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The rise of Android: Google having its cupcake (and donut, eclair, flan, etc.) and eating it too, but not sharing

Gizmodo posts this tongue-in-cheek article: Giz Explains: Android, and How It Will Take Over the World.

Verizon Wireless has certainly boosted the recognition of the Android mobile phone OS supported by Google and the Open Handset Alliance with their current ad campaign for their Motorola Droid smart phone.

For some reason they're branding this phone as evil. I guess to upset the iPhone applecart in a hurry.

The TV commercials show space-age bombers deploying bomb-like metal containers across America's heartland (where AT&T's coverage just so happens to be weak?). The containers hit the soft dirt with explosive force, scaring horses and children alike, then a metal leaf shutter opens revealing the evil intruder with the ominous red eye. It makes HAL look like avuncular. Their prior commercials have been very aggressive against AT&T's network shortcoming, prompting AT&T to take legal action.

Regarding the Giz article, it points out that while the basic Android OS is open source, it can also include propriety apps and extensions that don't have to be shared with the open source community.

With the first Android phone on Sprint, the Hero (Android 1.5 aka Cupcake), HTC implemented a form of multi-touch, but could only do so on the open source portions of the OS, the browser for one. Google apps such as Google Earth and Map don't have the HTC multi-touch hack because they're proprietary. Some speculate that this an agreement by Google not to compete with Apple's multi-touch on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Palm decided not to play nice, and added multi-touch to the Pre, as well as using Apple's iTunes to sync the phone with your PC. Apple fixed that with an update to iTunes.

And, if you make your own Android phone, you'd better not use Google's apps, "like when Android modder Cyanogen had to strip the apps out of his custom Android builds to avoid getting sued by Google."

Having tried the HTC multi-touch, I didn't like it, and it doesn't work as well as Apple's. It's hard to get the right sizing. When you think you have it right, it snaps to a different magnification. This makes it very hard to fill the screen with a particular column on a Web site. With the Apple multi-touch, a double tap just seems to do the trick.

Competition is always a good thing, so is free stuff such as Google's turn-by-turn voice navigation supported by their Android 2.0 release aka Eclair, unless you're Garmin or Tom Tom whose stocks have recently taken a hit.

There will be more hardware devices running Android, that's expected, but that's also the problem. With various manufacturers producing devices with different screen sizes and resolutions, plus adding their own proprietary extensions, the Android mobile phone experience will be inconsistent, and the brand could suffer.

Apple has the advantage of having close control over the hardware. The iPod Touch 3G I'm using now is unsurpassed in the way software is integrated with the device. Everything flows, with no clunky menus or hacks. The Web browsing experience is the best, as well as playing media. Well, that is if you don't include Flash, as that war is raging between Apple and Adobe. Flash also is building a bad reputation because of Web sites that are serving up ads you have to suffer through before you get the content you expected. Also, Flash has security risks, including the troublesome use of Flash cookies. Some are saying there should be open standard for vector graphic media and compressed video. I think Apple wants to stick by QuickTime.

This all means that change is picking up in pace. The smart phone you buy today will probably look very indequate a year from now. The next wave coming will be in speech recognition. I've already been amazed by Google's Voice Search on the HTC Hero phone I had tested. Speech recognition will be the killer app for mobiles, IMHO. It will take a beefed up processor on your phone to support this. Right now, they use a back end solution where Google's servers do the processing.

What's unshakeable is the Web's movement towards the mobile platform, and Google will be there.

Walt digs the Droid with some reservations

Walt reviews the Motorola Droid, which is Verizon Wireless' first Android offering, priced at $200 after the $100 mail-in rebate. (I tend to believe that this price point will drop as the smart phone competition heats up.)

His likes...

He thinks this is the best Motorola phone, the best Verizon smart phone, and the best hardware he's tested that runs Android.

It runs Android Eclair (2.0). He says that this version adds voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation. Actually both the HTC Hero and the Samsung Moment offer Sprint's navigation app which work well with both phones according to my tests.

Its screen is sharper and larger than the iPhone's.

His dislikes...

No multi-touch. Actually the HTC Hero uses a multi-touch function sitting on top of the Android. I didn't like it at all. It was very jittery, and hard to get the right sizing. The Samsung Moment doesn't have multi-touch in any form but uses zoom icons, and they work much better.

The keyboard has, in his opinion, "flat, cramped keys that induce too many typing errors, yet lacks auto-correction." This sounds like the keyboard on the Moment, which I'm falling out of love with. I can type faster on the Treo keyboard.

The Android platform only has 3 panels for displaying app icons in contrast to the iPhone's 11.

UPDATE: Another article in today's WSJ "BlackBerry Offers Low-Hanging Fruit" suggests the that BlackBerry will take the hit with the rising smart phone competition provided by the new crop of Androids. Third quarter estimates put the global smart phone market share for RIM at 20%, while Apple sits at 17%. Nokia is at approx. 38% according to Strategic Analytics.

The article speculates that the BlackBerry may become "the AOL of the mobile device market." This might a little over dramatic.

Apple is leading the price war with their $99 iPhone. I'm sure you'll seen an Android soon similarly priced.

Medical search using Google Voice Search on the Android HTC Hero

I stumbled upon Google Voice Search when I was testing the Sprint Navigation app on the HTC Hero smart phone. In order to chart a course from your present location, you have the option of speaking the address of the destination, then Google finds on the map and shares it with the navigation app, giving you turn-by-turn navigation.

Then I noticed that the voice search was a standalone Android app. I tested it with a medical term search as I mentioned in a previous post. Now, here's the video:

Here's some screen shots of the app in action:

The best and worst of the HTC Hero

BEST: The trackball. Sometimes the type size in a link you want to click on is so small you can't reliably use your finger on the touchscreen with any accuracy. It's also great for navigating on the phone, but not all apps allow this universally for each screen.

