IndiGo - The brand that talks!

I have always been a fan of brands and products that talked to me. I liked them, trusted them and went back to them whenever in need. The more they talked in a friendly, fun and smart language the better I rated them.

I had previously talked about how Gmail, Cleartrip and Happy Singh talked to me to give a better user experience. The recent addition to my 'talking brand' list is IndiGo Airlines. Once a friend asked me to rate IndiGo's user experience and thats when I really gave it a thought. I wanted to know why I liked IndiGo coz as a LCC they didn't really do anything (or didn't look like they did) out of the way to make me happy. This was a time when Kingfisher had the best user experience tag attached to them with all the awesome chicks and food.

Apart from an overall relaxed atmosphere, warm smiles, crisp smelling brand new cool aircraft cabins and on the dot timings (all no frills items) it was IndiGo's smart and fun branding that I liked the most. And they have consistently used the image right from the logo and ads to the smallest thing; they all have a curio value with something to tell you and make you smile and develop an instant friendship with them. Sample these...

You enter the aircraft up a ramp, not up stairs, which says "Indigo to 35,000 feet"


Picture by Rodsta


Their wheel chairs say "Don't overtake"

The blue que manager tapes in front of their check in counter says "Cut the red tape". Pun intended right?

The air sickness bag says "Get well soon"



Their security manual has an Indian mascot demonstrating procedures



Food is called "Indigo Tiffin" and has a very smart packaging


Picture by Rodsta

They don't have an inflight magazine but instead have a shopping catalog with interesting Indigo branded curious like


a usb drive with a disclaimer "This item can cause jealousy"


a back back


a fragile heart tshirt

Ah the other day I saw their ad looking to hire pilots



Heres a web banner ad



And finally their new fun TVC that shows us the benefits of being on time



I love brands that talk. I trust them and I expect a lot from them. Just that they need to keep in mind that they should live up to my expectations. All talk and no work is a very bad thing. If you are not in the mood to work, its better to shut up. I'm fine with them too. :-)

Will Flash be the game changer on Mobile?

I have never been a fan of Flash when it comes to web development. I know there are some cool Flash sites out there but I always thought that when it comes to some serious web development, HTML, CSS and Javascript is the best choice. Also it’s easy to maintain. There is another story that long back in 2000-04 I wanted to do some heavy duty Flash stuff but my inability to pick up action scripting had killed my ambitions. But I could some how master the HTML CSS art which was simpler for me which eventually made me a non supporter of Flash.

But then look around and tell me what the role of Flash in main stream web is today? Mainly Videos and Rich Ads. Other than that everything is pretty much HTML. How much of Adobe's site is done in Flash? OK I'm keeping the Flash gaming sites away for a moment as it’s a different genre altogether. Will get there in a moment.

The new web mantra is HTML5 (I haven't completely understood or mastered the capabilities of HTML5 yet) using which I can apparently completely ignore flash and create flash like graphics and interactivity. HTML5 also supports native audio/video player. As all modern desktop and mobile browsers become HTML5 compliant, the need for flash to play videos is going to be no more. As we know iPhones and iPads don’t support flash but I don’t think they have missed videos that much. Note that iPhone significantly increased the usage of mobile internet in spite of not having Flash. But yeah of course the Nickelodeon site doesn't work on it. But is iPhone/iPad meant for users of Nickelodeon?

iPhone also has some amazing rich ad experiences built using the HTML-CSS-Javascript combo. In fact the ads made for iPhone are better than the predictable Flash ad experiences on traditional websites. Now iPhone even has an ad platform (iAd) which encourages brands to create amazing experiences using HTML5. Ad experiences made using HTML5 will work on all new age mobile browsers including Android and Nokia. So I don’t think brands are going to build separate experiences on Flash especially for phones which support Flash. Yes I’m talking about Flash coming on Android. I’m not excited. Btw Google too is pushing big for HTML5 (remember Google Pacman game logo?) as they are getting ready for Chrome OS and the new Android browser. Flash on mobile browser will be more of a “Good to have” feature as far as main stream web is concerned as they are going to push for cross platform compatibility. It’s not going to be a game changer for regular geek internet users like me.

