIM Toolkit application and it
seems to work. If Google doesn't want to do it surely the handset
manufacturers can?

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tlear
Funny thing that Blackberry used to have a great support for STK, then they
broke it in the OS 6.

~~~
bergie
This is probably because operators in the West never figured out anything
useful to do with STK. You had crappy horoscope apps and the sort, not online
identification or banking like in the developing countries.

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dabeeeenster
Does the Android SDK support everything you need to write the required
application? Just write it!

~~~
nicpottier
No.. you'd have to patch the OS itself.. you don't have access to the low
level stuff needed unless you patch the OS directly.

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shareme
There was a report recently about one set of android handsets accepting a SIM
styled based facebook set of apps which I believed enabled by SIM toolkit and
so someone somewhere has done some new sim toolkit support in android. Anybody
remember the article well enough to remember the firm name?

~~~
deadcyclo
I can confirm that HTC Desire running Android 2.2 has SIM toolkit.

