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Android 2.2 Brings Mobility to the Mobile World
Today Google launched Android 2.2 which, in this humble blogger’s opinion is a leap frog from anything else out there. Besides the obvious smarter smartphone capabilities like the photo gallery, customizable home screen, better exchange support, etc. , it turns your phone into a real mobility powerhouse. Hotspot and enhanced bluetooth make your phone a gateway to mobility for all other stuff you may want to carry. I know what you’re thinking, PalmPre had that already. But Android is mainstream, supported by multiple vendors, and the 2nd best selling mobile OS (after RIM’s blackberry, not iPhone).
The hotspot feature that essentially turns your phone into a Starbucks without the coffee – WiFi hotspot using 3G as back-haul. 3G may not have enough capacity, but remember 4G is coming to a city near you. The point is, my phone becomes my only truly connected device via the wireless wide area network, with a single data plan that allows any other device that I might carry to connect to the Internet through it, without extra payments. As lame as the unconnected iPad is, it is the cheapest out there (before the gPad comes out). My Android2.2 smartphone will make it connected and I do not have to pay extra data. With my laptop I can browse the web, download a book, send email, you name it, even if I don’t have a broadband adapter. My phone is the broadband adapter.
Enhanced bluetooth means that I can now have an ergonomically perfect set of devices to manage my mobile life. I can carry my phone in my pocket or briefcase and use my headset or car kit to dial, answer an make all phone calls. I can even play music through my car’s fancy audio without plugging it in. You can envision new devices that use these capabilities to get connected. A camera, for example can upload to Picassa or YouTube directly without having to connect directly. In-car GPS or portable can also connect and get faster first fixes, maps from your phone or PC, etc.
Again, this is hardly new, but the combination of all this features in Android 2.2 brings true mobility to the mainstream, and will definitely put a dent to iPhone’s reign, that is until Apple decides to add these features too. The question that remains open is how will wireless service providers embrace a single data plan? Today they all charge for “tethered mode” which is really what we all use in substitution of a broadband card; we don’t buy a card, but we still have to pay for the extra data plan. If carriers do away with this extra charge, they will create an explosion of data traffic that they are most likely not ready for. Sprint in the US has created a plan that allows all this for a fixed rate. Sprint also has the only 4G phone available today and with its partnership with Clearwire they have a shot to regain market share even if it’s only to geeks like us. Soon others will follow, though.
Soon 4G, better back-haul from your wireless service provider, and an Android 2.2 (or equivalent feature set) can make every device a connected device. The ubiquitously connected world is getting a push.
Enjoy.
Ma Bell teaches us a lesson
In the shadow of Apple’s kick-butt quarter, AT&T reported results that made the market yawn. “Yeah, yeah, you sold 2.7 million new iPhones in the quarter, added 1.9 million subscribers for a total of 87 million (1 in every 3.5 US residents uses AT&T), reduced churn, and increased ARPU (average revenue per unit) 3.9%, and a 30% increase in data revenue; so what?” is essentially what Wall Street said. I don’t know about you, but a company that still manages these numbers in a market that is essentially 100% penetrated is impressive – sure, a 6%+ dividend helps . But the really impressive, albeit insignificant number to this humble blogger is the “connected devices” increase of 1.1 million to a total of 5.8 million.
AT&T has close to 6 million non-phone devices on the network. Now why is that even relevant, my fellow reader (singular)? Simply because there are a lot more non-phone devices and a lot more things out there that need to be connected than there are phones or people. Yes, they may not be sexy, play music, browse the web, or even wash your car, but they essentially do everything else. Beyond the obvious (Kindles, iPads, etc.) these things are everywhere and in desperate need to be connected.
Take your car, for example. If you have Onstar it’s already connected (not with AT&T) so you know some possible apps. But imagine a world in which you go to Google Maps, plan a route and squirt it into your car’s GPS! Or simply download the movie you want your kids to watch from your home DVR. Your electric meter one day will be connected to so you can monitor your consumption real time (Ok, Ok, i don’t know why would I want to do that either, but you can). Every thing out there can be connected and can benefit from the internet. But where things really start changing is with Enterprise Applications.
