What I think should be open on mobile!

Apurva's (@unitechy) write up on Closed and Open systems on mobile on Mobile Knots, made me think what open on mobile really means? Or what it should be. At least for me.

1. Open as in anyone can do anything with it?

No. I dont like device manufacturers changing the UX of Android and hence not able to provide updates when Google has it ready. Simply no one should meddle up with the basic OS. However allow OEMs to innovate on hardware.

Android is on the wrong path here.

2. Closed like the big brother types?

No. May be Apple is right in saying no to apps that dont make them happy. But I dont think we need more of Apples. Let there be apps that can deeply be integrated into the OS to bring in new functionalities and no restriction on that. Let it be the user's choice to go for them or not. Let there be an app for every need of a user from a phone. Let them change the home screen. Let them change the icon themes. Let HTC offer their superb weather widget in the Market and not force on their (non)Sense UI on to their devices. Let the app intercept a call or the dialler to fix a "facebook sync" issue.

Android is on the right path here.

3. Open to competition?

Yes. Apple is all about design and I can understand they saying no to any app that will make their phone look or perceived bad. I also like the "App store" approach of selling apps. But I dont agree they say they wont allow Amazon kindle app to have books bought out of the iTunes ecosystem. I dont agree when they reject Google voice saying the functionality is very similar to their dialer app. I like Amazon App Store.

Android is right here too. Its open to competition.

Samsung Google Nexus S after 3 months

As Google Nexus S is coming to India by April first week, I thought i will post my views on the phone after using it for 3 months.

The Good

1. The contoured SAMOLED display which gives the screen a deep contrast and a slight magnified effect. I have made my screen bg color as black and the effect is superb. You cant really make out the edge of the screen and the bezel. I love it.
   
   PS: The version which is coming to India is a Super LCD version. Not sure how that will look like.
2. Gingerbread is fast. Its definitely faster than any android phone I have used.
3. Touch sensitiveness is superb. I think its better than iPhone, especially the feel on the finger. Its smoother than the hard glass feel of iPhone 4.
4. The overall feel of the hardware is better than iPhone 4. I like the plastic feel as it give more grip than Nexus One. Also the black plastic color goes very well with the deep black screen i talked about previously.
5. Battery is better. Lasts for a day with heavy internet usage. I think its a Gingerbread feature. PS: I also know that Gingerbread is giving battery problems on Nexus One.
6. Its very light in weight

The Bad

1. The irritating random restart problem during a call. I still haven't got the 2.3.3 patch which will apparently fix this issue
2. Its very bad at picking wifi signals. At home when my laptop shows full strength, Nexus S shows just 1 bar and keeps dropping.
3. Sometimes it just doesn't show internet connectivity. I have to restart the phone to get it working. But then its twice or thrice in a month. But irritating indeed.
4. For some reason the memory space allocated for installing apps is very limited. I have only 156mb of internal memory used but I'm almost at the max level. Last time Angry Birds had an update, I had to uninstall some of the apps to get it installed properly. #Fail
5. Other small software issues which I hope will get fixed by software updates. eg Camera's flash doesnt get switched on, No unicode support on browser etc.

The bads are seriously bad but I have learnt work arounds to solve some of the connectivity issues.

Will I recommend buying this phone? Well as of now... I dont know. If they fix the bads, then definitely YES.

Why I think iPad is better than Android Tablets

To start with lets recap the smartphone use case.

• You are on the road looking for some place, you pull out your phone to search for it on the map and find how to get there.
• During an ad hoc heated conversation in the cafeteria, you quickly search for the thing you are arguing about on wikipedia and prove your point.
• You want to send out an email on the move and its impossible to type as you have lot of thing in hand, you speak into the phone and it types for you and send the mail.
See a potential news material on the road, you take a pic, put a quote on it and upload to CNN/Twitter
• Book a movie ticket as part of you last minute plan
• Catch up with the latest news when waiting in traffic signal
• Pay shopping bills
• Reminder for important meetings and events
• Your friend seems to be lost his way and needs to get to you and you share your location with him
• Get offers when you are at some mall
• You are visiting some new place and wants to know more about it; you point your phone's camera to it and you get all the details
• You want to do some quick office work when you are in a cinema, and its all synced on your phone and ready to work with
• Facebook, Twitter, Email, Chat and Games on the go

In the above use cases, the most popular would be the last one. All the other ones are perfectly valid but will be mostly used by a geek. A geek's need of a smartphone is to help him in all possible ways when he is on the road. Anything less is not going excite him. A real smartphone is the for the geek and his needs. And most of the time a user who uses his smartphone on the road will be in his geek self. At the end of the day its the availability, features, reliability and price that matter the most than the eye candy aspect of it for a geek. And thats why i believe Android is a better smartphone than Apple iPhone. Android has its shortcomings now, but i will come to that a bit later.

Tablets are for relaxed mobility. Its not in your pocket but in your bag. Its for your living room couch, hotel bed, airport lounge, on air/train use cases. In this use case you are far from your geek self. You will be reading books, watching movies, playing games, catching up with yours friends on Facebook, browse some web etc. iPad is the device for this use case. No you are not going to walk on road with a tablet.

Apple already has your media requirements basics in place by iTunes, Airplay, Home Sharing, Apple TV, an ecosystem of Apple compatible music docks and other services and it will only grow. Soon it will all talk through the cloud too. Not to forget its book store and reader app. Google is also trying to get there but has nothing in place yet and i think they have a long way to get there.

Also Android has a lot of problems which I can forgive when i'm in my geek self. I understand road maps, features, bugs, priorities and frustrating QA cycles when i'm in my geek self. But not when i'm in my relaxed self. Apple products also have shortcomings but at any given point of time their product versions look complete and polished. Also they have a lot of basic stuff working well.

I rest my case!