a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
I guess I’ve missed this previously, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that tweets posted with locations are fully shared to Buzz. This is how things should absolutely work, but often times (like with foursquare) you have to click through to see the place rather than simply marking the post.
This tweet was posted via Tweetie 2 with location sharing on … in case you were wondering.
Unlike the vast majority of crap that ran last night, Google delivered an incredibly focused piece for the Super Bowl. The ad is simple, shows off the product and keeps the brand on screen for the entire time.
As well designed as the new Google Voice app is, I really don’t want to have to wait to view my contacts while things load.
Today Nokia announced Maps with free navigation for everyone which is a very big deal. Previously the only way to get turn by turn navigation was to buy a Navigator device. Nokia had offered free trials of the navigation service on most newer mid to higher end devices but to put it all out there is a very powerful offer.
The goes beyond just the turn by turn piece and includes all the premium content within Maps – again a very cool and substantial detail. You now have full access to all the premium content:
When Google first announced Android 2.0 would include free navigation it was a bold move, and became an instant black eye for everyone else. Nokia’s initial response with the 5800 Navigation Edition was pretty limited by comparison while today’s play is substantially more bold! I’m sure this was not an easy pill for management to swallow given Navigation is one of the larger revenue generating services.
Nokia’s reach and share is still larger than anyone else’s and I expect others to follow suit as a result. Consumers are now going to expect navigation as a standard feature of a smartphone – in the same way maps previously was.
Email and PIM functions on the Blackberry are stellar. Dare I say the best actually. I’ve used a slew of mobile devices and the sheer speed with which you can cut through inbox clutter is unparalleled.
I should qualify that point by saying I use a corporate issue device running on BES, not the consumer version. When it comes to the consumer mail experience I’ve consolidated my email within Gmail and sadly that’s where I’m finding some cracks in the foundation … I can’t tell whether this is a Blackberry or Google issue, but Gmail on the Blackberry is lacking thanks to one substantial detail – there’s no IMAP.
Gmail easily pushes to my device and often arrives before the Gmail screen even has a chance to refresh. The problem is that there is no reconciliation … at all. Thanks to POP3 access I have to manage my mail in two places which I’ve been tolerating because I want my mail, but loathe.
Walking to the train tonight it suddenly hit me how awesome T-Mobile’s network announcement (Full HSPA+) was today. It’s unclear how long they knew the Nexus One was coming, but clearly they knew enough and had enough lead time to pump out the upgrades for launch day. Doing so takes the network issue largely off the table. By partnering with Google, they were able to ride the wave into what will hopefully be the start to how consumers consider their mobile purchase. AT&T … not quite so fast.
Google has confirmed that Nexus One, and all subsequent Google phones sold via the company’s online store, will be available unlocked for use on every participating carrier. If a particular Google-branded phone is not on a particular carrier, then that’s only because that phone doesn’t have the proper radio to support its network. In addition to being unlocked, the phones will also have bundled plan options where the pricing and details are up to the carrier.
By offering a lineup of phones that is essentially carrier-independent (with the radio compatibility caveat), Google has separated the two previously interlocked parts of the phone/plan-buying experience—phone selection and carrier selection—and has done so in a way that threatens one of the most important enablers of carrier lock-in.
In short, what Google announced today wasn’t just the Nexus One, but the world’s first carrier-independent smartphone store; the Google store is now the only smartphone store in the world where, for every phone on offer, you first pick which phone you want, and then you pick a network and a plan on that network. So you can comparison shop among networks based purely on plan price and network quality, because you already have your phone picked out. via Ars Technica
I’m intrigued by the Nexus One, but not buying anytime soon. I definitely like where Android is going and have a good deal of respect for what Google is trying to do. I’m just not compelled enough to pick up a second mobile bill (@ $80/mo+tax) especially since while the G phones run on GSM, it’s another network band meaning sadly I still do need to consider where I want my 3G.