So is Flash going to die? No. Flash is the number one choice for gaming sites on the web and they are all waiting to be on mobile too and that’s where Adobe should put its money on. I’m sure that the Flash game developers are peeved with Apple for not giving them a chance to be on iPhone web. iPhone/iPad are amazing gaming devices themselves on the app space. Android supporting Flash will give them the right edge over iPhone to be an ultimate internet gaming device. That means Farmville is going to be on Android. I’m sure that Zynga has already started working overnight to bring out mobile versions of their games by the time Froyo comes out. Facebook users and others who play these flash based games are truly going to root for Android.

I think Flash on Android is going to give a new opportunity for the Flash game developers to be on mobile but it wont be the game changer for Android phones.

Bullshit Bullet - Tikona Customer Care

After figuring out that BSNL and Airtel cant give me a connection to my new place in an acceptable amount of wait period, I started trying for other options for internet. My first idea was to go for a wireless broadband connection but i found them as too expensive for my need.

One day I decided to try my lucky on unprotected wifi connections around and to my surprise I found an open connection called Tikona Wibro. I selected the connection but I was not able to browse any site other than Tikona's. Their site gave me details on how to get their home connection and I found this as a very smart move of theirs. Keep a limited availability connection open for people to find them. I was impressed with their plans too.

I called customer care and asked them to send someone but as per their "policy" they would send someone only after three days!! Anyways after multiple calls i could manage to get someone come to my place on a Saturday. The connection process was a pretty long drawn process. After paying the first guy, an engineer came to my place and tried installing SP2 on my machine ignoring the machine alerts saying its upto date with SP3 installed. I lost patience and I had to actually explain him what he was trying to do and what my machine is trying to tell him. He ultimately installed a dialer software and left at that. My real connection came after four days of irritating calls to customer care.

Tikona Wibro actually works in an impressive way. There are no wires coming into my building. There is a tiny antenna kept on the window and connected to a wireless modem. This modem makes my home wifi enabled. I can either connect my comp by an Ethernet cable directly to the modem or anywhere in the house using WiFi. I need to connect using the dialer software and then start browsing. If not you will always land in the login page of Tikona also where you can login and start browsing. The connection is decently fast and is also very economical. According to them mobile phones cant be used coz they dont have a mobile dialer. This is a drawback though.

The dialer thingy doesn't work properly. It shows up junk characters when I try to login and the remember password option doesn't work. I need to login every time and hence need to remember the 10 digit user id. A week after i got the connection sorted out someone from Tikona called me for a survey.

Tikona guy: Do you have any suggestions?

Me: Yes ... ... also the dialer behaves like there is no programming done behind the UI. It shows junk characters, when i click on update it says not possible and most importantly the remember password option doesnt work.

Tikona: Oh sir its for your security.

Me: What you mean?

Tikona: What if someone comes to you place and use your internet without your knowledge?

Me: Boss someone using my comp without my knowledge is a bigger problem which I should figure out. Coz of your wonderful security policy I have to now save the user name and pwd on a notepad and have it on the desktop. Do you think thats secure? Also if you think saving password is not secure why have you given the option in the first place and giving me this ridiculous explanation?

Tikona: Oh sir, I have noted your point sir. We are there for you sir. We will come up some kind of innovation to try to help you sir.

Me: Boss please don't innovate and all that for no reason. Just make the option work. Write some code behind the UI.

Tikona: Yes sir, I'm just customer care guy sir. I will transfer your request to Engineers sir.

Me: Whatever...

Go for Tikona if you think you can handle these "security issues" and "policies". Its OK when you don't have to talk to anyone.

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


In this part I'm just going to touch some points which I thought should be good to mentioned

Address Book

I really like Nokia's Address book as I can put in hell a lot of information into the contact card. But the good thing about the Android Address book is that its synced with my Google contacts and Facebook. But Google contact have has another issue of not being connected to the contact's Google profile and the contact information published there. More on that later. Google and Android contacts also ignore nicknames while searching.


