5 Jan 2010

Google's Nexus One is disappointing

I'm sure the actual device is great, but the idea of the Nexus One is what I'm talking about... or more specifically, Google's Phone Store.  Google had the opportunity to turn the phone market on it's head, but instead has just become one of those booths at the mall trying to sell you a new phone package to make commission.  Except unlike those mall booths, Google only offers one phone and one plan to choose from.

So what is Google's goal here?
Sell phones?  Then they need to offer more than one $79 plan w/ subsidy.  This phone isn't special enough to justify breaking a contract or paying $529.
Push Android?  Then they need to insure there is an attractive, compatible, and affordable Android phone on the market.

The Nexus One is attractive, but for most people it is not affordable and is not compatible.  

So why is Google just being yet-another wireless middle-man?  A simplified Google version of http://wireless.amazon.com/ ?

In my dreamworld, Google announces a single unlocked device capable of running on both GSM and CDMA for about $299.  A world where your wireless device is totally decoupled from the carrier.  An affordable smartphone that can be used on any service without a two-year contract.  I know Google has the power to do this, and it would sell like crazy for years.

But they didn't.  Nothing to see here, move along.
Nexusoneandroidcarriers
24 May 2009

Video from my G1 emailed to posterous

(download)

I can send the video as an attachment from the G1 to posterous.  It should be embedded and downloadable here

24 May 2009

My first impressions of the new T-Mobile G1 Android update (aka cupcake)

I just spent a full day using the new Android 1.5 release (also known as "cupcake") on my T-Mobile G1.  I manually installed the update, because I am too impatient to wait for the auto-update from T-Mobile sometime next month.  It was a quick and easy install, via the instructions here and I highly recommend it.

Here is a quick list of some of the new features I noticed:
  • Menus and dialogs looks a lot nicer and more polished, with nice animations and transitions.  Very iPhone-ish.
  • The screen can auto-orient and an on-screen keyboard is now available.  I really like the hard-keyboard but I can see myself converting over time.  The iPhone virtual keyboard frustrated me the few times I've used it, but I felt the Android virtual keyboard was more accurate.  It's much more convenient than sliding the keyboard open and turning to landscape mode every time you need to input some simple text.
  • The Gmail app now has the same functionality as the mobile website which makes taking action on multiple emails at once a breeze.  
  • A Calendar widget.  I'm excited about getting new widgets soon, now that it is part of the API.  
  • You can now copy any text from the Browser.  You select "Select Text" in the menu then drag your finger over any text which then gets copied to the clipboard.
  • GTalk was moved out of "IM" into it's own app.  Which is nice because I never used the others (which send messages over SMS... what's up with that?)
  • You can now more easily snap a photo using an on-screen button, or change the camera mode to... VIDEO!
It's awesome that after a simple software update my phone now has a video camera.  Here is my first video, uploaded straight to YouTube:
Sure the quality is not near as good as my HD pocket cameras like the Creative Vado, but it's not that bad and it gets the job done, although the audio is very low.  Hopefully mobile streaming services like Qik and Kyte will soon support it.

The future is mobile, and I think the android platform is positioning itself to big a big part of that (even running on netbooks).  I just downloaded the Android SDK and plan on creating my first mobile app.  Maybe I'll even have something to talk about at this week's mobicamp.

http://www.danielsims.com

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