Next time you receive a FedEx or UPS package go to the web immediately after you sign for it and voila it says received, in real time because the device where you signed is connected. The copier service personnel can consult schematics and order parts in real time when his/her machines are connected. Or the copier can ping someone when it’s running out of toner; the end of the empty copiers or useless service visits. Making every device a smart device has endless applications that are starting to look affordable. Ma Bell’s humble cellular non-phone numbers are starting to show growth. The ubiquitously connected world is getting started. Make sure you are ready for it.
Enjoy.
Palm Looks for a Helping Hand
In the past couple of days Palm’s stock (NASDAQ: PALM) has soared from around $3.5 to above $6 (from a 52 week high of $18 by the way) amidst rumors of an imminent buyout. The question in my mind is who wants to pay close to a billion dollars for a company that looses $100M a quarter, has no cash, and it is debt ridden? A fraction of that money will get any company in the smartphone game. Most are already there, arguably with a little excess as I pointed out here.
Granted, their products are good, WebOS is a neat idea, but they have lost the clout they once had. It is sad to see a Palm, in a way the inventor of the category suffer this fate. But hey, in this industry you have to listen to Bob Dylan: “You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, ’cause the times they are a-changing.”
So what happened to Palm? Execution and focus, lack of them, that is. Back in the late 90′s with an explosive IPO after a spin-off of US Robotics everything looked rosy. But they got greedy instead of focused. But as Michael Douglas said in Wall Street: “Greed is good”. No question but greed has to have a source. And my fellow reader (singular) that has to be your products, not Wall Street itself! It is my theory that Palm, as many other great corporations get too caught up in Wall Street’s metrics, quarters, and their leaders making money off of money alone, that they loose focus on the main thing: Their products. Countless corporations (Google, Apple, Toyota, Ford, etc.) are the opposite: they have focused on creating the best products or services, and Wall Street follows.
Greed is indeed good, but with a focused source.
Enjoy.
Android phone with Yahoo search
No, it’s not a typo. AT&T pulled Google search out of the new Motorola Backflip apparently due to contractual agreements between the carrier and the search engine as reported by MocoNews. I just think it’s funny that the reason Google got into the mobile world by developing Android is to take advantage of mobile search. Yahoo, who also wants a piece of the pie seems to have a better and cheaper mobile search strategy that does not involve a new mobile OS.
Of course, one can always change the preferred search engine on the phone once you bought it. But it defaults to Yahoo in this case. Android’s biggest advantage is user customization. This is like the antitrust fights agains Microsoft for embedding Internet Explorer with the OS “abusing” its leadership to force people to use I.E. Like people won’t download other browsers! It is really a hassle to download Mozilla, Chrome, or Safari, right? Who wants to do 3 clicks? Not to mention the fact that I.E. updates require more than 3 clicks and it gets updated more often that most geek’s underwear… But let’s not go there.
The trend of Androids with Yahoo, iPhones with Bing, Symbians with Google, Blackberries with Lycos (not sure if it still exists) and all permutations and combinations of those is what’s interesting. The most useful feature of smartphones (besides the phone) is search. How many times have you been in a restaurant and wanted to go watch a movie? Who calls the theater anymore? But now the Search engine, the OS and the smartphone itself are independent entities. By that I mean that you can go to your favorite website and buy a phone, pick your OS, your service provider and your search engine. Cool!
It is also entirely possible that carriers and device manufacturers are so pissed at Google due to the Nexus One release that they are cutting them out of the loop. Perhaps. But if the trend goes on, for whatever reason mobile search will be up for grabs. And, my fellow reader (singular) our mobile search is worth money, lots of money!
So when are we going to get service subsidies (i.e. lower data plan costs) from the search engines? Picture this: You go to your preferred service provider’s website and choose your plan, phone, OS, and accessories. On the next screen you pick your search engine which includes an extra incentive. Yahoo may offer $5/month rebate, Google $50 for accessories, Bing something else. Now, that’s driving choices.