Camera

N900 has the best camera among the three

SMS

All three phones show SMS as conversation. I like how N900 shows the conversations and the the friendly language used. iPhone has a funny talk bubble and a confusing interface and Android has tech language used like "Delete Thread". What thread boss?

I would love to have an option from a contact card to see my text conversation and call history with him/her. I think its pretty easy and possible to do this on Android.

Notifications

I really like the Android notification screen which can be swiped down from the header which lists out all the notifications for me. Very nicely done.

Home screen widgets

iPhone doesn't allow home screen widgets which is a very bad thing. N900 has it but its Nexus which takes the cake here. There are lots of useful home screen widgets in the Android Market which ranges from just switches of many of the mostly used functionalities to snapshots of your Calendar/Facebook etc.

Modal Window

All three phones use modal windows to show contextual menu/keyboard but Nexus has the most unintuitive way of dismissing them. When iPhone and N900 closes modal windows if I tap on the background, Nexus makes me hit the back button to do this. This is bad interaction design.

One hand usage

N900 cant be used with one hand coz of its fixed landscape mode (Utter Fail). One hand usage is a challenge even on Nexus coz of its poor touch response. iPhone scores hands down here :)

iPhone scores on the smallest aspects which others tend to ignore. But I think if Android gives more importance to iron out the small issues it will win in the long run. Android has all the potential to be a Geek's favorite phone.

Phew I think I'm done :)

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

Note: I'm not a tech guy. I know what processors and memory are but as a normal user I have no clue what difference they make. GHz doesn't mean anything to me. I measure internet bandwidth not in Kbps but by the time YouTube takes to buffer video. So this review should be taken in that way. I can only talk about things I can see, touch and feel. Not about things inside the phone. I'm pretty dumb in that sense.

Search

iPhone has the Spotlight search which searches for anything in the phone but as we all know to reach there you need to close all the apps. Its also integrated as a part of the home screen. Of course every iPhone app has its own way of search integrated.

Android phones have a dedicated search button which can be called any time to do a search in the phone or on Google. It also acts like a contextual search when I'm inside an app. Something in the lines of Google desktop search. There is voice search too which is great but its not made to understand my English accent. I'm hoping this will be fixed soon. Ah now a days I've started using gesture search using which i can search by writing directly on to the screen. Its a good temp replacement to voice search.

N900 is not very search oriented.

Winner: iPhone for keeping it simple. Android will be the winner soon when they get the voice search right.

Keyboard

Steve Jobs had said to trust the iPhone keyboard and it would work well. Its so true. If we use the iPhone keyboard without being cautious of making mistakes, it will work well. I don't know what they have done to make it work like that. I can "type" faster on iPhone than on Nexus. However the predictive text on iPhone is not very usable. I wouldn't either care as I'm able to type faster.

Android has thinner keys and trusting the keys do work but not as good as iPhone. Most of the times I hit the wrong keys. But interestingly the text prediction on Android works better and is more usable. Even though I cant "type" well on Android most of the times I don't have to. It gives me enough word suggestions that I just tap on them. This works even when I have typed wrong spelling. This indeed makes up for my inability to hit the right keys on Android. However its safe for Indians to switch off the auto complete feature as the phone may suggest a English dictionary word when we type something in Hinglish or Manglish and you may be add it unknowingly by hitting the space button.

And yeah Nexus (Android 2.1) has voice input; ie I can just talk to the phone and get it typed and don't have to really "type" it. This is phenomenal and is something which I had predicted to happen long back. However as i mentioned earlier it doesn't understand my accent. I do us it to type long numbers though and it works.

N900's predictive text can get onto your nerves. I put it off.

Winner: iPhone & Android. Android will be the only winner the day they get the voice input right.

Multi Tasking

iPhone has no multi tasking

Android applications are encouraged to multi task so that they can refer to other apps for specific functionalities, which is actually the real essence of multi tasking. The back button allows you to navigate back smoothly. Android keeps the last 6 apps always open in the memory and doesn't allow me to close it; may be to facilitate seamless navigation. For some reason I feel little uncomfortable of this funda. Why is it only 6? And why is it not allowing me to close? Also you have to long press the home button to see the open apps; not intuitive.

