Author: Kevin C. Tofel

After a lengthy wait and at least one delay, Verizon today began to push out the Android 2.1 update to its Motorola Droid customers. The staggered plan began with 1,000 customers today, which is expected to be followed by 9,000 additional customers at midnight. Engadget says if all goes well by then, everyone else’s Droid will do 2.1 in a large wave on Thursday of this week. Here’s a listing of the features and enhancements per a Verizon Wireless support document on the Droid (PDF):

Having used Android 2.1 since the beginning of January, my opinion is that Droid owners are in for a treat. Android 2.1 brings a fairly large number of improvements and functions for a point release. We’ll all have different thoughts on what specifically will be most welcome in the update since we all have different needs, but voice-to-text and multitouch support in native apps are tops on my list. There’s plenty to like though, so watch your Droid for the update. Assuming all goes well, you should see software version AP: ESE81/BP: C_01.3E.03P by the end of this week, if not sooner.

The year was 2005 and I was reading a magazine — on a Microsoft Windows Tablet PC. The experience was a precursor to what I anticipate from Apple’s iPad. It was an enjoyable and portable experience. The software I used back then was Zinio Reader and a new beta version of the software is now available in an Adobe AIR application — it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

All of the features from prior versions are in the new Zinio Reader 4: page bookmarks, clips of favorites, sharing content with friends, offline reading and more. I grabbed a sample magazine — the recent issue of iPhone Life — and totally enjoyed the experience. Visually, the digital magazine content is stunning and the zooming works great — text re-renders properly and quickly after a zoom. Page turns can show as sliding content or as an actual, physical page flip. Web links are active too. Tapping one opens up your computer’s default web browser instantly. And although I don’t pay much notice to advertisements, Zinio says these can be dynamic and interactive.

Zinio plans to offer an iPad application next month and I anticipate the experience to be very similar. In fact, if you want a pre-cursor, give the new Zinio Reader 4 app a download to get a feel for what to expect. And between now and April 2, you can download a free digital copy of National Geographic’s Water issue. For some reason it’s not appearing for me in the new Reader 4 app, but I can open it directly from my browser and use Zinio’s Flash-based reader. Hopefully, that’s a beta glitch that gets addressed soon because the interaction on this magazine issue had me hooked in five seconds. As soon as I saw water actually flowing on the cover, I was drowning myself in the content.

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In between my reading and writing yesterday, I did sneak in all 11 iPad guided tour videos. As I expected, they’re typical Apple fare: high quality, focus on features and make mundane tasks seem magical. Each video highlights a specific application or feature and the most impressive video was the one I wasn’t going to watch: Keynote. (Really!)

I can’t remember the last time I had to create a presentation, but I can assure you it was done in Google Docs. Clearly, I don’t have much need for Keynote and therefore I don’t foresee myself buying it. But I encourage you to watch it, even if you too don’t ever plan to create a presentation again in this lifetime. Why? Because it exemplifies a specific attribute Apple currently offers like few others do today: an outstanding and common sense use of multitouch.

The Keynote video demonstrates how to move one slide in the deck to another location. It’s a simple tap to hold and then a drag action. I was about to say “Yeah, but what a pain that must be to move multiple slides,” since I didn’t see a way to multi-select. That’s because you’re not really selecting the slides — you’re interacting with them. Wouldn’t you know that as soon as the thought crossed my mind, the video showed the use of a second finger to tap other slides while holding the first one. Each tap sends a slide under the first and you simply drag the whole pile elsewhere in the deck. It’s a simple interaction, yes, but it shows how much thought Apple put into the user experience.

Think about that for a second, because touch computing isn’t new. We’ve seen it on computers for the last few years — although it’s only recently that Windows supports touch natively — and on handhelds and PDAs for well over a decade. Multitouch really opens up the possibilities for interaction with computing environments, the web and our data. What we haven’t seen is clever, intuitive and effective use of touch like this before.

Am I saying that the iPad is the best thing since sliced bread? Nope, not by a long shot. My point isn’t so much about the device because there’s plenty not to like for some: a closed ecosystem, lack of x86 application compatibility and an ergonomically challenged keyboard. How to use multitouch while holding the device is another head-scratcher. But the idea here is that Apple isn’t just putting out another touch device. Apple is maturing the old usage patterns of touch computing beyond what its competitors have done. That may not change your views on the iPad, but it ought to get you considering how we’ll interact with computers a few years from now.

