UPDATE: Apparently response from developers has been so thunderous that Google is now offering to pay them to write programs. Yeah, that’ll work…
I’m playing catchup on this, but my take on Google’s new phone platform, Android, is a lot less breathless than what you might have read elsewhere last week. Promising to turn cell phones into pocket PCs, whatever that means, Android was front-page news here in Silicon Valley, and even in The New York Times, which also effused editorially. I consider Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer closer to the mark, though, in calling it a mere press release and “a bunch of words.” That’s what I love about Steve, he never speaks in code. Ballmer of course took the opportunity to boast about Windows Mobile’s staggering success on 150 different handsets from 100-plus operators. Silly me, I can’t name a single one.
But Ballmer knows mere press releases when he sees ’em, as any veteran of Microsoft FUD knows. My favorite example will always be the hugely trumpeted mid-1990s Microsoft At Work (MAW!) initiative to put Windows on all office machines — copiers, fax machines, printers. That one was front-page news, too. Unless I missed something, though, I never saw a “File/Edit/Format” etc. interface on a fax machine.
The fact is, these industry-wide initiatives get lots of feel-good ink and very little traction. Standards, as a friend likes to joke, are useful mainly for giving everyone something to unite against. If they were really crucial, digital camera makers would have figured out the best interface for setting and unsetting automatic flash, for example. Remote controls would all have the “Enter” button in the same place. And cell phone makers might even agree on where to put the SEND button.
As it stands, phone makers have little incentive to adopt a Google platform because 1) it gives any of their really good ideas (albeit rare) to their competition, 2) they lose the ability to differentiate features (often tied to handset UIs) from competitors, and 3) the bulk of any monetization of the platform (in this case, advertising) is sure to go into the already deep pockets of Google.
The other reason this thing won’t go anywhere, though, is the curiously unchallenged role of Google CEO Eric Schmidt. It so happens that Schmidt sits on the board of Apple Inc. and is a BFF of Steve Jobs. So if Android is a mobile platform and the iPhone is a mobile platform, isn’t that what you call your classic conflict of interest? Apparently Schmidt is skating this with one of his engaging winks and some vague blather about the ecosystem of mobile technology nurturing many forms, but in reality what it says to me (absent a shareholder revolt) is that, yeah, the whole enchilada is meaningless. Apple can keep doing its closed iPhone thing (although my bet is that after its AT&T commitment runs out, we’ll see iPhones on other carriers as well) with no fear from Google’s putatively open-platform let’s-all-hold-hands-and-sing “press release” … while Ballmer pouts about someone else getting lots of attention for a hollow gesture. Android is just a straw dog to freeze potential competition to the iPhone till Apple can license it to other vendors or build a monopoly so fast and strong it doesn’t matter what the phone makers do. Whether conflict of interest or backroom collusion, the whole thing deserves regulatory inspection.
Till then, the annoyingly named Android — and by the way, why didn’t anyone ask what the name means, other than the company that Google bought…and shouldn’t it have been called Handroid instead? — is something everyone can smile and nod about. Isn’t that nice, we’ll all be able to IM one another and post photos to Flickr when the next earthquake hits. Remind me to check back in a couple of years. About then, hopefully, Google will be announcing an open platform for digital camera software.
All I want from a phone is to make and receive calls and get messages. I want the service to be reliable, and I want it dirt cheap.
This plus a little email on the fly would be nice for me.
Given that 10,000 Boomers turn 55 every day, with Gen X-ers and Y-ers and, eventually, Millenial Gens to follow, why on earth would anyone think a barely 2″ screen works for a population that already finds their bifocals insufficient to prevent squinting while viewing a 19″ flat screen moniter?
Reminds me of the early days of the Internet, when web designers created sites with Bible-on-the-head-of-a-pin-sized fonts and overlapping drop down menus simply to impress each other.
What’s more impressive about cellular and Internet phone technology is how it continues to drop the cost of a phone call. Pretty soon, long distance will be a thing of the past, and eventually even 800 numbers may disappear since there will no longer be a need for them.
But I’ll never get jazzed over the chance to watch Lawrence of Arabia on my phone…I’m pretty sure that’s not the size of screen David Lean had in mind.
The Piper
Well….
Microsoft has released both Microsoft Windows Embedded and Windows CE to support a variety of devices from set-top boxes to telephones to smart appliances to, yes, copiers, and probably many more devices. Is that what “Microsoft At Work ” has turned out to be? I don’t know, but I guess you announce what you think will sell stuff and then you build what you can.
iPhone is a terrible phone. Their success as a phone will depend on how quickly they make it a good, or more passable, phone. In the meantime, the iPod Touch is incredibly cool and anyone who senselessly craves the iPhone should probably buy one instead and use a good and inexpensive phone for calling.
I must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. I was looking for a political website called HorsesAss.org. I don’t know anything about this techie stuff. I’m only a rabbit living in a hole in a public park.
Speaking of Androids — This Guy Has To Be A Republican
“SOUTHWORTH, Kitsap County — A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies said.
“The 66-year-old man had been repairing a Lincoln Continental … and had gotten all but one of the lug nuts off … before getting frustrated Saturday afternoon, Deputy Scott Wilson said. ‘He’s bound and determined to get that lug nut off,’ Wilson said.
“From about arm’s length, the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was ‘peppered’ in both legs with shot and other debris, with some injuries as high on his body as his chin, according to a sheriff’s office report.”
Quoted under fair use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ut12m.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Somebody buy this guy a lug wrench for Xmas before he kills a good car.
4204 Vote Spread Narrows
As of 4:10 PM Saturday:
Approved 690,580 49.9053 %
Rejected 693,200 50.0947 %
Gee Paul, sorry it was so hard for you to find carriers with Windows Mobile phones. Let’s see: ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, O2, Orange. Manufacturers: everybody except Nokia and Sony. I am sure I can come up with more but this is a good list for 10 seconds work.
HANDROID ,,
I like it Paul, I suggest you immediately trademark it, if not I will!
As for Google, I think you miss the point. Currently personal communicators develop slowly because of the lack of a common OS. If Google makes Android free to all, I would imaginee that ti wold be in everyone (but Apple)’s interest to adopt it to take advantage of all that work done by others.
The model, it seems to me is Msoft vs Apple. Apple has made a go of being special at the cost of having support form the thirty hundred billions of folks who develoip for the Windows platform.
The G-men are just taking that model, adding a new way to pay for the SW, and one upping Redmond.
Unlike computers, I suspect percoms will engender a lot more diversity in design simply because of the form factor challenges. Also the gman model encourages propriety and billable use of web resources. Apple paved the way wth there vast over priced tunes