Posted: November 6th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Android | Tags: Android, BloomWorlds, Future of Tech, Google, Google TV, Market | 1 Comment »
So, I was contacted by this guy from BloomWorlds (AKA @BloomWorlds), they are a company that is planning to start up a competing Android Market, or App Store, or whatever people call them nowadays…
It really seems like a good idea, making a “family friendly” app… app. But there is still the issue of Android phones coming with the regular Android Market from Google, pretty much every Android phone sold has it, and it can’t be removed from the phone unless you root the phone and are crazy enough to uninstall it.
So even if you have a family friendly app store on your phone, it won’t matter because unless you are a technophile you really SHOULDN’T be doing things like rooting your phone and mucking about with stuff like that.
So I think for in order for Google to continue saying that the operating system is FREE, they need to make it so you can remove the Google Android Market from their phone and replace it with a competing market.
There should be a minimum rule to call yourself open.
If you are on a carrier like AT&T, you can’t even install the competing market on your phone because that carrier has banned the side-loading of apps.
This is really getting ridiculous.
What gives me hope, is that Google TV won’t be bound up by these carriers, so it will be easier for competing markets to flourish, as long as Google makes the decision for themselves to allow competing markets to be decided. Or are we now beholden to the hardware manufacturers now instead of the duo of the carriers and phone makers.
I mean, everybody assumes that it isn’t Google making these decisions, so technically not evil. So it would be nice for Google to not just be passively “unevil” but to actively, purposefully not BE EVIL then they might stand up to these people for the principles behind FREE SOFTWARE, which they claim to be, and stand for competition.
But anyway, multiple markets on Google TV will be cool. But I guess we have to wait for ONE market before we’ll even know if we CAN have more.
Posted: October 28th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Ideas | Tags: conspiracy theory | Comments Off
The game is getting a large population of people ready to fight as remote controllers of battlefield robots that can move faster than humans, can carry and switch weapons easier, and actually stands up to bullets like the video game does.
Remote controlling a swarm is the future of warfare.
Anyway, happy birthday Tim! The cougars are out performing their elaborate courtship rituals.
Posted: September 29th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Android | Tags: amazon, Android, at&t, Google, Verizon | 1 Comment »
So there’s this rumor floating around the internet that Amazon will be coming out with both an Android tablet and an Android app store: Link
Previously I blogged about why Verizon’s app store will be bad for the platform, so you might be wondering why I feel differently about Amazon’s upcoming offering.
I am assuming that this Amazon app store itself will be openly available for all Android devices, and indeed all indications are that it will be. This will make for the first big commercially backed Android app store that can be installed on any Android device.
Newcomers to Android might not realize that the “Market” app is not included with the base system and is in fact a proprietary app licensed by Google to device makers who abide by Google’s rules on what an Android device should look like.
While Amazon may have the same ability to limit their store’s distribution, their motivation is soley profit on app sales so they have every incentive to spread their store far and wide.
This begs the question, what makes Google’s motivation different from Amazon’s in this respect? Google has all kinds of other conflicting incentives, not the least of which is ChromeOS and the Android brand.
A rich topic for another blog post to be sure, but back to Amazon.
So why will an Amazon app store succeed while countless other competing stores are just twisting in the wind right now? For several reasons.
Amazon is a known and trusted company. Millions of people already use them for books, MP3s and tons more. This means most users won’t have to create a log-in for yet another service, especially if they’ve purchased an MP3 on the Amazon MP3 Store included on most Android phones.
This also means the payments system to puchase apps is already in place and users probably won’t even have to re-enter their credit card info.
Those are just the first two hurdles anybody has to overcome to compete with Google’s Android Market. Amazon will really excel by bringing the relation algorithms for books and music to Android apps and suggest apps for them to buy.
If using the Amazon app store is easy and the app suggestions are relevant, Amazon could have a real winner on their hands. The key is in not limiting the store to just one carrier (Verizon) or require silly things like a certain screen size or cell modem (Google). If everybody can use it then everybody will, except of course AT&T devices because AT&T is Grade-A Retarded and bans 3rd-party apps and app stores.
