The Phone Wars: Google vs Apple

Unless you have been living under a rock lately you know about the fight going on between Google and Apple.  This fight had been escalating for a bit now.  In my opinion here is how the fight is going:

Apple: blocked the Google Voice app from the iPhone. If it was at AT&T request is not the point they still did it and there are jailbroken phones that could of used it off of AT&T.  

Google: Launched the Nexus One even though it obviously was in development for a bit Apple's punch came first

Apple:  Mr Crapple (aka Steve Jobs) trashed Google at the Apple all employee meeting

Google: Turned on mutlitouch in Google apps on the Nexus One

Handicaps:  

        Apple: AT&T's network is being severely strained by data users.  To make matters worse for AT&T, they approved the SlingPlayer app for use over their 3G network.  I see data usage going up even more now.  More dropped calls on the iPhone now.

       Google:  the Android Market & app storage.  The interface is not great and there is no real good way to browse the market on the web. The App store may have more apps but that means more junk as well.  Developers are slowly moving apps to Android from the iPhone.  Google is working on Apps2sd as a default to make more memory for app storage, but currently storage is an issue.

Current state of the fight:  Google ahead.  The Nexus One running it's current enhancements is a stronger phone than the iPhone.  Once Google gets apps2sd running and the market in good shape the iPhone is in serious trouble, but we will just have to wait and see who lands the next punch and what it brings.  

Smartphones - Cellphones or Computers

I am getting really sick and tired of all this ROM crap in the smartphone world.  Today's smartphones are basically small computers with a phone program running on them.  Manufacturers, carriers and developers need to start treating them like a computer.

For example, you go into a store and buy a computer.  It has a designated OS on it (most likely Windows or Mac).  You can put what ever future OS on it you want as long as it meets the minimum hardware requirements for the new OS.  All of your old programs still work(for the most part) because the new OS is backwards compatible.

Now onto what to do with the smartphones.  Manufactures build a phone with a specific set of hardware.  This hardware may or may not support different OSs.  If it can support multiple OSs they will probably choose to market just one.  They send the phone to the carrier with the carriers apps preinstalled and ready for the end user.  When an upgraded OS comes out the customer will have a couple of choices to get the new OS.  1) purchase a new phone from a carrier or 2) purchase and/or download the new OS (free in terms of Android, paid for WinMo.  The carrier can keep a set of apps on their website hidden behind a customer login for the customer who has upgraded to get the carrier apps to reinstall.

Doing this will stop all of the bullshit going on right now with people waiting to get the latest releases and people hacking phones to get an OS to put on another phone.  This will free up developers to write some more kick ass apps instead of trying to hack the OS.

This will really put the carriers on equal footing in terms of hardware and really make them compete on their network.

iPhone Users Suffer From Stockholm Syndrome and Sprint Fails

There are fanboys and then there are iPhone users.  This is probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of.  According to Strand Consult iPhone users suffer from Stockholm Syndrome because they constantly defend the problems with both the iPhone and AT&Ts network  (http://www.9to5mac.com).  Speaking of AT&T, their network problems just got worse.  According to reports it looks like most of San Fransisco's AT&T customers were without service today. (The fake) Steve Jobs calls (kind of) Randall Stephenson of AT&T and lets him know what he thinks of how AT&T is handling their network issues for their world ruling iPhone.  You were a little brutal there Steve, but right on point (http://www.fakesteve.net).

In somewhat better news Sprint and HTC officially announced that the Hero was getting upgraded to Android 2.0.  This kind of sucks.  First they don't agree as to when the update is coming out.  HTC says early 2010 and Sprint says roughly the first half of 2010.  Roughly to me means maybe July or August.  And the whole 2.0 thing sucks as well.  2.1 is already out on the Hero in Europe and by the time the Hero gets 2.0 here in the US 2.5 will probably be out already.

Everyone fails today.  Let's try for more tomorrow.

at&t Fails Again

Everyone knows that at&t's network sucks.  Now they have admitted just how bad they are. Instead of investing back into their network they are hording the money and telling people to stop using their iPhones smartphones.  So, what happens if  you do use your smartphone to surf the internet, check-in on Foursquare, or watch YouTube videos?  Your bill will probably go up.  Looks like they want to beat Verizon in one more category - who has the highest priced plans.
 The president for mobility and consumer markets at at&t said that the company is considering a "pricing scheme that addresses useage".  Hmm, sounds like their "unlimited plan" isn't so unlimited after all.
So if you are at&t how do you fix your network?  Easy raise your plan prices for non-voice use so high that people will only use it for voice, thus eliminating most of your network traffic and dropped calls at the same time.[NY Times]