Today I caught a sticker in the sandwich shop by the office for Favorite Places on Google and decided to give the QR code a shot. Here’s what I got in return:
Reviews are helpful if I’ve never been t here before but needing to call or get directions (standing at the door) seems like a total waste. Where are the daily specials, or perhaps a default to let me add my own review right away … I was at least able to add it as a favorite, but I’ll need to open Maps on my desktop or Google Earth to get the benefit of saving it. These types of services needs to be much more contextually relevant to matter.
On my way home tonight I fired up Google Maps to get an address and since I use Latitude, I was also activating my location. Â I got an sms telling me my friend and colleague Will was “nearby.” Â I received the image above in an email with a similar message …
I actually had forgotten I had turned on these location settings, and now that I see how they really function, I have a few suggestions:
I love the idea of social location and if you follow me across various services I’m sure you’ve noticed as well. Â What Google is doing is trying to make it easy through the use of location history, but it’s still unclear how that works without constantly opening Maps. Â I can’t afford to let Latitude project my location in the background all day as GPS tends to eat batteries … Â I’m wondering if there isn’t some sort of data partnership to be had with the various check-in services (or even Yelp!) to augment the more direct GPS tagging you do with maps. Â The more data in the mix here the more valuable the results.
Btw – Will developed the Michael Ruhlman Ratio iPhone app – be sure to check it out!
While this is hardly a definitive view, I think it’s an excellent example which highlights a key difference  in how Nokia and Google have gone to market with very similar ideas.
Ovi Prime Place and Google’s Favorite Places both seek to link physical businesses with mobile maps. Â The main difference and it’s likely to be critical here is that Google has proactively seeded 100K businesses with QR code stickers and listings while The Nokia Ovi team has decided to leave the map blank and invited businesses in to create their listings … Â without any marketing.
Which do you think will grow more quickly and succeed?
Take a peek on Techmeme and you might think the only story in tech news is the upcoming and likely release of a Google Phone. Â I’m sure it will be decent enough but am starting to question the logic a bit given the rumor that the Nexus One as it seems to be called will be sold as an open device, yet on T-Mobile.
I’m definitely a fan of open. Â I absolutely prefer that my mobile devices not have restrictions based on operator business development initiatives and instead offer all that the hardware and OS can deliver. Â I just don’t see how this device is going to really make that much of a difference for the mainstream consumer – or for T-Mobile. Â According to the FCC leak the supported bands will be global and specifically TMO’s (1700) in the US.
If T-Mobile sells and supports the device it will really be a T-Mobile device. Â Even if you buy it elsewhere you will need to run it on T-Mobile (again in the US) to actually take advantage of the 3G services and why would you buy an advanced smartphone otherwise?
I would love to be a fly on the way at Verizon Wireless right now. Â They just spent gobs of cash launching the Droid which is strongly co-branded Google and has little to no Verizon anywhere. Â Maybe they jumped the gun on going for Droid so quickly when big G had this cooking (to compete) all along …
I’m wondering whether Google might be looking to upend the subsidy market by  taking on the cost directly in exchange for all the lovely data they track … assuming a Google phone is like the G1 in that you must have a Google Account for it to work.  I tend to agree with Ewan that this really is going to be a price play.  It’s unlikely that this will be the phone for me, and I do wonder who an open Android device is for just now … Looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.
With all the noise yesterday about Android 2.0 and Google’s new free navigation service, this release just feels a bit … Meh.
Navigation market leader, Telmap, has used its unique navigation technology and NAVTEQ’s superior global map data, to bring a comprehensive mobile search, mapping and navigation solution for the iPhone, thus enabling mass adoption of mobile navigation. via Realwire
Since Nokia owns Navteq is does also immediately bring back my first thought on Ovi Maps…. How much longer can Nokia even consider charging for navigation services? nbsp;The PND category took a huge hit yesterday … Garmin alone lost 1.2 Billion off their market cap.
Once again the rules have changed. Will Nokia continue to play the same hand?
So Google Latitude finally arrives on the iPhone and it comes through as a web app?! One one hand you have to admire the skill in which it was programmed by the Google team. Speed is nice and quick, features are rich including pinch zoom and it generally looks like a native app. But it’s not.
Native applications get different access … If this had been part of the actual Maps application – like it is on every Google Maps app that runs on every other platform, you’d have access to your favorites and it might even potentially run in the background – but not.
