Today the Android Guys have tracked down the technical drawings of the new Google phone.  As they highlighted there are a number of surprises which had not been previously identified.

Andy Rubin is no mug - he has worked at Apple and was one of the founders of Danger Inc which designed the Sidekick - a device concerned with function over form.

So what’s different about the G1?  The chin.  The G1, it’s all about “the chin”.

Whilst it may benefit from the microphone being closer to the mouth (a la Moto Z8) - the chin comes into its own when turned sideways.  The combination of the tilt and roller ball (which I guess will sit close to your thumb) means we are looking at a device designed for web browsing.

A key criticism of the iPhone is the constant marks on the screen - could this be less of a problem for the Google phone.  The primary function of this device (after phone calls) is as a web browser - playing to Google’s key strengths.  All of the app development on the iPhone has not gone to waste - what else has Google got up its sleeve before its launch.  Do not underestimate Google; at your peril!!

A couple of other interesting observations is the sideways orientation and the roller ball should make this a great mobile gaming platform.  Also with the screen closed the google phone should work as well for “lefties” as righties”.

Finally, the “Google” logo on the rear of the device will clearly add brand recognition that HTC does not have.  More interestingly, this raises the question of whether Google is paying HTC and/or T Mobile for the inclusion of its logo?  Is Google subsidising this phone?

The Free Software Foundation’s philosophy lists four freedoms, the final one being “…The freedom to improve the program…”. Thus FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) gives users the opportunity to fix bugs or add enhancements as and when they need to. Even though most users don’t have the skills to make these changes themselves, on most active FOSS products, bugs fixes are implemented quickly after being reported, as are many enhancements.

Free on-line services (e.g. Multimap, Flickr or Twitter) are slightly different. While these are generally provided free of charge (although users may have to ’suffer’ advertising), users lack the freedom to make even the simplest changes.

This is probably a reasonable trade off: after all, users don’t just get free software (zero marginal cost) but free hosting, bandwidth and storage as well (real costs to the service provider). However it can be very limiting.

By way of example, consider Gmail’s approach to email threading. The entire product philosophy is based on all related emails, sent and received, being grouped together in a ‘thread’. This threading is automatic, and based on the subject line. If the threading breaks for any reason, then the product is much less pleasant to use.

As shown in the screen-shot below, it’s quite easy to break the threading: have an email conversation with someone who uses MS Outlook in Italian.

Gmail understands “Re:” in subject lines and the German equivalent “Aw:” (and probably others), but not “R: “.

I emailed Google support about this several times over the years, but to no avail. This is particularly frustrating, as it is such a simple change, and would have no impact on other users (after all who chooses to starts an email subject with “R: ” if it’s not a reply!). I doubt that Google hard-coded the list of reply & forward abbreviations, so fixing this is likely to be little more than adding an entry to a database table or configuration file - and would be a five minute job if this was a self-hosted FOSS product.

Google’s recently launched ‘Gmail Labs‘ may eventually provide a solution for Gmail. The idea is that “…any engineer that comes up with an idea for a Gmail feature can publish it on the Gmail Labs site, and users can test it out and provide feedback directly to the engineer who wrote it.” (see: http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/06/google-invites.html). Keith Coleman, Gmail’s product manager apparently said: “We’d like to get to a point where anyone [i.e. the general public] can build on [the platform].”

A very nice idea, but I’m not holding my breath. Effectively supporting and managing such a process would be very complex, and while Google’s infrastructure may be able to support it, it’s certainly not a general solution to leveraging ‘the cloud’ to improve hosted services.

On the other hand, the fact that any engineer within Google can publish it directly will be quite a dramatic step on its own. I don’t necessarily have to get the product manager interested in my problems any more. Instead, if I can get one Google to engineer care about it, that’s enough to get it into Gmail Labs, which is at least a step towards getting it in the main product. Instead of outsourcing engineering to ‘the cloud’, it outsources some of the product managers job instead.

So I’ll ask again to have this fixed, and post here about what happens this time. Till then, ciao!

Update: I’ve posted my request here on the Gmail Labs discussion group.

I am not referring to the US elections where Obama stands at the gateway of history, but the launch of Small, Cheap Computers™ at Computex 2008 - which I believe may have equally a significant impact.

Why? There are three principle reasons.

1. Price; Acer announced that its Aspire One would be £199 (inc VAT). This is for a highly usable computer which will satisfy the needs for 80% of the population who email and surf the internet. Today, the cheapest laptop and desktop available at PC World was £300 and £350 respectively. This will undoubtedly raise the ugly question - why pay more?

2. Form factor; until recently the default recommendation for a computer was a desktop. This was primarily based on cost and an ever increasing demand for great processor power. With the move toward web based applications, the frantic rush for faster processors has diminished. We have now reached the tipping point for laptops: desktops with base units will become a specialist form factor - which Apple has already recognised.

3. Operating systems; for the first time Linux computers are being launched with equal status as Windows based computers - not as a second class citizen or as an after thought for “hardcore unix” programmers. Could this be the point at which Linux becomes a viable alternative for the “great unwashed”?