I’m sure some of you watched the guided tour videos and I’m curious if anything impressed you. Or perhaps you came away with validation that it’s just a big iPod Touch and nothing special to see. Thoughts?

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Google continues to gobble up large chunks of smartphone market share, but offering four different versions of the same operating system will eventually stunt that growth by derailing customer purchase plans. After all, why buy a new device with an earlier version of Android — say, version 1.6 — if the better hardware and software is devoted to version 2.1?

Such fragmentation is running rampant on the platform, which has only been shipping products since October 2008, leaving the owners of older handsets pining for apps that their friends with newer phones can run, or wishing for advanced native functions like multitouch capability. Developers, meanwhile, are challenged by having to build different Android apps for different versions. Luckily, Google appears to have a strategic plan to address these problems, Engadget reports today.

Thanks to conversations at last week’s CTIA, as well as some follow-up information, the site says it has “reason to believe that the company will start by decoupling many of Android’s standard applications and components from the platform’s core and making them downloadable and updatable through the Market.” In other words, only the base Android functionality would be in the hands of carriers and handset makers, while third-party developers — and Google itself — would expand Android functionality through downloadable software.

The expectation is that this effort will take place over the next two Android updates, codenamed Froyo and Gingerbread respectively. By managing the fragmentation in-house and divesting core apps from base Android functionality, Google regains control: It can move key applications to its Android Market, and reduce the carrier influence over what apps can or can’t be on the phone. The approach fits nicely with the Google Nexus One strategy Colin Gibbs outlined at GigaOM Pro (subscription required) as Google attempts to wrest control from the cellular network providers.

Back in February, I noticed subtle signs of a shift to address the Android fragmentation issue, and rumors at the time were indicating that Google could try to migrate all existing handsets to Android 2.1. That’s a tough road to hoe because here in the U.S., carriers decide what software is pushed to handsets on their network. A notable exception to that practice is Google’s own Nexus One which accepts software updates directly from Google — cutting the carrier out of such a role. Still, the first whisperings of a solution were heard, so I kept my eyes open.

Three weeks later, my watching paid off — I noticed that Google’s software strategy had shifted over time. Instead of the latest and greatest native apps making their way to Android 2.1 only, functions were filtering into older versions of Android not long after release. Google’s new Gesture Search, for example, appeared on Android 1.6 devices only two weeks after debuting on Android 2.x phones.

From a consumer standpoint, separating core handset functionality from applications can reduce buyers’ remorse as Android matures. That doesn’t mean that every Android application in the future will run on the handset you just bought, but the functional base between various Android devices should be much more similar. And if Google can get a more standardized version of Android across its handsets, developers won’t be as challenged to port code between various SDKs and feature sets. Happy developers ought to make for happy customers and help continue Google’s path towards mobile dominance in the smartphone market.

Not that long ago, surfing the web was a chore on any non x86 mobile device. There were exceptions of course — browsers like Opera Mini come to mind — but browsing on a handset simply didn’t cut it. Two years back, Steve Paine from UMPC Portal ran some comparison tests and found that ARM devices took nearly twice as long to render web sites as their x86 counterparts did — the average ARM device took over 20 seconds for a full view. Many of us suffered through the lack of speed by valuing mobility back then. I know I did. Fast forward to present day and the gap has closed considerably.

Pocketables recently ran similar browser tests on the current crop of smartphones and what used to be an average of 20 second page loads is now under 10 seconds. That speed increase, coupled with the portability of a phone, can go a long way towards faster smartphone adoption. What used to be a painful experience is becoming tolerable — and in some cases, even enjoyable. Take a look at the test results from an Apple iPhone 3GS, Nokia N900, HTC HD2 and Google Nexus One to get a feel for the browsing speed on devices of today:

Steve notes that three of these four current devices are now “in the green zone,” which he considers to be 10 seconds or less. For most sites and devices, that was unheard of as recently as 2007. Advancements in browsers, JavaScript and hardware are all contributors here — and the last factor in that list is right in line with a theme I’ve mentioned for months now: the perfect storm for the ARM platform is here. Devices built on the newest ARM chip architecture offer enough processing power for handheld devices and do so in a battery-friendly way, which is why I fully expect Google Chrome devices to be ARM-powered. I actually enjoy surfing on my Google Nexus One, just as I did prior on my iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre. Before those devices? I certainly surfed on handhelds, but gravitated towards bulkier x86 solutions for a faster experience.