I really like how N900 handle the UX of multi tasking. There is an open apps view on N900 which shows all the open apps as thumbnails and tapping on them will open the apps. I dont think there is a restrcition in the number of apps which can be kept open. There is a close button on all the thumnails which will close them. However I didn't find any app referring to another app or anything like that. I can just browse when i listen to music. Computer ishtyle.

Winner: Android & N900 for the user experience of switching and closing apps; for making me comfortable.

To be continued

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 2

Part 1

Hardware Buttons

iPhone has the least number of hardware buttons which makes it the most easiest to use. Barring the power button and the adjust volume buttons, there is just ONE home button on the main screen which has just one function. It also makes sure that all the app navigation/options be a part of the app UI which makes it more intuitive for a rookie user.

N900 has the maximum number of hardware buttons considering it has a physical QWERTY keyboard. It also has a lock/unlock slider, power button, and an adjust volume button. As I mentioned earlier I found the keyboard unusable. I was not able to hit the keys on the top row of the board. The lock/unlock and power buttons are misplaced and hence unusable too.

Nexus has the 4 Android hardware buttons which I found as an irritant in the beginning but slowly I got used to it. The Back button makes it easy to navigate between multitasking apps. The Options button allows the apps to tuck in some options and nav elements under it so that the UI can be cleaner but the user may take some time to get used to this kind of navigation. Home button of course to go Home at any point of time; long pressing it will also give the last 6 apps I used. Search button is to search Google or do contextual search. I've got used to them now and it works well for me. Of course on Nexus these buttons' touch areas little out of place. I also found that the sequence of placing these buttons on Android phones are not consistent which is bad. Nexus also has a roller ball navigation like Blackberry which is useful only when I'm fine editing text. But I'm a fan of how iPhone handles this; magnifies the cursor position when I long press on text.

Winner: iPhone

Sound/Voice Quality

The speaker of Nexus is not great to listen to music. But it has noise reduction features to make your voice quality better. I did an telephonic interview amidst a lot of noise and when I apologized the candidate said she could barely hear any noise. But of course I was not able to hear her properly coz of the noise.

iPhone of course has an iPod about which I need not talk about here. But again the speaker is just fine. Voice quality on iPhone is also just decent.

N900 wins hands down here. The stereo speakers are superb. It is indeed a multimedia phone. Voice quality is also good.

Winner: N900

Apps/Store

The iPhone app store as everyone knows has all kinds of interesting apps. Again I don't have to talk about it here.

If you are an iPhone fan you will be disappointed by the kind of apps available in the Android market. Android apps are not necessarily like iPhone apps. Android market does have "iPhone type" apps (which are not as good) to "just services" which run in the background to do specific tasks. If you want to change or add some functionality on to your phone, just search in the market and i'm sure you are going to find it. I've downloaded quite a lot of utilities which are useful. Like the flip and shake service - it runs in the background and allows my phone to go to silent mode when flip it when it rings, shake to make the phone screen change to a flash light. I have another small service called "car mode" when activated will switch on the speaker phone whenever I get a call. Android apps also talk to other apps and share tasks which is a great relief for developers as they can focus on the app's core features. The back button makes sure that you navigate to and back from one app to another smoothly.

I did find a lot of "iPhone style apps" (mostly games) on Ovi store for N900, but they neither are as good as the iPhone apps nor there are Android kind of "services". Of course usual suspects like Facebook and Qik are there everywhere. I did download Firefox for N900 but found the native browser faster.

Winner: iPhone of course but Android is not behind with a completely different set of capabilities.

