Google Android Picking Up Some Steam!

Information Week reported that Google Android OS may expand beyond the mobile/smartphone market and make its way to the likes of NetBooks and TV set-top boxes. The article suggests that its becoming clear Android OS, powered by Linux, has the ability to handle much more internet connected devices.

Seriously, Google Android is Awesome

Folks at the AndroidCommunity.com posted a lot of videos and screenshots of a recent Google conference where they demo'd Android on an HTC Dream handset. Its frickin' amazing. Google Maps w/ built-in compass featuring allowing you to physically panning across 360* and the homepage icons looks to give iPhone OS X a real run for the money. I can't wait!

How to Shop for a Smartphone

We live in an exciting time right now, as we are at the cusp of an explosion of innovative smart phone technologies. Smart phones are finally smart, with less bugs and more functional operating systems as well as applications (or Widgets). But if you are about to buy a smartphone, what should you be looking for. The mobile experience will put some basic rules down for you to avoid any mistakes. Please take a look at our smart phone buyers guide below, 1st edition:

Three Absolute Must: 3G, WiFi and GPS
There are three absolute requirements for any smartphones today. I would personally avoid a phone that is missing any one of the above. Many people would argue that they don’t need all of the above or why have WiFi when you already have 3G support. I don’t really care what they say. Just remember that you are paying for a high price for a mobile device and you better get every mileage out of it; its better to have every important feature and not use it, then not having it when you need it in a hurry. In the event you are traveling to a foreign country, having free WiFi and GPS navigation can be a very nice thing to have. Regarding to 3G, you’ll have to decide between a GSM (AT&T, Tmobile) or CDMA (Verizon, Sprint, Helio, etc.) carrier. Most of the phones sold exclusively through Verizon or Sprint are less confusing, so long as it supports EV-DO Rev A spec, you’ll have a blazing fast 3G connection. If you are buying a GSM network phone, make sure it supports WCDMA 850/1900 to use AT&T’s 3G network or WCDMA 1700 for Tmobile’s latest 3G network coverage.

Niche functionalies: Email, Media, Camera, Touchscreen, Mobile OS etc…

Email: Every smartphone will provide the basic functions of email either via the browser or through built-in mail program; however, non of which can perform like the way BlackBerry(s) do. Their reliability and ease of use trumps everything else. BlackBerry now comes with 3G, WiFi and GPS integrated which makes it a very appealing option for those in the market for a super email communicator. There are other communicators on the market designed to compete with BlackBerry; the Nokia E90 communicator is a great example, however it costs about twice as much and I would still argue it doesn’t really compete with the Push-Email integration BlackBerry offers not to mention it is quite big.

Media: Some smart phones are uber strong media players. iPhone is the epitome of such. When shopping for a smart phone capable of media support, ask yourself what you are looking to do. If you have a huge library of MP3s and Videos, an iPod may be your best choice. If you are looking to stream TV or YouTube, the AT&T LG Vu or Verizon phones supporting V-Cast may be better for you to get content on the go. Nokia’s up and coming N96 will support the new DVB-H broadcast standard. I will briefly touch on Internet as it is assumed that mobile browser is part of the standard package within any smartphone. Some things to keep in mind are: is the browser a full browser like Safari Mobile or Nokia Browser or is it a WAP browser like Mobile Internet Explorer which strips web content down to a minimum? Do the handset/os support 3rd party browsers like TeaShark, Opera Mini or Skyfire? Check the vendor websites first to make sure your phone is supported. To me, mobile internet is the most important element of a smartphone!

Camera: Again, almost every phone today will come with some sort of camera/camcorder function. The minimum standard is 2 megapixel. Some smartphones will go above that with a 5MP camera (ie. Nokia N95, LG Viewty, Sony K850i, LG KG920, etc.). I’ve seen phones go up to 7MP+ (ie. Samsung SCH-V770). Cameras are one of the most under-appreciated functions today because of all the buzz are around “3G”. Ironically it is probably the most functional feature. In a James Bond-like fashion, your camera phone can take snapshots of anything on the go, for research, for documentation and for those special moments in life that are priceless. I would recommend going with at least 3MP on any smartphone and the more manual control the phone offers, the better. I personally prefer to have a phone with a secondary camera on the front of the phone. Its designed for video conferencing if your network carrier supports that function.

Touchscreen: Since the beginning, touchscreen goes hand to hand with PDAs and Smartphones. It gives users an extra level of precise input to command the tiny screens. Some people can’t live without touchscreens. Personally, it took me a while to go from a Windows Mobile OS using touchscreen to Symbian S60 which uses only a D-pad to navigate the phone. The iPhone has one of the best touch screen I’ve ever seen. While we are on the topic of screens, VGA resolution (640x320) and SVGA resolution (800x600) are on the rise. They offer much finer pixel display than the tradition QVGA (320x240) which is popular on most of the phones today. I’ve already decided my next phone will have to be VGA or better, for higher productivity.

