Rubénerd!

From Skype's The Big Blog. I've seen bigger.

Skype for Windows 8 is almost here and we are incredibly excited by this important new version of Skype. This is our big step forward together with Microsoft to introduce a completely new Skype experience, which is designed to be always on, immersive, effortless and fun to use.

To be fair, there are things in Windows 8 you can't do on other platforms, just as there are things in iOS you can't do on Windows 8. Still, prioritising one platform for a multi-platform client is what we feared when Microsoft bought Skype.

I used the word platform four times in this post. Please mind the gap.

Reading Mozilla's announcement of their new mobile OS had me quivering in my seat with excitement! Don't read to far into that.

Finally, an HTML5 phone?

From the official Mozilla blog yesterday:

Industry support is growing behind Mozilla’s plans to launch a new fully open mobile ecosystem based on HTML5. The operating system, which Mozilla today confirmed will use its Firefox brand, will power the launch of smartphones built entirely to open Web standards, where all of the device’s capabilities can be developed as HTML5 applications.

According to the post, Mozilla have signed up support with manufacturers, and a dozen or so global carriers. The part I was most interested in:

Device manufacturers TCL Communication Technology (under the Alcatel One Touch brand) and ZTE today announced their intentions to manufacture the first devices to feature the new Firefox OS, using Snapdragon™ processors from Qualcomm Incorporated, the leader in smartphone platforms. The first Firefox OS powered devices are expected to launch commercially in Brazil in early 2013.

Terms like "announce" and "expected to" trigger my vapourwear fear engine, but if these folks are serious and deliver something, I'll be onto it faster than a gecko sticking to a wall.

I can has sync?

I've been using Firefox since the Phoenix days, the Mozilla Application Suite before that, and Netscape before that. My pseudo-netbook ThinkPad runs SeaMonkey with my browser (which is the UI to my university note taking wiki), RSS feeds, email, newsgroups, SQLite interface, Sunbird calendar, contacts and tasks. I've run Thunderbird and Camino.

I've often joked on Twitter that SeaMonkey and Firefox are my OS, and that my Linux, BSD and Mac boxes largely exist just to support them running! If I could have this stack on a phone and have it sync reliably (something I can't do with Mozilla stuff and my iPhone without going through Google first, which I'd rather not), I would serve the developers in... unspeakable ways. By which I mean make tea.

Some other considerations

Originally, Android was sold as such a device. We were told HTML5 would be powering Android devices, and that native apps were just a stop-gap measure to compete with iOS. 5 years on, it doesn't seem like native apps will be going anywhere any time soon. It's perhaps a little ironic that it took Mozilla to deliver an HTML5 based mobile platform, rather than one being released by arguably the most influential internet-based company!

Speaking of Google, it's also no secret that Mozilla derives much of its funding from its partnership from Google for search. This phone could allow for some desperately needed income diversification, if it comes to pass.

And finally, the mockup picture of the phone had it in orange and red to match the Firefox logo. I'd go for a purple phone first, but something other than black, white or dark blue would be fabulous! :D

That has to be the worst graphic I've ever thrown together. It was lots of fun! :D

Gingerbreadedness

From the review of the Orange San Diego by Mat Smith on Engadget:

The first generation of Intel-powered Android phones has arrived, and while the chip maker doesn't appear to be claiming that its initial efforts are world-beaters, we've been promised a chipset that prioritizes what people want most: capable web browsing, strong camera performance and robust battery life.

Contrary to what Eric Schmidt promised us, and in line with most handsets, it doesn't currently run the latest version of Android. Don't worry, the carrier will provide an update though! Uh huh ;).

The San Diego runs on Android Gingerbread. We've been told that Ice Cream Sandwich can already run on this hardware, but it still won't be seen on these devices until Q4.

And if I may make one more friendly dig at Android, since when have you read a review about an iOS device that also includes this?

It's difficult to describe what's been done to stock Android. For every change Orange made, some parts were left completely unaffected -- like an increasingly rare stock version of the app drawer. We were able to scrape back most of what Orange had wrought -- aside from the dated orange app icons.

So why is a fairly generic, outdated Android device with carrier cruft interesting?

I like chips

The chip dominating the mobile world at the moment is ARM. Compared to the infinitely more complex x86 platform, ARM chips are smaller, draw less power, and have the added benefit of sounding like a limb.

Intel has been trying to make inroads into the mobile market, first with their Atom CPUs to keep ARM off netbooks. They've largely been successful, or at least as successful as one can be in the limited, bottom-of-the-barrel notebook market.