Credit must be given to the original Asus EEE, of which I was a fan, but the larger screen and other improvements have matured the overall package into something more suitable for the population at large.

Without debating the merits of low cost airlines, it is refreshing to hear a CEO speak his mind

“I hope oil prices stay high … we will get rid of a lot of crappy competitors”

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair

I discovered goosh.org on del.icio.us today. First it made me smile, then I said “wow!” out loud, then I made it my home page. Impressive for someone who’s had about:blank as my homepage since NCSA Mosaic - but why?

One reason: Google recently changed the interface of their translation pages. This page always involved a bit too much clicking around to select what languages you wanted to translate between, but the new version is infuriating:

Those odd looking language selection buttons are a weird hybrid that oh so easily don’t actually change when you use the keyboard to select something other than Spanish -> English, and doubly annoying if you are flicking back and forth between different languages pairs.

In goosh, I just type:

t de en Schnell

and hit return. Goosh replies:

translating “Schnell” from “de” to “en”:

“Fast”

Then I decided to look for images to illustrate “Fast” so I typed:

i fast

and it returns the following:

That’s right - goosh is a command line interface for google, written by Stefan Grothkopp. You can do web searches, image searches, news, map and video searches, translate text and websites, read RSS and even ask The Oracle (a.k.a. Wikipedia searches) feeds all by typing. It uses AJAX so the web page doesn’t need to refresh, which means it’s quick, and you can see the full history of what you’ve been doing just by scrolling up the page.

But why? Command lines are the past, from the painful days of MS-DOS and UNIX, now we have GUIs that are easy to learn and user friendly, right? Yes and no: if you work in airlines or banking, there’s a good change that you use an application that runs on a mainframe terminal emulator and is primarily keyboard and function-key driven. It’s true that graphical IU’s are easier to learn, and are definitely more appropriate for infrequent users, but for many people, Google is the second most frequently used application after whatever email system we use.

Google always had a simple, uncluttered user interface, and a load of command line-like shortcuts, for example entering things like “site:line.co.uk Ian Leader” to restrict the search to a particular web site. goosh takes this to its logical conclusion. I just type, it responds more quickly than the page refresh required by google.com, and I can flick around between different Google apps without having to click on links at the top of the page.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that the graphical UI is dead, and there’s probably a bit of UNIX nostalgia behind my enthusiasm, but as web based applications become an ever increasing part of our lives, and mobile apps struggle with the limited capabilities of device hardware (think mobile gmail or fring), there is definitely a place for very simple, uncluttered, quick user interfaces used by people who are experts in that application.

Goosh would make an excellent mobile application, but unfortunately the browser in my Nokia E51 can’t deal with it (no return key!) I could do with a version that uses the ‘joystick’ button. A mix of this with the Google mobile search app. Stefan? Anyone?…

When Google launched its Android Developer Challenge in November 2007 - the use of a competition to incentise application development was meet with bemusement. To date, the first part of the competition has only cost Google $5m.

Move forward to March 2008, Apple launched its SDK developer kit for the iPhone and Kleiner Perkins dedicated $100M to companies who want to develop new applications for the iPhone. This is a more traditional route to drive application development - and has been subsequently followed by the $150m Blackberry fund.

On reflection, it appears that the non traditional route adopted by Google has ultimately seeded mobile development for Android much more successfully.

In the intervening period, the Android Challenge received 1,788 entries for the first round, whilst an article in BusinessWeek today announced that the iFund had received 1,700 applicants - but only 2 applicants have been granted funding to develop mobile applications. As someone familiar with the workings of VCs this is not surprising.

Whilst I recognise that quantity is not everything, developers can be very emotive and don’t take rejection particularly well. I believe that Google on this occasion recognise what motivates developers, and Apple’s approach needs to be reviewed quickly.

Whilst Google may be leading on the application front, Apple’s attention to detail and Google’s hands off approach to hardware development may ultimately be Andriod’s downfall.

I take no credit for this. This is a direct quote from Robert X Cringely most recent post “IT Wars“. It succinctly states something I believe strongly - IT hardware and software is in transistion and the balance of power is changing:

“I’m not saying the iPhone or smartphones like it are the absolute future of personal computing, but I AM saying the desktop PC is its absolute past.

We’re in an era of transitioning business models. IT is shrinking in traditional terms and will continue to shrink as cheaper mobile devices replace more expensive desktops for some workers. Software will change from being a product to a service. And because the incumbent players in the software biz are especially uncomfortable as service organizations, we’ll inevitably see some changes in that pecking order. Microsoft will go down and Apple, for example, will probably rise. Users will be changed forever as new paradigms emerge, but for a few more years at least, corporate IT won’t notice, being too darned busy fighting its own internecine wars.”

Being a half full sort of a guy, I’d like to think about the upside of OLPC adopting Windows XP.

Let me go on the record, I was a very vocal fan of the concept of OLPC. I personally thought that it was a great way to introduce half of the world to computers - for countries who think that Bill Gates works for a pharmaecutical company. But Bill just couldn’t help himself, he had to put Windows on those little green monsters!!

Now the upside. The world’s biggest PC manufacturers have been trying to persuade Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to extend the life cycle (and support) of Windows XP. To date, none have been successful. Steve Balmer hinted at a reprieve, but to no avail.