Posted: September 20th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Android | Tags: Android, Apple, Galaxy Tab, iPad, Samsung, Tablets | 3 Comments »
After posting a tweet this morning complaining about the upcoming crop of Android tablets being more expensive than the iPad, I cam across this article on PCWorld by Jeff Bertolucci.
In the article, he puts into real dollars the problem that Android tablets are having competing with the iPad. It comes back to the same problem Android phones are having: carrier dependancy.
Because the official Android Market has been limited to only devices sold by cell carriers, only Android devices sold by carriers are commercially viable. Everybody knows it’s the apps that makes the difference, and nobody with any credibility in the tech retail sector will get behind an Android device that doesn’t have legal access to the Android Market (see Kmart/GenTouch).
Google was right, Android isn’t ready for tablets, but it isn’t because of operating system features or larger screen res support in apps. It is because Android tablets are going to use the same distribution and subsidy model that Android phones use.
So now we’re getting $300 tablets with 2-year contracts ($600 or more off-contract… eventually) plus $30 per month for service or wifi-only and still-born with no Market access. For the consumer looking for an iPad alternative, neither is a good choice.
Samsung promises to have a wifi-only version of the Galaxy Tab available eventually, but they won’t say when, they won’t say how much, and nobody has thought to bring up that a wifi-only version would violate the current licensing terms of the Android Market.
This tells me that they’re not going to offer the wifi-only model until some new Android Market licensing terms come along with a new version of Android, maybe Gingerbread but likely Honeycomb. I may be wrong, but I may be right…
The real disappointing irony in all of this is that Google’s restrictions on the Android Market are making the Apple iPad more cost-competetive. You read that right. A free operating system is losing to a commercial operating system because of price and Apple’s usually incredibly overpriced hardware is undercutting all the viable competiton. I’m not sure I can function in this new reality.
Google needs to come to their senses and take their own advice: tablets are not smart phones. The carrier distribution model will not work for potential main-stream tablet users.
What the Android tablet idea REALLY needs right now is a Nexus One -like tablet device from Google. Sure the idea didn’t really work for the cell phone market, but tablets don’t have an entrenched carrier subsidy model to combat.
But if Google doesn’t act soon, there will be.
Posted: September 15th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Android | Tags: Android, Bing, Developers, Gmail, Google, Market, Microsoft, Social Networking, Verizon, YouTube | 1 Comment »
The recent news about Verizon’s new Android app store has really validated my long-standing disappointment with Google’s Android Market. I complain about the Market on the show all the time. Well it appears I’m not alone, and somebody big enough has decided to finally do something about it.
While I’m not a Verizon customer myself, some real competition can’t hurt. So here are my ideas on how Google can respond and improve the Market.
1. Payments
It’s been kicked around for a few weeks now that Google is in discussions with PayPal to include them as a payment option. That’s good, but they should be more aggressively pursuing carrier billing.
I use T-Mobile, the only carrier with carrier billing, and it makes it infinitely easier to buy more apps when you can just tack them on to your monthly phone bill.
But really, I didn’t think there was much innovation beyond that before reading about this new Verizon VCast App Store, then I found out Verizon is supporting subscriptions!
App subscriptions open up an entirely new paradigm for Android apps. App developers can build apps using a subscription model right now, but it requires the user to make the purchase outside the Market ecosystem. This makes the whole endeavor needlessly more complex, exposes users’ financial information to possibly unknown and untrusted 3rd parties, and causes Google and carriers to miss out on their share of that revenue stream.
Most important to developers, a subscription model allows them to lower the barrier of entry for paid apps and brings a strong incentive to improve apps to retain subscribers.
2. Market Layout and App Discovery
The last update to the Market improved this somewhat with the “Featured” list that appears in the Market’s home page. I also like the rotation at the top with thumbnails of each category’s top apps. But this doesn’t go far enough.
Browsing through the over 70,000 apps on your phone is way too intense for the average user. Most people just want to be told what is good by somebody they trust. That’s why the Market needs to become more like a social network.
Users should be able to maintain a list of friends based on EXISTING SOCIAL NETWORKS (ARE YOU LISTENING APPLE?)! Just use the credentials stored in the Accounts & Sync for Facebook and Twitter, with explicit user approval of course.