Mobile OS: There are currently four major mobile os at play: Windows Mobile, BlackBerry 4.6, Symbian S60 and Apple OS X Mobile. As mentioned by the features above, each OS kind of ties to the unique feature set and user experience. This is why I talk about OS last because going by the functions you want, for example, email, you’ll be forced to live with BlackBerry OS. The only thing to keep in mind is Windows Mobile and BlackBerry are more enterprise/wor- friendly. Whereas Symbian and OS X are more multimedia driven. Of course, both Symbian and Apple are going to work hard to make their OS more enterprise friendly in the upcoming months. Finally, there is the highly anticipated Google Android OS which should show up by end of 2008 on some handsets. It offers true open-source which yields a lot of promises to reshape the entire mobile industry.

Top 50 Google Android Applications Announced

Android Developers Blog announced the top 50 finalists for their $100M challenge. The 50 finalists in this round will take a cool $10K for their hard work and continue to compete for the ultimate prize of fame and money.

Google has put together a presentation slide which showcases the top 46 out of 50 applications (4 decided to keep their project anonymous, must be brewing up some serious app). What is amazing about this project is the sense of excitement that awaits for the mobile community. All of these slick-looking, fully functional and FREE mobile applications will take the mobile experience to new height. I was already impressed by iPhone's 3rd party applications community but imagine the future where 3rd party apps are encourage in an open environment.

Some of the interesting applications I saw from the deck includes:
*TalkPlay (VOIP and Video Conferencing)
*Piggyback (plan a trip and share a ride w/ people nearby, save gas, and be green!)
*Weather Channel for Android (cool weather info w/ Google Maps integration)
*SafetyNET (alarms loved ones if you are in danger)
*FreeFamilyWatch (informs the predators in a given neighborhood)
*Golfplay (everything a golfer needs, GPS, distance, scoring)
*TuneWiki (Music player w/ lyrics in real time)
*Wikitude (Interactive Travel guide using Google Maps)

I will be waiting first in line to purchase an Android-powered phone for sure!

WM6 Installed on my HTC AT&T Cingular 8525

I finally took some time yesterday to install Windows Mobile 6 free upgrade from HTC's website for my AT&T Branded 8525, otherwise known as the HTC TyTN. This upgrade is meant for all AT&T customers with 8525 only. The upgrade period is 11/1 to 2/1/2008, so you better act quick or atleast download a copy of the RUU Rom file and print out the instruction before 2/1.

The installation is relatively painless. I don't save a lot of personal information on my phone's main memory and I am in sync with my outlook with contacts and tasks so there wasn't anything to back up with. After I made my final synchronizations, I followed the instruction and installed the RUU effortlessly. The entire process took about 15 minutes.

Final thoughts: The new WM6 looks and performs better on the good ole' 8525. I noticed the phone reacts faster to menu selection and pull down. A general improvement in response rate. Previously running on WM5, I had a hard time getting the phone to "connect" to my computer. This problem went away however, took me a while to realize I had to turn off "advance USB" connection setting from the phone to get it to synchronize to my address book successfully. All in all, it was an easy upgrade from HTC. Kudos!

Gphone, Google, Android, Open Handset Alliance

Mobile has never gotten as much attention as this past week, when Google dropped the news on its official entrance into the mobile market. In their typical fashion (Desktop PC/Internet), they have decided to approach the mobile market by coming out with a revolution software/OS to the mobile environment known as the Android. Essentially, they've got about 30+ mobile players (ie. HTC, Motorola, T-Mobile, etc.) forging an "Open Handset Alliance " pledging to keep the development around android completely open. To get things started, an SDK is already available and Google has offered a price of $10M to developer who can come up with the coolest Widget.

I am not going to get into the details of what it is, or how it works. There are about 2,177 articles written for it already (as of 12:01AM today). If you need a quick reading, Engadget has a good bullet point article for your reference.

What I am interested is commenting on the company HTC, aka. High Tech Computers, Inc. This Taiwanese firm, which I've commented, reviewed and owned its products (often badged as a AT&T or TMobile or Sprint phone) is making some serious progress in the smartphone market. Having my background in the embedded market few years back, I always knew the Taiwanese manufacturers were tight with the Microsoft gang (XP Embedded, CE, and now WM5/6). HTC is considered a top partner for Microsoft year over year. In a sudden move, it seems like it is now Google's best friend with a couple of phones slated launch with Android early 2008 as well as a rumor that Google has been using an HTC handset known as the "Dream". HTC has a series of strong products that can rival the iPhone, HTC Tilt, Touch and Cruise. The smartphone market is definitely heating up. The saga continues...