Are Microsoft and Apple using the mobile web to dictate how we use technology? And, if so, what does that mean for us?
Last week, John Herlihy, Google’s Chief of Sales, made a bold prediction:
“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant.”
Okay, I like to brag that I can blog from my Nexus One, but, until today, I’ve never done it. What’s different? I installed a beta version of Swype, an alternate keyboard that lets you type by dragging your finger from letter to letter on the keyboard instead of pressing on the keys. The software is very good at guessing what you mean, so you can move pretty quickly and still be reasonably accurate. It’s somewhat amazing, and a godsend for people like me who are used to having physical keyboards on our phones. To join the Android beta, sign up here. I’ve only had… Read More »Blogging from my phone
Two weeks ago, I bit an expensive bullet and bought a new Nexus One phone, directly from Google. I’m a T-Mobile customer, and, as long-time readers know, an early adopter of the T-Mobile G1, the first publicly-available Android phone. I went for the unlocked version of the Nexus One (at $529 before taxes) rather than the $279 upgrade. My analysis of what the cost would have been, under the arcane T-Mobile condition that I can’t get a Nexus One and maintain my family plan at that price, was that it would have cost hundreds more over the two year contract term.
Here’s the short review: Fast, fast, fast, fast and shiny!
The last few weeks saw some big announcements in the smartphone world:
* Palm released the phone that they’ve been promising us for years, the Palm Pre, with it’s new WebOS, to reviews that were mostly favorable and summed up as “The iPhone’s baby brother”.
* Apple stole some of Palm’s thunder by dominating the press two days later with news of their relatively unexciting new phones and 3.0 software.
* In the weeks prior, news came out that about 18 more Android phones should be out in calendar 2009 and that, by early 2010, all of the major carriers will have them.
* And Nokia’s E71 hit our shores, an incredibly full-featured phone that you can get for just over $300 unlocked, and use the carrier of your choice. While this isn’t a touchscreen, and is therefore suspect in terms of it’s ease of use, it is an amazingly full-featured product.
This post was originally published on the Idealware Blog in November of 2008. After my highfalutin post on mobile operating systems, I thought I’d step back and post a quick review of my T-Mobile G1, the first phone running Google’s Android Mobile OS. Mind you, I’m not posting this from my phone, but I could… 🙂 Hardware Specs for the G1 In order to discuss this phone, it’s important to separate the phone from the operating system. Android is open source, based on the Linux kernel with a JAVA software development approach. The G1 is an HTC mobile phone with Android installed on it. … Read More »About that Google Phone
Here’s my 11/7/2008 Idealware post, originally published at http://www.idealware.org/blog/2008/11/small-footprints-robotic-and-otherwise.html As the proud owner of a T-Mobile G1, the first phone out running Google’s Android Mobile Operating System (OS), I wanted to post a bit about the state of the Mobile OS market. I’ve been using a smartphone since about 1999, when I picked up a proprietary Sprint phone that could sync with my Outlook Contacts and Calendar. We’ve come a long way; we have a long way to go before the handheld devices in our pocket overcome the compromises and kludges that govern their functionality. My personal experience/expertise is with Palm Treos, Windows Mobile, and now… Read More »Small Footprints, Robotic and Otherwise
I’m the proud owner of a new T-Mobile G1 – UPS delivered it yesterday. The G1 is the first phone to use Google’s open source Android mobile operating system, and it rocks. This is the first true competitor to the iPhone, with a large touchscreen and a desktop-class web browser on a 3G network with WiFi, GPS and a flip out, full QWERTY keyboard. The G1 is particularly compelling if you use GMail, GTalk and Google Calendar – the integration, particularly with GMail, is phenomenal. The email is pushed to the phone, and the application for reading it is on a par with the standard… Read More »Hacking my Exchange Data onto my New G1
Here’s my 9/18/2008 Idealware post, originally published at http://www.idealware.org/blog/2008/09/smartphone-follies.html If you man the support desk, or are the accidental techie for an org of ten or more people, chances are that you get a lot of questions about smartphones. And these generally aren’t the “what should I get?” questions as often as they’re the “how do I get my email and schedule on my new [Blackberry/Iphone/Treo/Razr/MotoQ/Sidekick/Android Dream]?”. If the state of computing technology were akin to smartphones, you’d have Commodore, Leading Edge, IBM, and Apple computers, along with IBM Selectric typewriters to support, all running different operating systems and different applications. It’s somewhat insane. So… Read More »Smartphone Follies
I’ve been using the Palm Treo for about seven years now, ever since the original Treo 300 flip-phone was released. With my most recent two year Sprint contract approaching completion, and some motivation to ditch Sprint, I just took a pretty detailed read of the smartphone market and purchased a new model. I figure that this is worth sharing while it’s meaningful, but this is a market that changes rapidly, so if you’re reading this in 2008, it’s probably obsolete info. Smartphones come in a variety of flavors: Blackberries Treos (PalmOS or Windows – new variant: the Centro) Windows Mobile phones Apple iPhone Others (Nokia,… Read More »State of the Smart(phone)