Every smart phone should have one.

WORST: Accidental button activations, and lack of touch sensitivity near the screen edges. Several times I've mistakenly started a phone call.

Depending on the app, when you use the touchscreen you have to keep in mind you'll get no response near the edges. Walt Mossberg mentioned that he had trouble with the touch sensitivity of the Hero he reviewed. I'm guessing this might be what he encountered.

Minor complaints include the camera which will show banding and color artifacts, slowness, especially with the browser, and the volume rocker switch which you can't help but activate when you use the phone in landscape orientation.

The virtual keypad works well, but I think I can type faster with a physical one. The processor in this phone is kind out outdated, and it would worth checking out the newer phones with faster processors.

But really, I have to say that this is an amazing smart phone, but in the current climate competitors are being released at a fast pace. I would suspect that during the next year we'll see phones that will be vastly improved. The idea of keeping the same phone for over a year might not be appealing.

The best and worst of Android

I've had my Android HTC Hero for 17 days, enough time to check out the basic functioning of the Android platform.

BEST: Google Voice Search. This lets you use your phone to do a Google query simply by speaking a word or phrase. I'm assuming that all the speech recognition processing is being done on Google's servers, but this service is remarkably fast and accurate.

Late last night, I tested it by speaking "epigenetics new england journal." Within seconds the screen showed the first hit as the excellent review article by Dr. Esteller, published last year. Since I have an account with NEJM, I was able to view the full text, download and view the PDF, and download some PowerPoint slides associated with the article, but these had text that was too small to read on the phone's screen. They also have an option for downloading a PDA version, but Android is not yet supported.

You can use the voice search for addresses, businesses nearby (the phone always has an idea of your location), or not so nearby, and you can use this in conjunction with Sprint Navigation, the turn-by-turn satellite GPS service also supported on this phone.

WORST: The contact manager is blind to company or organization names. You can't search by company name, and an incoming call will not be identified unless there is a person's name associated with the number. I guess that's why the app is called "People," but it's a major incovenience, and in my opinion, a major flaw.

My old Palm 700p Treo has a much better contact manager.

A quick search of the Android Market didn't produce any apps that would correct this deficiency.

"Security Consultants 'doubtful About Mobile Phone Security'"

The 2009 Mobile Security Survey by Goode Intelligence and Acumin Consulting reveals that information security professionals are nonetheless aware of the risks, with 40 per cent believing the chances of an unauthorised person using a mobile phone to an enterprise network will be high or very high by 2011.

via www.cellular-news.com

On the heels of the previous post, this present a less sanguine view of mobile security.

While the previous post was about DOS attacks on the smart phone itself, prompting the phone to disconnect from the cellular network, this survey is about the smart phone being providing a vulnerability to a organization's enterprise network, which is even more troubling.

"Google’s Android a Smart Move for Dell Smartphone! - Mobile Messaging 2.0"

I am known for my tough love on MOPS (Mobile Operating System) developers when it comes to the security of their platforms, but in all honesty Google’s Android Team is proving to be among the best in the business for addressing the vulnerabilities that we uncover.

via www.mobilemessaging2.com

This is a guest post by Eric Everson about the role of Google in keeping up with mobile security vulnerabilities, which makes him very sanguine of Dell's upcoming Android phone.

There will still be zero day attacks, and as more smart phones are sold, including those with Android, mobile security will be become even more of a problem.

MIT program looks at ways to change the world using cellphones - The Boston Globe

It’s an unlikely medical device: a sleek smartphone more suited to a nightclub than a rural health clinic. But it’s loaded with software that allows health workers in the remote northernmost Philippines province of Batanes to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get X-rays to a radiologist - and to get a diagnosis for a patient being tested for tuberculosis.

via www.boston.com

Unbound Medicine's Medline mobile Web site on Sprint's Android HTC Hero

OK, so I said portrait when I meant landscape.

This demo shows how you can use the Unbound Medicine's mobile site for Medline to do a quick, filtered journal article search on the Android platform. In this case, I followed the link to the NEJM Web site, logged onto my account, and then view the abstract as well as downloading the full text PDF of the article, which I was also able to view on the HTC Hero, all within 4 minutes.

It would be great to have the option of selecting just the review articles, but with the simplicity and convenience of this site, it's a resource that I would use often.

Cell phone zeitgeist

We still need a better battery: Samsung and LG released solar-charging cell phones

Usage charges as a solution to heavy use by iPhone owners: on Slashdot

Soon everyone will own one: Wal-Mart offering prepaid cell phone on Verizon Wireless nationally

Straight Talk, which offers a monthly plan for as low as $30 and an unlimited-access plan—including text messages and mobile Web access—for $45 a month, was until recently offered as a limited trial service by Tracfone, a unit of America Movil S.A.B. de C.V.

"It's raining smart phones.": Walt checks out two new models. The Motorola CLIQ is an Android phone with a physical keypad offered by T-Mobile. It uses a service called "Blur" for consolidating communications and social networking, which is considered a must for all new smart phones. Walt thinks the keypad is cramped and hard to use.

The BlackBerry Storm2 from Verizon is the second iteration of the Storm, a smart phone that received not so stellar reviews. Some of the flaws have been fixed, but Walt thinks the UI is "tired."

US Cell Phone Plans Among World's Most Expensive on Slashdot

"An OECD report published today has shown moderate cell phone users in the United States are paying some of the highest rates in the world . Average US plans cost $52.99 per month compared to an average of $10.95 in Finland."