To be continued

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 1

Again lemme play safe here - I think these phones are not supposed to be compared with each other. They are made for different people. iPhone as you know is iPHONE. A Nokia should be compared to another Nokia or an LG/Samsung with similar capabilities. An Android phone should only be compared with another Android. Said that; recently I had the privilege of using an N900 (Thanks to the nice guys at Nokia Womworld) and the Nexus One (We got it for the design team at work). I have already used an iPhone before so I thought it would be nice to jot down a quick list of points that came to my mind when I used them. Also Nexus is the first Android phone I'm using (I've looked at the Droid and Motorola Cliq previously) so most of the features I'm talking about might be an Android feature and not necessarily a Nexus feature.



WOW Factor

N900 lacks in this dept. There is nothing in the phone which will make you swoon for this phone. The phone looks like a brick and the UI is just a combination of a computer with Nokia's icons with some touch goodness.

iPhone had generated enough wow factor when it was released but later on they just added features into it, not wows.

Whereas Nexus One does have enough scope to make you go WOW. The beautiful hardware, a display that pops, voice input, live wallpaper, the notification panel, Google Skymap and other apps which add on to the oohs and aahs.

Winner: Nexus One

Hardware

N900 loses out completely. Its heavy and clunky. I found it's physical QWERTY keyboard unusable. It has a wrongly placed lock/unlock screen 'hardware slider' and another button when pressed will give a slide to unlock on the screen.... Aaaargh. It has a TV out and a FM transmitter though.

iPhone is the best in this category. Looks hot. It has just one home button. Makes it simple.

Nexus One looks cool and feels good to hold but has no grip. It may easily slip out of your hands. Be careful when you point out your phone to the sky using Google Sky Map. Four hardware buttons and a roller ball makes it look complex. The four hardware buttons have a purpose and it helps a lot once you get used to them, but on Nexus they are not placed well. The touch areas are out of place and they get accidental pressed when I use the phone with one hand.

Winner: iPhone

Screen

All three phones have screens I don't have a crib about. N900 has a resistive touch screen which is very responsive and smooth unlike N97. Has kinetic scrolling, but no flick. Graphics are high end; I really like the way the home screen and menu transitions. Large touch friendly graphics so I dont make mistakes. Only bummer is that the phone is supposed to be used only on landscape mode. It becomes portrait mode only when the phone app opens. Can get really confused.

iPhone has the best responsive screen I've ever used.

However Nexus One has a Mmmuah screen display coz of its high resolution (480 x 800 pixels) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen. You have to see it to understand what I mean by the Mmmuah display. Its that good. But responsiveness is only next to iPhone. Flick scrolling is smoother and better than iPhone. Nexus has multi touch too. Also has long press which simulates the "right click menu" option.

Winner: Again Nexus One. It needs to work on the responsiveness part.

Activation

N900 doesn't need an Activation as such as its not tied in to any online service. But they have Settings all over the place. I got lost at times trying to search for some settings.

iPhone asked me to download iTunes first on my comp and then connect and activate. I dont use iTunes and forcing me to do all that made me really pissed. Think about it, you bought a phone but you need to wait till you download iTunes and then connect to see your phone working. iPhone has the simplest Settings though.

Nexus asked me to login with my google id and tada my contacts, calendar, gmail and everything got synced. Setting up work email was easier with a simple wizard. However work calendar didn't come in which was a bummer. I can get it if I sync my Outlook calendar with Google Calendar; but didnt do it. Nexus has an elaborate Settings screen but quite nicely grouped.

Winner: As a Google fan I will vote for Nexus for making my transition smooth.

To be continued...

Lazy Innovations

On a lazy evening my friend caught me on chat

Friend: Just wondering, have your read 'Ambient Findability'?

Me: Well no. I seldom read books

Friend: :-) Okey actually a friend was asking me about some usability books.

Me: Well, I haven’t read any books on usability. it’s a secret btw. Its not that I don't read at all. I'm an avid reader online. But otherwise I work on a common sense theory.

