Jumping ship

Posted on August 5, 2010 in: Tech|View Comments

Courtesy of JorgenSmith

Time for a rant.

Seriously folks, I’m about to do it. I’m toying with the idea of ditching my iPhone for an Android handset.

iOS is starting to look extremely antiquated. A grid of icons? How very Palm Pilot circa 1999.

The notifications system is a joke. Multitasking is half-baked. Accessing basic system settings is restricted from app developers and cumbersome at best for end users. I seriously worry that Apple is ending up in the same place they were with the PC market: break out with an world-changing product then fall behind.

The only innovative thing about iPhone 4 was the retina display. And don’t talk to me about FaceTime – it’s a gimmick backed by overly dramatic advertising.

iOS 4 was a minor bump in functionality (congratulations, you can now change the background on your homescreen) but nothing even close to “Holy cow that’s awesome. They’re totally pushing the envelope here.”

I hate to say it, but Apple needs to spend a little less time making sure you can’t see pixels on your icons and a little more time looking at functionality.

Function over Form

Today I came across an Android application called Tasker (you can read a review here). For $6 it will do pretty much anything you want to your phone. What do I mean by that?

Using a series of “if, then” processes, you can get your phone to behave however you want, whenever you want, wherever you want.

“When I go to the movie theater, dim the screen by 50%, turn off WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G. Silence the ringer, put the phone on vibrate and only ring/notify me if the call or text it comes from the babysitter’s number.”

Or…

“If I place my phone face down on a surface while at work, forward my calls and stop checking for email.”

Or…

“I want my alarm clock to go off at 7:00 AM, play X song, turn on WiFi and stop call forwarding. Turn on text message notifications, check all email and social networking accounts. Open my to-do list then tell me ‘David, you’re  a handsome rock star but you need to get out of bed.’ Only do this on weekdays for the month of August.”

Kind of like this:

It’s basically Tony Stark’s bedroom window. But on your phone. And without the blond skank.

For $6.

And it’s only available on Android phones.

This is the kind of killer app I keep looking for Apple to come up with – or at least enable others to come up with.

HTC 1 concept phone. iLust.

Posted on July 12, 2010 in: Awesomeness, Tech|View Comments

Going a little double rainbow over here after flashing my optics upon this mobile concept design from HTC with its über minimalistic design and revamped Sense UI.

I nabbed a couple of pix from here (click to make the thumbnails larger), but I think you should definitely head on over and check out the breadth of awesomeness for yourself.

And when I say awesomeness, I mean that this phone will kill the germs on it using UV light whenever you plug it in. If you have another definition of awesomeness I don’t think I want to know what it is.


Awesome cell phone instruction manual

Posted on June 2, 2010 in: Awesomeness, Wireless|View Comments

Ingenius concept: instead of taking screen shots of the phone interface, learn how to use your phone using the actual phone itself.

From the creators:

The…book is the main manual – the phone actually slots into this and becomes the center of attention. Arrows point to the exact locations the user should press, avoiding confusion and eliminating the feeling of being lost in a menu.

Brilliant.

From here.

CNN spoiler alert

Posted on February 28, 2010 in: Business, Wireless|View Comments

Dear CNN,

Instead of blasting out the results of sporting events to those who receive your breaking news text alerts (like me) and ruining the game for those who haven’t seen it (like me), you instead send a mass text to everyone informing them that the game has ended and then give them the opportunity to reply with a “Y” if they want to know the result/score.

You’re jerks.

Thanks for nothing,

David

Google's Nexus One strategy

Posted on January 12, 2010 in: Uncategorized|View Comments

The Google Phone is here: the Nexus One. It's faster than the fastest iPhone with a better display, new Android software, a 5 mpx camera, etc. etc. etc.. It's an impressive and very sexy piece of hardware.

Background
Google is selling it directly at google.com/phone. You can buy an unlocked version (and not have to sign a two-year contract with those blasted wireless carriers) for $529. While a common practice in Europe, most Americans aren't used to the concept of getting a phone without a carrier. (You can get a subsidized version of the phone at T-Mobile for $179 with a two-year contract.)

Questionable strategy

Google wants to get its Android operating system onto as many phones in as many people's hands as possible which is why they're giving it away free to phone manufacturers (whereas Windows, for example, charges phone manufacturers to put Windows Mobile on their handsets, similarly to how they charge Dell to put Windows 7 on their computers). This makes sense because:

The more people who have an internet-capable phone, the more time they spend on the internet.
The more time people spend on the internet, the more time they spend searching on Google.
The more time people spend searching on Google, the more ads are clicked on and the more money Google makes.

So why are they charging so much for the phone? It's reported that it costs Google $174 in hard costs to make the Nexus One. Of course, there are other costs involved but the full retail price for one is still $529. Why?

Shake the industry

If Google really wanted to be disrupt the market it would sell the phone without a contract at $199.

What iPhone?

They still break even on the handset – the real money comes from ads on the sides of mobile search results. Google brings a lot of people into its ecosystem and does what it does best: brings the price of something down so low it's basically free (at $199 it could be free after carrier subsidization) and forces the industry to respond.

Despite what the current price of the Nexus One would suggest, Google isn't in the hardware business. Google had a net income of nearly $5 billion last year. They don't need to charge $529 for a phone. So why do they?

Preserving distribution

Ask most people on the street if they've heard of the Nexus One and most people will say no. And a fraction of those people will know they can get it directly from Google. At this point, Google needs Samsung, LG, Motorola and others to be putting its operating system on their phones – its reach is too small with mainstream consumers (as far as tangible products go) to do it alone. And if it undercuts those partners by giving away a high-end piece of hardware they'll stop using Android and perhaps even threaten wireless carriers who allow the Google Phone to operate on their networks.

Conclusion

Google is in a position to turn yet another industry completely upside down. All they need is a little more market share (which they'll get thanks to the hardware manufacturers and wireless carriers who are out promoting their product) and to put some polish on the Android user interface. Then, instead of people getting a free cheap-o flip phone when they walk into T-Mobile they get one of the most powerful handsets on the market and go about their happy lives doing Google searches on their Android phone. Because Google isn't in the hardware business. It's in the advertising business. And the more eyeballs it can get the more money they make.

There are lots of different ways this could be looked at. Google might be completely fine allowing hardware partners to push out overpriced handsets with their software. But if Google wants (fast) widespread adoption of people using the web from their phones they may not want to wait for their handset partners to bring their costs down while everyone buys iPhones for $99.

Thoughts?
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