Whilst I am not expecting Microsoft to provide a support helpline in a multitude of languages, they will need to provide ongoing patches for Windows XP. Would Microsoft risk providing Windows XP to OLPC and then create the largest network of spamming zombies the world has ever seen?

So thank-you Bill for providing us with Windows XP (and ongoing support) until Windows 7 becomes a viable alternative.

Update: Microsoft announced on 27 June 2008 that they would continue to provide security updates and other critical fixes for Windows XP until April, 2014

When mobile gmail (m.gmail.com) first came out, I used iton a Nokia 6680. A brilliant service: it was optimized for a small screen, supported mobile browser numeric shortcuts, and used very little bandwidth. This was a step-change for mobile apps - and finally a real use for my much hyped 3G Smartphone. But for a variety of reasons, mainly to do with data plans and international travel, I didn’t actually use it that much.

Fast-forward to Feb 2008 and I got a Nokia E61 from SwissCom - a great phone, and good data package, so I was in mobile gmail all the time. That’s when I noticed that hyperlinks in emails don’t appear most of the time.

At first I blamed Nokia’s web browser (unjustly it turns out, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable reaction). This week I discovered that you can enter the mobile browser URL into a normal web browser and it will serve up the mobile version rather than switching to the normal www.gmail.com version, which I’m sure it used to do.

It turns out that mobile gmail will correctly show links in plain text emails, but will convert HTML or rich-text emails to plain text - removing hyperlinks along with bold, italic, pictures and colours! You can try it yourself from within gmail, by

1. creating an email with a hyperlink by just typing it in (1st screenshot), and
2. creating an email with a hyperlink using the link icon on the rich text formatting toolbar (2nd screenshot)

Adding a link by just typing it in

Adding a link using the link toolbar icon

And here’s what they look like when you view them at the mobile URL:

The ‘plain’ link shows up OK - it’s been converted from plain text to a hyperlink ‘automatically’ when it was sent, and works fine.

But the link lovingly added with the toolbar button just shows up as ordinary text

I’m at a bit of a loss over this one - I can understand why you might want to strip some text formatting (bold, italic, colours) and images out, but hyperlinks? A browser isn’t a browser it it doesn’t understand hyperlinks. So why do this? I can only assume it’s a bug, but if it’s a bug, it seems major enough that it would have been noticed and fixed by now. Maybe they’re just focusing on getting everything right for Android…

Well until there’s some hardware to run Android, please fix it for the phones that are here already!

Recently DropBox introduced an innovative storage solution which makes data backup and collaboration very simple. One of the differentiating features is a client which syncs between the online cloud storage and local (offline) storage. My initial impression is very favourable, but I’m still trying to understand what I might be charged for the service.

DropBox provides a good backup solution for a single or multiple computers. Pricing is simple - you get charged for your storage requirements – 1Gb Free, 10Gb for $20 etc.

It will be a bit more complicated when you start to share files – which is actively encouraged and works really well. One of the features which is promoted on the website is photo sharing. As a father of three I have a large photo collection. Furthermore, being Irish I have a particularly large family who are always keen to stay in touch.

Let’s say I have a 10Gb collection of photos. Reasonably I would be charged for the storage – say $20. But what if I share the collection with 10 other members of my family? Do each of my family also get charged $20? Presumably not - like Flickr, Picasa, etc. I would expect that only the owner pays.

So far, so good. But what if my family and I start putting pictures of a family event in one DropBox folder? Who pays then? The owner of the folder or the person who shared the pictures? Let’s say it’s the latter. What happens if I decide I don’t want to own some of the family photos because I’m running out of space in my current quota but the rest of the family wants to keep them? Do I have to assign ownership to one new person like you can do with Google Docs. I think what I’d really want is the option to have the files (and therefore the cost) to owned by the group of people who have access to it. That way we all contribute to what we have access to.

This approach does add complexity though and could encourage negative behaviors - the more people in a group that drop out of having access to a file, the greater the burden on each of the remaining members - encouraging more to drop out, increasing the individual costs still further, until the image is deleted: this is not the kind of spiral that service providers would want to see (unless, the dispense with direct charging and do gmail-style ads, based on the contents of the docs, or in the case of photos, by analysing the photo and providing wedding, holiday, or EXIF location based advertising)

This this might not be such a problem for families sharing photos, but it could easily be one for businesses, particularly where several businesses are working together. Despite the complexity, it does solve one joint venture problem nicely: when the joint venture is disolved, amicably or otherwise, if one business no longer wants access to a file, they can drop out of having on-line access (perhaps after archiving it off-line, or moving it to a private folder) and they no longer bear any cost.

With the growing popularity social networking and collaboration, I can envisage sharing different files with different people, and vica versa others sharing with me. This creates a spider’s web of storage – being a multiple of what any single individual can generate. So what will happen: do we keep paying and do we get charged when others inadvertently increase our storage requirements? Will the cost of storage continue to fall faster than the generation of content, or will this type of service also move to an advertising model? There’s certainly more to on-line file sharing than first meets the eye.