Phones are another story entirely though; every day we read articles about how more and more people are eschewing their computers for phones to browse the net, and an increasing number are being introduced to the net with phones. There's every reason to believe phones will be the number 1 platform for accessing the net in the coming years, if it isn't already.

Intel wants a piece of the action, and this may be their first, low key demonstration of that intention.

To me though, they face two challenges:

1. The architecture itself has so much more baggage attached to it than ARM, they'll always have a competitive disadvantage. Intel have the benefit of extraordinary R&D facilities and funds, but they're ultimately competing with an architecture that's fundamentally simpler and more energy efficient.

2. Whereas Windows on x86 ensured a constant demand for their chips, mobile OSs like Android have largely been built to be platform agnostic. In this way, Intel don't have the guaranteed market in the mobile space they had on the desktop. To be fair though, this cross-platform nature could also work in their favour if the Intel platform is able to surpass ARM.

What's fascinating to me is the news that AMD has licenced certain ARM components, which suggests their lead competitors are going in the opposite direction.

With photos from my bedroom in Malaysia in 2006; only photos I could find of my old 7280 on such short notice!

BlackBerry go Boom

The retirement of the dual CEOs from BlackBerry have the tech world all a dither. The current meme on Twitter seems to be how RIM is just as irrelevent as Kodak. Seems less brilliant and insightful after you've read the same thing several trillion times.

Given the ridiculous amount of coverage from all across the tubes, I could have my pick of news outlets. So I did. From Ryan Kim over at GigaOm, my favourite tech journalism outfit and currently one of the few I can stand reading:

Research in Motion, scrambling to keep up in a smartphone market it once led, has announced it has replaced co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie with Thorsten Heins, the current chief operating officer. Laziridis, who founded the company in 1984, will serve as vice chairman of the board of directors, while Balsillie, who joined in 1992, will stay on as a director. Both also served as co-chairmen but they will be replaced by director Barbara Stymiest, a board member since 2007, who will now serve as the independent Board Chair.

In a nutshell, while everyone is talking about the retirement of the co-CEOs, they're not going anywhere. Sounds far less revolutionary when one actually reads the news stories instead of just retweeting them.

Back down to Earth, please

BlackBerries have the reputation (undeserved in my opinion) as business phones that people only begrugingly use. I had a BlackBerry in 2006, and it was by choice!

I'd suspended my uni studies for family reasons, and had joined the family back in Malaysia. Low and behold, on a trip back to Singapore, in Sim Lim Square a merchant was selling a GSM BlackBerry 7280 for peanuts. I'd had a Windows CE device, a Palm Tungsten W, but never a BlackBerry and decided on a whim to try it out. I popped in my regular Maxis SIM card which I'd had activated with a data plan. I never used the BlackBerry Messaging system or whatever it is you're supposed to do, I just used it as a phone with a QWERTY keyboard.

Even in this more restricted capacity, it was one of the best phones I'd ever had. Initially I missed having a touch screen, but I quickly realised I was just as quick navigating the screen with the scroll wheel and clicking to select than I ever was tapping a screen. Within a few weeks, I was faster. I reckon if I timed myself from the home screen to sending a message on my iPhone and on my old BlackBerry, I'd be faster on the latter!

BlackBerry Vista

As a temporary customer I know little about of their current devices save for their tech specs and a few minutes of playing with them at my local Optus store. What I theorise however is BlackBerry fell into the same trap as Microsoft. The BlackBerry was great at sending email and SMSs and generally getting out of your way, but they developed envy for another platform and broadly attempted to clone it. The result was a mess that compromised on the strengths they had before, while not becoming the device they'd copied either.

I hope the new executives (of whom the former CEOs make up a part) can figure out a way to bring BlackBerrys back to their roots. The rest of the tech world has already put them out to sea, but they still have tremendous reach in the business world and I still know enough CrackBerry users who wouldn't trade their devices for anything. Frankly, if BlackBerries had Foursquare, Twitter and a solid Sudoku game I wouldn't mind having one still!

I'm cautiosly optimistic there's room for a comeback.

Notes

Yes, that's the same MacBook Pro I still use as my primary mobile workhorse now. MacTheKnife has been a real trooper :').

“Our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community,” Android head honcho Andy Rubin said in a statement. ~ Wired

Not content with just copying the iPhone UI, now Google is trying their hand at generating their own reality distortion field. It's open, darn it!