Friend: Haha :-) guess you don't need any

Me: The only book (if u can call it a book) I have read is ‘Getting Real’

Friend: oh yeah - that’s the only book I bought online

Me: I have bought books online. Just that I didn’t read them. ‘Getting Real’ a friend of mine sent it to me

Friend: Hmmm. I suggested my friend to read 'Dont make me think' - I don’t know any other

Me: I haven’t read it but the title sounds interesting. Something which I say all the time. Recently I read a quote on Twitter saying “Innovation comes from lazy people who try to do things in easier ways”

Friend: Haha true. Actually there is another: “Give the impossible to the laziest. They will find a way out”

Me: Good one. I'm lazy but I dont know if I have done any innovation though :P

Friend: Only problem is sometimes innovation doesn’t come from a problem. It comes from nowhere

Me: Is it? I don’t know. I'm bad at Maths. I can’t remember numbers. Any number. So I find some indigenous way to solve this problem of mine. Simple solutions.

Like I always give the same number of clothes to the laundry. So that I don’t have to remember different numbers every time. The laundry guy is also happy. The number and the money is always the same. No calculations needed :P

Friend: Haha thats cool

I'm an innovator yay :P

The Social Brand Ambassador

The other day I posted a message on Yammer

I think social media ads will work in an entirely new way where we users will become the brand ambassadors. The future wont be CPMs, CPCs and CPLs based on irritating banners.

The reason for me saying this was coz I think the best way of promotion is through word of mouth. No ad on any medium can ever bring in the trust factor which your word of mouth brings in to your network of friends. I have a set of friends who share the same taste of mine in movies. I normally ask them before going for a new movie and I only go if any of them say its a good watch.


Now a days, even before someone asks, I share on Twitter and Facebook that I'm watching this movie and right after the show I say whether I liked it or not. This broadcast of mine is actually helping some friend of mine in my list to decide on whether to watch this movie or not and then pass it on to his friends. The same happens before buying a soap, a car or an apartment.

The day brands wake up to social media they will get to do dirt cheap but effective promotion to a targeted group of people who has more chances of buying their products. Its good for us too as they will not only be forced to sell good quality products but also good after sales service fearing negative comments just like how the good word spread like wild fire. Ref: The Kiruba incident

To make this work, the brands just need to make sure that I tweet about the product; good or bad; just to broadcast which may also start a conversation.

How?

For Online purchases


Obviously by providing a "Tweet this" button

For real world store purchases

1. May be using Blippy. Blippy is a service which reads my credit card transactions in real time and broadcasts it; it can Tweet and post to Facebook too. Brilliant but very controversial idea coz of security and privacy issues. Like my Who's that girl app!!

2. May be when I check in my location using the Google local store QR code, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt. The moment I check in my store presence it tweets. The QR code can also be on the bill so pointing at it can tweet that I have bought something.

3. May be I can have a SocialMedia card, when swiped at the point of sales would tweet my purchase details. The same way I do with my store/brand membership cards. I will have a lot of control over my broadcast this way and its simpler.



Why should I tweet about my purchase?

Coz someone will reward me for doing this. But who? The brand of course or the network depending upon the model. All brands reward their ambassadors but in this case it will be peanuts compared to the money they pay celebrity endorsers.

In the above SocialMedia card model, the brand can give me loyalty points when I swipe my card which I can redeem at my future purchases. This way the brand also makes sure that I come back and use whatever they have given me to again buy things from them.

In the Google QR code check in model Google can pay me per check-in (CPCI). Every check in means that I have visited the store and I have tweeted about it.

What happens after that?

My friends who trust my views, see my tweet/facebook post and strike an opinion about the product which will then influence their purchases.

The brand can now advertise their products on Twitter/Facebook to a highly targeted group of people, in this case my friends, who now are more likely to buy their products. It can also work more like a personalized recommendation engine instead of mindless irritating banners.

Three of your close friends watched 3 Idiots and loved the movie. Book your tickets now!!

We all make money!!

Social media advertising model is good coz everyone gains

1. Me: Get paid or gain reward points for broadcasting my usage/purchase.
2. My friends: Get trust worthy opinions from me before buying something.
3. Twitter/Facebook: Will make money as highly targeted and effective advertising platform.
4. Brands: Spend less money in effective promotion. Make more money by selling more products.

Gyan Droid

Caught hold of my ever busy Android expert friend to clear some doubts

Me: Are you there?