Of course, now that ARM devices are catching up, I’m already looking for what’s next. And as central as the browser is to mobile device usage, I’m starting to wonder if mobile apps could render the browser less relevant. Sure, the browser will always be there, be needed and be used. Bite sized bits of the web — packaged up in neat, little, easy to use software bundles — are taking off in a big way. As a result, I find myself using apps over a browser when I can. These software titles are optimized for the small screen, often look nicer than mobile-friendly websites and still provide current data thanks to web connectivity.

How about you? As the mobile browsing experience gets better, are you using a browser more than apps or are you “abandoning” the web for software these days?

Image courtesy of Pocketables

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You might want to take this with a grain of salt, but the Google Nexus One sales site reportedly showed the Nexus One on Verizon’s network very briefly this weekend, per Android Central. A forum enthusiast member grabbed a screen cap, which of course is under scrutiny since Google’s online store isn’t showing availability of the phone for Verizon. But this wouldn’t be the first time that Google let an almost live link slip out when it comes to the Nexus One. The original support links made a brief appearance prior to any announcement, disappeared and then reappeared. That doesn’t set a precedent though, so we’ll have to see if any official news comes down the pike.

What’s interesting in the screen shot is the alleged pricing — $199  for the phone and a new 2-year plan. That would be $20 more than the subsidized T-Mobile version, indicating that Google brokered a different subsidy agreement with Verizon. I suppose that’s possible, but regardless, I wouldn’t expect to see the no-contract price be any different from the $529 Google charges for the GSM models. And that’s actually something I hadn’t thought about — how does that compare to other Verizon handsets available at full price for month-to-month use. Not bad it turns out — here are current prices for unsubsidized phones, direct from Verizon:

• Motorola Droid  = $559.99
• HTC Imagio = $579.99
• HTC Touch Pro2 = $489.99
• Palm Pre Plus = $599.99
• Motorola Devour = $479.99

When you look at these options, a $529 Nexus One from Google would be right in line. And a potential $199 price tag for a contract device is too. The question remains: when is it coming? I fully expected Google to take the wind out of everyone’s sails at CTIA by debuting this model — and so did two-thirds of you in our poll — but it turns out, it didn’t have to. Most of the big news was about other hot Android devices coming later this year. Perhaps Google will attempt to blunt iPad-mania late this week with a Nexus One for the largest carrier in the U.S.?

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While some countries are already taking stock of the ASUS T101MT netbook, it’s not here in the U.S. That’s about to change according to a Liliputing source — Brad Linder says we should see the touchscreen device next month for around $499. At that price, I suspect it’s a base model and not the decked out version folks in Italy can pick up. EeePC.it says you get 2 GB of RAM, Microsoft Windows Home Premium and a 320 GB hard drive for your 499 Euros.

I’m in agreement with Brad — the $499 version we’ll see is likely to have only 1 GB of RAM and Microsoft Windows Starter Edition. This is one time where I hope I’m wrong, since that version of Windows doesn’t include touchscreen support. In fact, I still can’t fathom why any touchscreen PC would be offered with an operating system that can’t take advantage of a touch input. And speaking of touch, there’s been some confusion about the touch solution ASUS is using with the T101MT — while is is capable of multitouch, it’s a resistive display. Here’s an excerpt from an ASUS Press Release on the device:

“Equipped with an advanced display can recognize 256 levels of pressure, Eee PC T101MT provides maximum sensitivity to touch, offering the ability to digitally reproduce even handwriting in an extremely fluid and natural. Thanks to technology multitouch addition, the display of a small tablet on ASUS recognizes the input in several places simultaneously, allowing, among other things, to rotate, enlarge or reduce images and documents, as well as browse web pages simply and intuitive, while moving two fingers on the display, without even having to use the built-in touchpad.”

As soon as I saw the “256 levels of pressure” bit, I knew it wasn’t capacitive. Those screens can’t sense pressure levels like a resistive display can. The alternative is to use a dual digitizer with both capacitive and resistive, but at $499, you’re not going to see that solution. Another option would be for ASUS to use an active digitizer with special pen — those can sense pressure levels too — but again, they’re costly and don’t support multitouch. So for touch navigation, the T101MT should work nicely, provided it has the right operating system. For inking and handwriting — not so much based on the technology used.

Image courtesy of Liliputing

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How do you grow a business? There are many ways, but one is to pay others to help you. And according to paidContent and “sources who are familiar with the deals,” that’s how Google is growing it’s Android business. Apparently, Google is sharing advertising revenues with handset makers that build Android handsets. And here I thought that Android was simply a solid operating system.