Fortunately there are still enough people willing to rush to their defence. ;)

The manufacturer of my second mobile phone in primary school being bought by my third search engine. Pardon the French, what a mindf*ck!

Legal mumbo jumbo

With the acquisition of Motorola Mobility -- the company that was spun off from Motorola because spinoffs are always as successful as they are on television -- Google has now officially entered the mobile hardware game.

Of course, with all the marketing hype swept to the side, we know why Google did this: for the patents. Clearly still smarting from declining a share of the Nortel patent portfolio then complaining about it in a rather sorry way, they're now out on the offensive. If you want to sue them for the patents they're violating, they can sue you back!

For a blog of nerdish interests I've talked for far too long about legal nonsense for a while now though, so instead I'd rather talk about the tech itself.

Talking about the tech itself

As I said above, this acquisition (I always though that'd be a great name for a ship) is Google's first move into the hardware business for their handsets. While it may be a further step backwards in their alleged openness, it seems like it was a logical business decision.

In response to the fragmentation and mixed user interface experiences their hardware partners were deploying in order to differentiate their products from every other Android device, Google entered the game with Google branded phones. These reference implementations, dubbed the Microsoft Signature Experience, allowed Google to claim handset makers were free to implement Android however they saw fit, but that there was a Right Way To Do It.™ Namely, that they should use Android exactly as is.

With a hardware division under their wing now, it seems entirely possible Google will develop their own vertically integrated device.

While the likes of HTC are welcoming the move officially, you've got to think their rhetoric about protection from patents will soon be overshadowed by fear. I mean, as a consumer why would you get a Google phone from someone other than Google, particularly given Google develops most of Android in house in an Eric S. Raymond Cathedral and has access to large swaths of closed Android source code they can use to their competitive advantage.

Needless to say, very interesting developments. And feel free to call them Motoroogle too; I just came up with it in my head but I'm sure I haven't been the first to.

From Engadget. Not to harp on about Mr Ballmer, but his enthusiasm for his new Windows Phone devices seems... muted? Is he frustrated that his marketing department have embarrassingly started naming his mobile OSs after food as well?

Presumably there's a button on the devices to fix that. See what I did there?

All you need to know. Or you can read my vented frustrations!

Comprehensive broken keyboard insurance!

This Victorian number (03 9945 7300 in local Aussie number reference) has called my handphone once or twice a day for just shy of a month now. Granted they're more considerate than other marketers, at least they don't call during dinner or in the wee hours of the morning like I used to get on my old Aussie number. It's still unwanted though!

Doing a quick Google search returned these results. When I read the number is allegedly from telemarketers working for Insurance Line, I wasn't surprised. The bane of morning TV with their painfully scripted "infomercials" I've had to sit through while in offices or cafés that play TV, Insurance Line are the exploiters of more individual fears that I've ever seen from an insurer. Cancer insurance? *contains rage*.

Needless to say, their insidious telemarketing will insure (see what I did there?) that even if I were considering them for insurance before, I wouldn't now. I suppose companies that indulge in this behaviour can justify it financially otherwise they wouldn't do it, but next time they call, I'll answer in silence. If they want to call me, they can waste their money.

The Trace is The Race

Aside from the frustration this number is causing me, what I'd like to know is how they got my number in the first place. The only organisations I [knowingly] gave my number to are DBS/POSB, NUS and SingTel in Singapore, and Westpac and UTS in Australia. I've never entered "contests" (aka: marketing gathering exercises) nor have I ever called a "premium" number with it. I'm on the Australian Do Not Call list. The Bird is The Word.

I tell you what, I love my iTelephone, but a webOS or Android phone with third party software to block certain numbers sounds awfully appealing right now. Optus won't let me block numbers.

After all my recent tweets on Optus's patchy service in Earlwood, it was interesting to see the Sydney Morning Herald's report on mobile phone data speeds around Sydney. I can confirm... some of it!

Hope the song was tasteful

The study tested the average time it takes for different phone networks to deliver a "three minute, three megabyte" song in various locations around Sydney. They "used iPhone 4 handsets provided by each of the networks for its research, and conducted multiple tests at each location."