Instead apparently Apple demanded that it live as a web app over the native app Google had already written. Apparently the reason is to avoid confusion between Maps and Latitude, yet on every other platform Latitude is a layer that simply loads on top of the map… This decision simply defies all logic for me. The evolution of the platform goes to native apps from web apps as and back again? NO!
GMail started acting flaky last night but today I have not been able to log in a single time. I’ve gotten timeouts from the web UI, been unable to connect via mobile and even received a report from Nokia Messaging that they were unable to connect to push my mail. A quick post on Twitter and Facebook and it seems I’m the only one with an issue … not cool.
Google seems to be taking lessons from Microsoft on Error Message Details .. here’s as much as I can glean from the failed login attempts:
Detailed Technical Info
Numeric Code: 17
jkOnTheRun reports on how Google is now honoring Psion’s trademark of Netbook effectively killing the search term for anyone else. If this pushes further we are likely to see devices currently called netbooks go through a rebranding.
What’s strange about this is that Psion has effectively been a dead company for years and has no active product in the market – even if they did in fact invent one called a netbook though it was discontinued in 2003 – long before the notion of low cost computers we now know as netbooks came around.
Why now? What are they cooking here? There’s no known effort underway that would require Psion to protect the term so their device alone could be marketed that way … and it’s not looking lie a legal battle is mounting to do anything other than stop people from saying netbook.
Sites like netbooknews apparently get 50% of their earned ad revenue from the term netbook and this change is going to sting initially for sure. I’ve been debating removing the sticker on my NC10 which reads Netbook for Mobile Internet but now I might just have to keep it there out of spite.
I woke up this morning to a few invites to join Google Latitude, which as is turns out is packaged into Google Maps Mobile 3.0. Once in the system I immediately saw how powerful this new service is going to be … While it is still very early Google and the Latitude / Maps team have done an excellent job bridging the service layers into the application which makes it very easy for existing Maps users to use. And that’s the real key here – there’s a massive installed base for Google Mobile Maps! This is less a new social network and more about adding a feature to an existing product millions of people already use. If Google decides to allow other location services to feed data into their system (and they probably will) it will only get stronger. This is big because the potential network effect is instantly massive!
So what is Latitude – essentially it’s the ability to see your friends and search around the map once you find them. You can get a list view and then click through to see exactly (to the degree that info is shared) that person is and even what they are up to through a status line. For the moment, the contact system is integrated into your GMail contacts and you can sort through the list by most contacted and even those you may have starred if you use an Android device. I could definitely see an option here for my Friend Connect contacts which would bring my social network friends and my contacts all onto the map.
On the desktop side, you can add an iGoogle Gadget which I’ve yet to do and will take a look at later. (have added it now and it’s quite nice if you want access from your desktop) The real power of this system is the mobile accessibility and that is definitely how I see myself getting the most from it. I’ve snapped a bunch of screenshots from the N79 so you can get a feel for how it works …
All in all a very strong start for Google Latitude. I’ve verified my mobile number now and will have to see how that gets used. Perhaps for contacting people on go via the Map for in the moment planning which would be very cool.
While checking to see if my Gmail account’s offline mode had been activated I noticed that I had a new folder over the side … What the heck is the fakefolder?? Not surprisingly, it’s empty.
I’ve been playing with the Android G1 phone for about 24 hours and while I’ll have some thoughts to share on it in general soon, there’s one striking thing I thought was worth mentioning right away. The Android G1 has without a doubt the most straight forward and simple initial user experience of any device I’ve used.
When the G1 powers up you are prompted to either create or login to your Google Account. Signing in with my creds then began the sync process which brought my Contacts and Calendar down, and also configured my email and IM accounts for use. WOW! One account with so many benefits. I’ve been told it should have also signed me in through the web services so the mobile google services I use would also be connected though that did not happen for me. Perhaps due to my trying to use things before the sync had completed…
Apple still has a very desktop centric view of the iPhone and the reliance of iTunes is a core strength. The sync works very well though configuration requires a bit of effort /tweaking through iTunes. This bit of effort is actually a lot more than the G1 requires as you’ve been long since configured your Google stuff … assuming of course you use Google services and that’s really who the device is targeted.
