It is known that even PCs won't be able to handle the full blockchain eventually, let alone smartphones. Supernodes will be needed if bitcoin becomes popular. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
edit: I see now that there is indeed a 14MB blockchain file in the source: https://github.com/barmstrong/bitcoin-android/blob/master/as.... I suppose this is not the full blockchain, but just the block headers. This is described as "Simplified Payment Verification" in Satoshi's paper.
It could very well be just block headers, to be honest I'm not sure (didn't realize the desktop version was that big). We're using the bitcoinj library and contributing back some patches along the way. Mike Hearn at Google wrote the blockstorage and deserves a ton of credit for it: http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/
"BitCoinJ implements the "simplified payment verification" mode of Satoshis paper. It does not store a full copy of the block chain, rather, it stores what it needs in order to verify transactions with the aid of an untrusted peer node."
The latest compressed blockchain download available here at the time of writing is 280MB: http://bitcoin.bluematt.me/bitcoin-nightly/blockchain-nightl...
It is known that even PCs won't be able to handle the full blockchain eventually, let alone smartphones. Supernodes will be needed if bitcoin becomes popular. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
edit: I see now that there is indeed a 14MB blockchain file in the source: https://github.com/barmstrong/bitcoin-android/blob/master/as.... I suppose this is not the full blockchain, but just the block headers. This is described as "Simplified Payment Verification" in Satoshi's paper.