Google’s Android and the promise of a better mobile experience
- 16.11.2007
- Posted by Jonathan Firestone
- No Comment
- Design ,Technology ,User Experience
In the United States, people hate their phones. I know that you know this. But it’s kind of like your phone bill, where you know you’re stuck with whatever has been charged to you, and it’ll be a few years before that mess is over with (or so you tell yourself) so you keep paying.
And paying. And you are feeling more pain as you go.
The pain may soon be a little more tolerable because of Google’s “Android” operating system for phones. Google’s always been about simplicity, ease of use, but with tremendous power under the hood of the car. But Google has found a way to bridge one of the critical gaps in the mobile market.
The critical gaps are overall experience things like:
“I can’t go to another carrier, I’d have to change my phone and lose all the numbers and ringtones I’ve kept on it”
“I can’t expand my phone with cool programs, that kind of behavior is for smart phone junkies.”
“I can’t really show people my phone, it’s ugly as sin. I want to be stylish but…this is a Nextel… whoever heard of a sexy Nextel?”
“I wanted to try out the phone in the store but it’s got plastic innards, I have no idea how it’ll run and work for me until AFTER I bought it, and then I’m stuck for a few years.”
Most of the above statements are factors that cover everything from people wanting style in their lives, they want knowledge and cool tools at their fingertips, and they want portability.
Even the hope provided by the concept of swapping your SIM back and forth between phones is a dream in the US and many carriers don’t even let you swap SIMS between their own phones let alone one sold to you over eBay or Amazon.
Heck, Verizon won’t even give you easy access to the SIM. In many cases a SIM isn’t so much as hidden it’s inaccessible.
Need a solution? So let’s talk environment, not hardware — because if you’re Google, life is all about the software you run it on. Meet ‘Android’ a brand new operating system to build a phone on. Google established the “Open Handset Alliance Project” or OHA with a variety of phone makers (Nokia, LG, Apple, and many more) as well as the phone service carriers that sell the phones. In Google’s words:
“Welcome to the Open Handset Alliance™, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies who have come together to accelerate innovation in mobile and offer consumers a richer, less expensive, and better mobile experience. Together we have developed Android™, the first complete, open, and free mobile platform.”If this environment is seen everywhere and used on most mobile phones, any software made for android can run on any Android phone. This is like using Windows Mobile on a phone, if the phone has windows mobile, you can add new software for it. The software can communicate to the phone (and the phone network, the carrier’s internet connection if you have a data plan, etc) through an API provided by Google. In fact anything can be changed out, replaced, etc. For example, want to change out your dialer? If you don’t like the look of your onscreen dialing keys and sounds, you can easily replace the entire thing. Want a different “home page” for your phone? Just get a new one. What I find especially interesting is the ability to “mash-up” within the phone environment. You can literally combine information from the web with data on the phone. If your phone as GPS capability, we could potentially harness that to alter your dialing directory based on your geographical location, to create a special list of all your nearby friends, and have it available at your fingertips in a dialing directory made available for the purpose of calling your friends for a quick lunch. At any rate, Google has the SDK available right now, and it won’t be long before Android enabled phones will be around to make use of all the cool little applications being developed. I look forward to being able to solve many of the gripes mentioned above (other than changing my mobile provider) once this project really gets rolling. It’ll work because it’s about the software, not the hardware (which we’ll never be able to 100% agree on as far as everyone getting the same type of hardware anyway ;D) . One of the best things about it — if I call my friend asking her to look at over something I just developed, they’ll be able to look at it too, and have a similar experience. Thanks to Google. Things are just getting started. It’s gonna be a blast.