Google: If you want to be back in the Android (what a funny incident) subidize people’s data plans and stop making your own phone. Well, not really, just subsidize my data plan.
Enjoy.
Mobile OS Inflation
During this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world’s most important mobile trade show, everyone seemed to think that a new OS (Operating System) is the way to go. It is unclear to me what makes them think that.
First, I’m a bit tired of the overuse of the OS nomenclature. Few deserve this title since they are really adding proprietary layers on top of Linux. Actually most do, even the beloved Android and iPhone. They should all be called “platforms”. However that is not the cause of my outrage. No.
Second, who does the branding for these things? Symbian, Bada, MeeGo, Mobiln, MeeMo, LiMo, Else, and others in addition to the successful iPhone, RIM, and Android. My favorite name in a sarcastic kind of way will have to be “Windows 7 Phone Series”. Redmond finally got something that does not deserve bashing throughout the blogsphere – a la Vista – and decides to use it everywhere. I get it, kind of makes sense. But, my fellow follower (singular) Windows 7 has a nice ring to it. Windows 7 Phone Series does not, I’m sorry.
Third is that application developers have better things to do than to port their app to the “OS” of the day. And who is thinking about users? Thanks to this inflation you will have to scavenge the world to find the right app if you made the mistake to buy a platform that didn’t quite make it for whatever reason. Now that is an outrage, but not the point of my post. Suffice it to say that there will be plenty of casualties in these OS’s flood.
Amidst this Mobile OS inflation there is one that in my opinion deserves mention: MeeGo. Sure, the name sucks but I’ll have to give it some points for obscure geekyness. A shape-shifting 9000-year old alien from the planet Marmazon 4.0 has to attract the dormant or not so dormant geek in most smartphone users, from the Blackberry suits to the Android hoodys. Let’s just hope it doesn’t suffer the fate of the CBS sitcom who didn’t get the chance to finish a single season mostly because it wasn’t any good.
Anyway, MeeGo is worth mentioning not because of the fact that it is a joint venture between Nokia and Intel. MeeGo is a platform that promises to bring smartphones to the 2010′s by using an x86 architecture instead of the perpetual ARM. x86 architectures are ubiquitous in the PC world whereas ARM architectures have their humble roots in the embedded world (you know watches, sensors, WiFi radios, set top boxes, routers, cellphones – Ok, not so humble). ARM uses RISC – Reduced Instruction Set Computing – vs x86′s CISC – Complex Instruction Set Computing. This difference has allowed computers to run more complex software and algorithms so they can behave like, well, computers. ARM on the other hand is fundamentally more power efficient, which explains its huge presence in mobility.
Until now the lowest x86 has gone is Intel’s Atom family (which drove the netbook “revolution”). What is so new about the Atom family? Low power consumption in an x86 processor. At the same time, Qualcomm has been touting its Snapdragon 1 GHz+ Arm based systems – base for the reference design of my favorite name Windows 7 Phone Series – and now powering some “smartbooks” (again with the naming).
You see what’s happening under the hood? New product categories are being launched, OS inflation is flooding the mobile world but at its real core there is a tremendous collision happening. ARM getting more powerful while x86 is getting more efficient. This brings us back to why MeeGo is so significant for the industry.
x86 based phones are out there but none has really made a mark basically because they haven’t offered anything new. In this blogger’s very humble opinion if Nokia-Intel get it right (which is a big “if”) this could be the next revolution in mobility: the power of a real computer in the palm of your hand. With html 5, 4G networks, ubiquitous 802.11n WiFi, comparative shopping, location based services, “billions upon billions” of webpages, will now be available to complex software thanks to CISC based smartphones. By the middle of this starting decade we will all wonder what was the hype behind all these “clever-phones” that could barely browse the web. We will remember them as we now think of the first color Mac’s. Very cool but just a sign of what’s to come.
Enjoy.
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