On the Nokia side, you don’t actually benefit from any PC side configuration though some things can sync through the PC or Ovi Suites. No accounts are configured unless you choose to sync to an exchange account through PC Suite. Without getting into the complexities there, I would not advise fully syncing to your exchange server in PC Suite. I only sync the Notes there as that apparently was not important enough to be considered a part of Mail For Exchange. I digress …
Nokia handsets are largely PC independent, meaning you can and in most cases need to do it all on the handset. As Nokia looks to rely on services for growth and revenue, enhancing the consumer experience needs to become a core strength. Take a look at what’s currently connected to my Nokia Account:
There are 9 things listed including applications, web services, and communication preferences. Instead of enabling the experience however, I have to actually log in to each bit separately when I use them. My browser does not even necessarily remember me even though it’s configured to save login details. This sucks. I know the Nokia Account system is new, but there’s such a massive opportunity for change here. Looking at the experience on the G1, there is so much to borrow from. I hope we see changes like this in the N97 and other devices this year, but the S60 system does not feel as smooth as some of the newer systems like Android.
Why can’t I just upload to Ovi out of the box without having to change anything after logging in on first power up? My email could be configured automatically as well if Nokia Email connected to the Nokia Account system and I can’t see why it won’t either. IM, Maps, Ovi.mobi etc etc. All this stuff could just work because you’ve already logged in!
I saw no mention of how things work on the Palm Pre, but given their desire to link external accounts to the core applications it would make a lot of sense to enable people to quickly authorize on the web and pass that through something like a Palm account.
Google has really pushed things forward with their account configuration and it’s something everyone developing mobile devices and services can learn from. Using anything else after having this experience will just highlight the old way of thinking — when consumers were made to work for it instead of encouraged by having pre-enabled services. Just consider how the iPhone’s unlimited data package contributed to usage and think about what pre-connected services would do to the usage figures. Retention of course will still be up to the service provider to put forth something of considerable value.
Google has launched a new Mac application based on Quicksilver called Google Quick Search Box. At first I missed why I would want a quick Google search on my desktop, but when I read this lifehacker post on the topic it became clear this was really Quicksilver reborn as a Google product.
I’ve used Quicksilver for years and there are some awesome extensions to make your life easier and productive without ever touching the mouse. On the PC, I use Launchy though it pales in comparison to the functionality in Quicksilver (macros and application plug-ins come to mind). I really hope this one makes it over to the PC side so I can use it across all my systems.
A team at VentureBeat was able to get Android running on an Asus EEEPC 1000H netbook, which is certainly a cool hack.
I’m not sure this is something I would personally want in the current state other than as a proof of concept. Though once things are perhaps more optimized for a larger touch screen it might be cool on a MID.
I spent some time with the G1 over the weekend and am still a bit underwhelmed. Overall the OS seems very polished compared and compared to my experimental install on the Nokia N810 it’s night and day. Still my view is that Android is far more designed for the power user rather than the mainstream mobile consumer. The user experience will definitely take some getting used to and finding the right way to navigate through screens is something you have to learn rather than simply intuit. T-Mobile has only added myFavs to the OS leaving it to appear otherwise native which is definitely refreshing
The hardware is quite nice. I found the G1 much smaller than I expected actually from the initial photos. It was very comfortable in-hand and the keyboard did not seem too hard to get used to using. I spent less than 15 minutes with the device so this is really a very casual perspective. The screen was very bright and in general the system looks beautiful. There’s a slickness that’s hard to get a feel for without some hands on experience. The manner in which the screen slides out is very slick as well. The arm inside articulates around so the screen pseudo-rotates rather than simply sliding up. When it’s open there’s a very nice click as it settles into position.
I’ve heard one rather interesting detail as well which is that TMO will only have a small window of exclusivity with Android which is pretty disappointing considering how long they waited on 3G. My money’s definitely on other carrier or open Android devices over the G1. I’d expect to see quite a few new Android mobile devices around CES and in market around the same time if not right after.