Just like checking the auto-update box, users could choose to share with their friends what specific apps they have installed. This would also share ratings and comments and version installed so your entire social network can benefit from knowing what Twitter app works best for you and what you commented about it.
Throw in some extras like popular apps by geolocation and developer profiles that can be subscribed to and the Market can become a great tool for regular non-techie “what the heck is ROOT?” users.
One last request on this front is allowing developers to link to YouTube videos instead of just screenshots. It just makes sense since every phone with the Market installed has YouTube installed as well.
3. Market Licensing
Google needs to change the way they license the Google Android Market and other Google apps (Gmail, YouTube, etc).
Their strict licensing for the Android Market is hurting the Android brand now that Android tablets without the Android Market are washing up on American shores.
What about the licensing terms is keeping the Android Market off all these cheap tablets? Two things mostly. First the lack of an ability to make cellular phone calls. If your tablet is WiFi-only, then no dice. Second is the screen size. If your tablet’s screen is bigger than 8.9-inches diagonally, sorry. There are more restrictions including some having to do with physical buttons, but those two account for most of the problem.
If they don’t want to let device manafacturers distribute Google apps like Android Market, Gmail, and YouTube then they should at least end the confusion and let users download the apps themselves.
The health and identity of mobile platforms have become about access to apps and Android is no exception. Cutting off a major part of Android’s identity by restricting the Android Market only hurts the platform and confuses customers.
Google needs to act now to make their Android Market more user-friendly and freely available. Otherwise they risk fragmentation beyond mere version numbers as carriers opt out and the new innovative devices that are left out in the cold turn to their own solutions.
If you have any ideas for how to improve the Android Market, please share them with me in the comments.
Posted: September 14th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Android | Tags: Android, ARM, Future of Tech, Processors | 1 Comment »
Recently news broke that Android phones should be shipping with dual-core processors next year and quad-core processors in 2012.
Here’s the story on the quad-core processors: http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=26372&page=1
Pretty amazing stuff considering my desktop sports a quad-core processor and that thing just chews through tasks that video and audio editing for my podcasts (http://theappshow.com/android and http://theandroidtechshow.com/podcast).
The most exciting thing about these multi-core beasts is that Android’s underlying base operating system, Linux, is excellent at multi-processor management.
This means that the phones running these new processors will be able to idle using 1 core and quickly ramp up the processing power available on-demand. With the smaller wires (28 nano-meters) it means that just idling on 1 core will use substantially less power than single-core phones do now.
It seems like a paradox, but unless you are using processor intensive applications (games, video editing, etc) then you should actually see better battery life out of the new design.
The ball is now in Intel’s court to see how their low-powered x86 Atom chips stack up in the long run. ARM has definitely set the bar high.
Posted: September 13th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Android | Tags: Android, Future of Tech, Tablets, WiFi | 1 Comment »
PC World has a nice summary of a new WiFi standard working its way through the FCC: link
The short summary is that the new WiFi standard works over much larger distances because it would use part of the wireless spectrum abandoned when TV broadcasters switched to digital.
This new standard is so amazing because it will allow for much more simple deployments of “city-wide” WiFi networks, and even make rural deployment of WiFi possibly economically feasible.
What we’re going to end up with is a new breed of company selling services on this open standard and competing with cable, satellite, classic telephone, and wireless telephone companies. If so, we’re talking about real high-speed ISP competition in many areas of the country that still struggle under a duopoly of cable/telco.
How does Android work into this? Well, aside from capacitive vs resistive screens, WiFi-only vs included cellular modem is the 2nd highest factor driving Android tablet costs today. With a new, better, WiFi standard the WiFi-only option becomes much more attractive and it can continue to sell for a lower rate.
It isn’t too far-fetched to imagine these new wireless providers giving away $200 Android tablets for free and telling customers they are free to roam about the city or on any available Wi-Fi network for, say $20/month with a 2-year contract.
If this standard is approved, we are in for another internet revolution based on a leap in access and participation. This new revolution will ride on the tablet form-factor, and things are about to get very interesting.
Posted: August 14th, 2010 | Author: Lane | Filed under: Biographical | Comments Off
I don’t think the first post of a blog should or could be as interesting as the blog has the potential to be. So I am making sure to give myself room to grow by making sure the first post sucks.
Check back later for something you might actually find interesting. 