Tag Archives: Palm
They have finally made it!
Schmidty and I were once talking about what I’d want out of a personal device; connectivity, storage, integration, navigation, and an operating system flexible enough to evolve with the needs of its user. We both dismissed this immediately, since no company is in-tune with it’s consumer base to that degree, and figured such a device will never exist.
Well, it’s still not perfect, but Garmin has gotten much closer than anyone else so far.
This thing has nearly everything I could want in a phone. What it doesn’t have, just may not have been announced yet (I don’t know). It has a better GPS system than any other phone out there (let’s face it, it’s Garmin) which ties seamlessly into Google services, and then has the Wi-Fi 3.5G and phone capabilities with it.
Let’s say you’re talking on the phone and get into your car. You sit down and place it in it’s dock, and the call is immediately made hands free. On top of that, the device also switches straight into navigation mode. While talking on the phone, viewing the map, you notice you are running low on gas. So you hit the touchscreen, select the Google Services, and in real-time it tells you all nearby stations and their current prices. It can even guide you there.
While I don’t own an iPhone, I have used one a few times. It’s hard to say how the Nuvifone’s keyboard is in comparison to iPhone, though it looks more responsive. I still have issues with “typing” on a flat surface, but that just may be me. I simply might have to admit that the time of actual keyboards might be ending.
Some things to add that would just utterly complete the package for me:
- Stereo bluetooth, as well as BT sync or Wi-Fi sync with bundled software. It’s Palm OS (update below) so I don’t think that will actually be a problem.
- Satellite Radio capability. I don’t use it, but it’d make this next suggestion all the better for me.
- Have the car dock also interact with your car stereo. Any music on the device can be played from the device to your car speakers when you plug it into its dock.
- Open up the OS a bit. I know it isn’t released quite yet, and so this part might change, but the response time in the video looked a little laggy. Part of Windows Mobile strength (and no doubt Android’s as well) is that you can access the OS registry and do whatever you want with the thing.
- Massive onboard storage. Maybe I’m asking too much with that one. It’d really help #3 though! At the very least, let us use those nice 32GB SDHC cards.
Lackluster launch for Android
The HTC G1 launched today for T-Mobile (though the phone itself won’t be available in stores until October 22nd). For anyone who wasn’t paying attention when it wasn’t announced, this is special because the phone uses Google’s mobile operating system, named Android.
And what a botched job it was. Don’t get me wrong; I love Google, and I love HTC. I also have T-Mobile service. So why am I disappointed with this first phone? Well, namely because it seems like too little fanfare for something that could potentially be huge. Or, maybe because too much hype has been generated for what it isn’t doing yet. I’m not entirely sure yet.
The Android Logo
Android has been in the works for a little under a year now. It’s an “open source” SDK with an Java based architecture that is supposed to offload much of the processing requirements from any hardware, thereby allowing it to run much faster than traditional operating systems. This is especially important for mobile devices since they don’t have the same horsepower as your laptop or desktop will have. Conversely, they also don’t need all the features that your PC does, so it can run much leaner than Windows Vista or OS 10.5 and get away with it.
The main downside to it is that it IS open source. While Google itself is a huge company who could throw endless resources at making a mobile phone, they wouldn’t get very far in the commercial market. For this reason they partnered with HTC, T-Mobile, Amazon, and who knows who else to get their system out there. I get the feeling that a lot of concessions were made in the process, since we are NOT looking at the iPhone killer that many people were expecting.
And the really dumb thing is that none of it is Android’s fault! If you look at the G1, it looks like any other HTC phone! It operates like it’s the Touch, and even has a similar menu system as both the Touch and the Shadow. The system menu (the load of icons) looks more like a Blackberry or Windows Mobile 6 than it does anything else, the only apps that even exist for the thing are either Google’s or Amazon’s (in an attempt to sway the iTunes Store users), and the thing is downright clunky.
What we were promised vs what we got
Apple released the iPhone to a stunned crowd, and for good reason; it’s a shiny toy. Apple learned how to sell anything by simplifying it and making it an accessory. Don’t believe me? The iPod is more status symbol than actual device nowadays, the iPhone (as much as it failed in many of its original objectives) is still immensely popular, and the iMac I’m using to write this post is more designed for loft-dwelling hipsters who can’t afford both a TV and a computer (so why not have a computer the size of your TV).
"In my loft, on the interwebs. I'm just like those hackster kids!"
This is not a bad thing though (it’s not a great thing either). However, it’s not really easy for other companies to duplicate, and HTC going on about their new phone and how it’s going to have all the same interface “shinys” of the iPhone was probably the wrong way to go as it gave people unfair expectations. Does Android seem to stand up to Palm OS? Well, hard to say since we haven’t seen any sort of Synch capabilities. Does it stand up to Blackberry OS? Seems to, though 3rd party support isn’t there yet. Does it stand up to Windows Mobile 6? Oh yeah. And then some.
But see, all of these mobile operating systems are actually USEFUL! They aren’t toys and they aren’t accessories. This isn’t a Sidekick we’re talking about here, it’s an actual smart phone. They could have launched it as just another HTC phone, and people would have been happy with it. Instead, they drummed up that it was using Android and therefore was about to rock our world!
Well we’re left rather non-rocked, looking at a phone that can does what every other smart phone already does, wondering where all the apps are for it.
But hey, at least this thing can cut and paste!