I don’t know if the report is true, but I’m not sure I care all that much and more importantly, I wouldn’t be surprised by such a deal. Google’s core competency from a revenue perspective is in advertising. But it can’t simply earn advertising dollars on it’s own — it has to partner with other entities in some way. Today, Google matches up ad content with created content to show contextual, targeted ads. It makes a cut and so does the content partner. There’s a precedent for “browser money” too — Google pays Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox, for example. There could even be revenue sharing at work here, but even if not, Google is essentially paying Mozilla to get its product in front of more eyeballs, which in turn, potentially generates more ad revenue for Google. With that approach, why would anyone be surprised that Google could be sharing advertising revenues with handset makers? It’s the Google way and it’s also worth noting that it accounts for nearly 90% of Mozilla’s revenue.

Now the other question is — should Google be doing this? That’s not an easy one to answer and opinions are going to vary wildly. I’d rather see a product deployed solely because it’s a good product, but maybe that’s an old-school mindset. Times are changing, as are business models. And the reality is, Android actually is a good product. If it wasn’t, handset makers wouldn’t continue using it no matter how much they were getting paid — and I doubt that they’re making a mint off of mobile ad revenue sharing just yet, anyway. If they put out a crap hardware product due to a poor operating system, sooner or later, their reputation would be shot to pieces and their hardware business would slowly die.

Instead, I see more handset makers adopting Android and — more importantly — more consumers buying Android phones. Is that because Google is paying companies to build Android devices? It could be part of the reason, but don’t overlook the fact that Android isn’t a bad mobile platform. And aside from the fact that we’re potentially talking about revenue sharing for hardware and not software, how is this different than the business model Google has followed for years? Personally, if it’s true, I think it’s ingenious and it explains why the Android logo is green.

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HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

• How did CTIA become the Android show?
• HTC evolves the smartphone with its EVO 4G
• Is there room in the universe for the Samsung Galaxy?
• Matt stood in line for the HTC HD2 — lines for a Windows Mobile device! 
• Opera Mini — will it sing on the iPhone? Probably not. 
• How will Apple’s next iPhone compete with the new superphones?

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People are still buzzing about the HTC EVO, which debuted yesterday at the CTIA trade show. There’s good reason for the buzz — fast processor, large display, high-definition video recording and speedy 4G service. But if you take away the 4G, another phone appeared yesterday that rivals the EVO on paper. I’m talking about the Samsung Galaxy S, which ought to appeal to folks with a GSM provider.

In lieu of a Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung went in-house with their own 1 GHz CPU, but hasn’t released any further details on the chip. The 4″ display is SuperAMOLED that should provide vibrant color — handy for watching video on the 800 x 480 screen. Google’s Android 2.1 lies beneath, but Samsung’s new SmartLife user brings some customization and social networking updates to the home screen. The 5 megapixel camera takes stills of course, as well as 720p video at 30 fps. HSPA — the faster 7.2 kind — Bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi round out the connectivity options.

Between Samsung’s Galaxy, the HTC EVO, and Nexus One, it looks like a new standard for high-end smartphones is taking shape. A 1 GHz CPU paired with high-res display, fast mobile broadband, and HD or near-HD video capability is the status quo right now. The age of the superphone is here, although you’ll have to wait a bit — Samsung hasn’t yet announced pricing or a release date, saying the phone will be available soon. Funny — the EVO and Galaxy S share that trait too.

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HTC just raised the superphone bar with Sprint’s introduction of the HTC EVO 4G — the first phone ready to jump on Sprint’s fast 4G network. And it’s not just the WiMAX radio that makes the EVO compelling. From top to bottom and everywhere in between this Android phone is built for performance. Why would I say that? Look over this rundown of the specifications to see why:

• 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU
• 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording capability and HDMI out
• 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera
• Google Android 2.1
• Wi-Max, EVDO, Wi-Fi and a mobile hotspot utility to share mobile broadband with up to eight devices over Wi-Fi
• 4.3″ multitouch capacitive display at 800 x 480 resolution.

Simply put, the EVO is a potent combination. Sprint hasn’t yet announced pricing and expects availability this summer. Perhaps most interesting to me is what Sascha Segan noticed: the phone is both a “with Google” device and includes HTC Sense and seven home screens. Between the custom interface, high-end hardware and nimble 3G/4G capabilities, the EVO just might be the phone to beat this summer. Looks like the ball is in Apple’s court now.

Images courtesy of Sprint

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