Friend: Hellons

Me: I have a doubt

Friend: Shoot

Me: Say I bought an HTC Magic which runs on Android 1.5. How easy is it for me to upgrade the firmware to Android 2.0 and further?

Friend: You can’t do it on your own. The operator has to push…

Me: Huh can’t I do it like how iPhone does?

Friend: No :(

Me: Grr. So I can’t buy any Android phone and install the latest version on it?

Friend: No.... it’s very tightly coupled to specific hardware for each model.
iPhone is a standard hardware. Oh btw HTC Magic is super buggy.

Me: oh

Friend: However you can upgrade a G1 using a computer as its meant for dev purposes.... other than that the operators push the upgrades… many logistics involved with operators pushing firmware… many apps cant work in further versions.... many games included… so they give time to rebuild for further versions… right now only Motorola Droid has 2.0.

Me: oh

Friend: … and HTC Droid has 1.5, rest of them either 1.1 or 1.0

Me: HTC Droid? What phone is that?

Friend: Droid is Verizon’s Android phones. There are 2 droids. One is the Motorola “Milestone” Droid and the other is HTC “Eris” Droid

Me: Oh

Friend: Verizon is the main competitor of AT&T, so they were looking to somehow pitch against AT&T and iPhone and hence the droid lineup

Me: Makes sense

Me: And they are CDMA phones right

Friend: Yeah!! :) But not many got that point. CDMA came with 1.5

Me: Confusing man. Supposedly there is a GSM Hero and a Sprint Hero

Friend: Yeahh!! The Sense UI

Me: Sense UI is a skin on top of some version of Android. Right?

Friend: Yes

Me: So when the Android version changes, will there be changes to the sense skin?

Friend: Not exactly. May be some bug fixes and some sort of enhancements...

Me: So how does that get updated? ie say I'm using Sprint Hero which has sense UI and Android version 1.5. One day I get a push from Sprint to upgrade to 2.0. When I do that will Sense also gets updated?

Friend: Yups correct

Me: HTC and Sprint work together to make this happen…

Friend: Correct

Me: Basically I cant plug in my phone to a comp to upgrade it. Its always over the air.

Friend: Yeahhh. Except for G1 which is the dev phone

Me: OK got it. So I'm always at mercy of my carrier to get OS updates

Friend: Yeahhh

Me: Is this coz there are many manufacturers, skins, GSM / CDMA complications?

Friend: It is becoz there is no standard hardware for Android

Me: Even Symbian has many hardware right? I can update my phone using Nokia PC suite. Another story that I might lose data :P

Friend: Symbian updates might not be a major phone feature update, its mostly bug fixes. Whereas with each Android release there is something major added feature wise. And the apps on a Symbian device aren’t tightly coupled to the database but on Android even the contact app is tightly coupled. It’s each applications responsibility to back up data and restore it again in the backend every time there is an update, which is handled pretty much by all apps in the phone

Me: Database on the phone or on the cloud?

Friend: Phone

Me: But just for argument sake, what if a CD came with my Sprint Hero pack which has something called Android Manager Software, which has a button to check updates, which will update my phone if available. What can go wrong?

Friend: There are multiple dependencies.... Android is trying to keep everything in the phone itself as there are multiple hardware manufacturers, multiple carriers the only stop n shop solution would the device itself

Me: Oh

Friend: Which makes it convenient for every one, most importantly the user. It removes the need for any other mediator system which is a simple and elegant solution :) What do you think?

Me: Fair enough. Sounds complex but great if it works well. I personally don’t like dependencies; be it operator or PC software. It’s sad that I can’t update my E51 over the air. It’s even sadder if I have to wait for the operator to push the upgrades to me. What if he doesn’t? Or is it the manufacturer who is pushing it using the operator infrastructure? I may not be this worried if I'm in the US but what will be the scene in India?

Friend: Sir can we continue this talk later? I have to catch a bus to Coimbatore.

Me: OK man thanks a lot. Please carry on.

May be I will get the answers next time I get hold of him.