The Sydney Morning Herald online editorial staff didn't deem it necessary to transcribe the tabular data from the crudely uploaded image in their article, but I spent five seconds putting it through my OCR software and came up with this:

Location	Telstra	Optus	Vodafone	3
Sydney CBD	9	8	21	23
North Sydney	6	13	13	48
Manly	6	4	10	55
Artamon	9	8	10	85
Epping	6	22	22	54
Parramatta	16	13	35	24
Baulkham Hills	29	15	22	57
Blacktown	6	90	8	111
Penrith	6	20	22	59
Liverpool	27	176	7	139
Bankstown	22	5	32	240
Ashfield	4	5	n/a	199
Newtown	5	24	19	164
Randwick	5	7	16	127

As an Optus customer, I can personally vouch for its above average rankings in the CBD. As long as I don't stray too far from the centre of Sydney, I get full 2G reception on my Palm Centro, full 3G reception on my iPhone 4 and surprisingly zippy data speeds even when the latter is being used as a tethered modem.

Unfortunately, this table also serves to demonstrate how spotty their coverage can be even just a few dozen kilometres from the centre of the largest city in Australia. For someone who's used to being in Singapore where I can get a full 3G signal in a lift shaft, this is quite jarring!

Jarring? I thought they used Pringles cantennas

Get it... jarring? Cans? Jars? See, not only was that joke terrible in its own right, but that photo I included above depicts Pringles cans that are of insufficient length (that's what SHE said) to create a long range cantenna, rendering my joke even less entertaining. But I digress.

Case in point with regards to spotty Pringles, I mean coverage: our suburb of Earlwood. Despite the surrounding Kingsgrove and Bardwell Park areas getting fairly average coverage, 3G data speeds are painfully slow, dropped calls are a regular occurrence, and at times both my Centro and iPhone 4 find it difficult to even locate a network signal!

A spokewomen for Optus who goes by the name of Simone Bergholcs was upbeat about the findings from this survey:

"Our overall network investment positions Optus as the only carrier capable of challenging the incumbent telco's network on both coverage and speed," a spokeswoman [for Optus], Simone Bergholcs, said.

I already said her name was Simone Bergholics, geez.

I would encourage her company to look at the study as as proof that while they're in an enviable position compared to their competition, they still have a lot of work to do! Australia's internet and phone networks are pretty poor compared to much of the developed (and even some of the developing) world, so its not as if saying you're better or as good as... crap... doesn't magically make you good. It makes you comparatively good. Like a boss. Or a can of Pringles.

I hope their SingTel masters use some of the profits they're generating to improve their subsidiary's network. Just saying!

On an unrelated note, I'm hungry.

I completely missed this story, but Google has decided to stop selling the Nexus One. For all my talk of the iPhone and how my 3G model still does everything I want it to, I'm sad to see Google pull out of the race as a direct competitor.

The main problems Android has to face

I could launch into why I think the Nexus One's departure will make it tougher for other Android device makers, but first some background. Follow my rambling late night coffee induced thought train, if you will.

The first problem I saw for Android was the same Microsoft faced on the desktop with Windows; instead of having direct influence Google had to rely on third parties to make hardware good enough to show off the features of their operating system. It's a built in, imperfect bottleneck in stark contrast to Apple that has hardware and software engineers working in tandem, antennas not withstanding ;).

The other problem is the needs of Android's hardware vendors and users contradict each other. Users want a cohesive platform that's predictable across all vendors, but vendors want -- nay, need -- to differentiate their products so said users will buy their devices over others. Microsoft is in the same boat. Apple and RIM aren't.

Where Google had an opportunity

This is where I thought Google had a real advantage and opportunity to create a "benchmark" Android device, if you will. It would have had the base features all Android phones would share, then third party offerings could have differentiated themselves with their extra features while still providing basic functionality that everyone would have had in common. The Nexus One was a tangible alternative to having a base list of features written on paper that average people don't care about.

At least, that was my theory! Google is really good at efficiently disseminating and delivering information, but clearly they have a lot to learn still about selling directly to consumers.

I hope they've learned something from this exercise, and have gained a sense of humbleness for when next time they feel the urge to pooh pooh the efforts of their competitors like Apple at the risk of damaging lucrative partnerships with them. iPhone users represent a gigantic market for Google advertising and services.

It obviously isn't as easy to sell a phone as they thought. Arrington learned that about tablets too.

Pointless trivia

• The first time I mentioned the Nexus One here was in January 2010.
• I thought the Nexus One was the prettiest Android device made before or since.
• This is a bulleted list. Makes me sound dangerous.
• Sites like WordPress and many others that showcased their Android support with a picture of a Nexus One may need to find alternatives.