George Allen Miller One Geek's take on all things SciFi

Well, it’s now official. Those guys at Google have released their own phone. And the big question is, who cares? Not me.Why? Read on young webwalker, read on.

The iPhone was game changing. Never before had anything like it come out in the smart phone market. Sure there was blackberry and it had a neat keyboard, but really that’s all it had. The iPhone was sleek, slender, and destined to be great. The app store was innovative and showed the world that a closed system could work just fine. In fact it works better than fine, as Andriod developers are finding out.

Ok, what all this really amounts to is a new smart phone with this nifty thing called Andriod on it. What does it do? Well, first and foremost it does a lot less than any iPhone. Why? The app store, that’s why. There are 100,000+ applications in that thing from fun games to professional level software. Sure there is an Andriod app store but it has  a tenth of what’s in the Apple store. Sure new apps will go into the Andriod app store but so will apps into the iPhone app store which now has a huge lead. The real clincher here is going back to that closed system of the iPhone. Because it’s closed that means there are just three hardware models, all three generations of the iPhone. With Andriod you have many more. Soon there will be hundreds more.

The issue? Not all phones are made equally.

Some phones have touch screens, some phones have GPS, some phones have a flip out keyboard. If you are a developer, your app better know how to deal with it. The issue we are seeing is that apps have to be customized, just a little bit, for every model of phone out there. But wait! There’s more! Now that tablets are coming and some powered by Andriod, the problem will only get worse. Developers are freaking out about it and I don’t blame them. I want to make one application, sell it, make money, have hot girlfriend, go to beach, the end. I don’t want to make one application, get complaints it doesn’t work on yet another Andriod phone, fix it, make money, get more complaints, see hot girl friend leave for not stressed out twenty something douche bag. Big pain in the ass.

Ok, so the app store sucks, what about all those other bells and whistles of a smart phone? Can we say,been there done that? They all have cameras, they all have touch screens, etc etc. Just putting out yet one more and wrapping it under both Andriod and Google names isn’t going to do anything. Sure they will sell but the appeal to an iPhone isn’t just the phone, its the store.

If you have a phone already, keep it. Don’t buy into the hype and waste your money. Wait for the next generation to come out. I am talking built in pico projectors, not something that you connect to the bottom. I am talking holographic keyboards, they are displayed with friggin lasers on a solid surface and can operate just like a normal keyboard. Wait for the day when your phone will fit into a stand on your desk, use it’s projector to beam a 1020/768 screen on your empty wall and its friggin lasers to draw a keyboard on your desk. That day is coming. Soon  young jedi, soon.