Moody Clouds

Well the first Android phone has been announced and shown off and to me (and it seems most of the internets) it underwhelms and along with it the Android 1.0 SDK. Ultimately it isn’t the success of this phone that will determine the success of Android – but it remains to be seen if any torrent of Android phones follows in the G1’s footsteps.

I have some problems and concerns about the Android platform, and I’m not worried about the lack of a 3.5mm jack, lack of AD2P, the crazy fact that you can only use the keyboard in landscape mode, slightly sluggish performance, the 1GB onboard memory supplemented by optional MicroSD, old school industrial design, or even the fact that it’s way chunkier than the iPhone but still has a smaller screen. These are all problems, but they’re with the handset not the platform. What is nagging at my brain are these things:

Built in Apps and Crapware

Ok, so I get it, this thing is OPEN. Anyone can do anything they want. This comes at a particularly good time as Apple seems to have lost its mind with its increasingly draconian reaction to apps it does not approve of. I’ve talked already about my worries of zero quality control on these apps, though, if there really is no oversight of the Marketplace is it possible that it will not be overwhelmed with spam and malware and what not? With deep access to everything, very subtle activities can be injected into otherwise nice performing apps. I guess it remains to be seen how this plays out.

I have one other problem and one other concern on this front. My concern is that as these smart phones become more PC like and Android being an open platform, will carriers start loading up their Android phones with crapware? That is, clearly just like in PC’s having an application pre-loaded onto the phone is a huge advantage – combine that with the fact that carriers are desperately looking for revenue streams to replace the streams that these same smart phones are cannibalizing. Amazon has got their hooks into the system (providing pretty core functionality, though) already. If Android receives any level of success why wouldn’t other companies want to get their branded apps or trialware all up on these phones? That’s worth money and the carriers have no qualms about screwing their customers, so… Unless Google has worked some sort of control over the carriers over what can and can not be loaded on the phones, which I haven’t heard anything about, I imagine that crapware is coming soon to an Android phone near you.

Another problem I have is that Google seems to have taken this Openness as their license to not build in functionality that they didn’t feel like building. Their excuse is that “the community” will build this, they’re sure. For example, they didn’t build in video playback or Exchange support. And instead of saying, this is coming, they say someone else is going to do the work for them. To me that’s a cop out. Even if that’s how they wanted to handle it, for reasonably core functionality they should have funded some of this development at least.

No Desktop Component?

There’s no desktop app. In some ways this could be a real benefit – completely untethering the phone from the computer (although completely tethering it to Google accounts which will be required – I wonder if this will be something that can be affected by the “openness” of the platform). This definitely will appeal to some folks. The issue for me, other than that I like having my own phone backups local, is that it means there’s no desktop interface to do things like say, go through the Android Marketplace. I almost never browse apps on my iPhone because the interface isn’t conducive it’s just too small. If I know exactly what I want, I might grab it, but I spend 99% of my time in the App Store on the desktop. I imagine this will also be true for music, I rarely browse around Amazon on the iPhone but do so all the time on the desktop.

The other big question for me is how do you get music on this thing? When I was rocking my Treo it had a pretty nice music player that I never used because it was too much of a pain in the ass to get music onto it. You had to manually drag music over to the flash card – is that also the plan for Android? That’s a huge step back from the fantastic iTunes integration available for the iPhone. Ease and automation are the keys here and nothing I’ve read so far shows any such thing.

Target Audience?

I guess that they are going for a very young audience for this phone, which I think is interesting. Looks to me like they want to get that Sidekick crowd in the picture what with their too chunky form factor and Sidekick keyboard action. Coming in at almost a third thicker than the iPhone, this thing seems a touch hefty for this day and age.

Their advertising seems to confirm that with that first ad being all crazy hip and cool with funny english and what not. Given that they’re not at all concerned with Exchange integration leaving that to some third party it seems they are very focused on a young consumer audience. But without a strong music component to the phone can they be attractive to that demographic in a world with the iPhone?

Carrier Problems

Finally it’s going to face some stiff problems with T-Mobile as the carrier. The data plans, when compared to AT&T actually seem reasonably good clocking in at $10-$15 cheaper per month. I think concerns about not being able to buy a data only plan are super inflated. Very few people will want to be doing that. Also, their unlimited plan actually being capped at 1GB, I think that’s probably not a problem almost anyone will run into. I don’t use close to that on my iPhone. Things like downloading music and videos and what not simply won’t happen over 3G because the apps will only let you do it over wifi so it won’t count towards that cap. I guess the big difference, though, is that Android syncs to the cloud so this could potentially be a big bandwidth hog.

The larger problem is the one where T-Mobile has very little 3G coverage and will only be selling it in those markets where there it exists. You will be able to buy it with only EDGE but I think it won’t be promoted in those markets. T-Mobile really, really needs to get a move on that rollout.

Those are my concerns for the longer term success of Android. This one rollout is hopefully just the first of many. It will be interesting to see how multiple handsets affects application development and what not. I certainly hope that Android achieves something and offers real competition to Apple. Time will tell. But if I had to lay a wager at this point (and I wouldn’t wager much), I’d probably bet on RIM stepping up to the plate before Android, WinMob, Symbian or Palm did anything significant. Who’re you putting your money on?

Sources: deasil.com

Apple has revealed that the tiny little USB power adapters that shipped with the iPhone 3G are potentially dangerous and must be recalled.

“Under certain conditions the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter’s metal prongs can break off and remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock. Users with ultracompact power adapters should immediately stop using them until they exchange them for a new, redesigned ultracompact adapter.”

In the meantime, users should charge their phones via the USB cable only. Replacements can be ordered at this web address, or at your local Apple Store starting on October 10th. Hit the link for the full details [Apple]

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