Google’s new G1 phone announced today is the first real competitor to the iPhone. Like Apple’s product, it’s a serious handheld computer with a powerful new operating system (called Android) and a clever touch-based user interface. Like the iPhone, it’s likely to be a major new platform for third-party software. But it’s also very different, and may appeal to different buyers.
The phone, expected to be the first of many to use the Android operating system, was largely designed by Google, and was built by HTC of Taiwan. It will be sold in the U.S. starting next month by T-Mobile, for $179.99 with a two-year contract.
Here are some first impressions of the G1, based on some experience with a prototype. This isn’t a full review; that will come later, when I’ve had a chance to use a more finished device.
Most importantly, the G1 complements its touch screen with a physical keyboard, the lack of which has made the iPhone a non-starter for some users. The G1’s keyboard is revealed when you slide open its screen. The keys are a bit flat, and you have to reach your right thumb around a bulging portion of the phone’s body to type, but it’s a real keyboard. And there’s also a BlackBerry-like trackball that supplements the touch screen navigation. I found typing on this keyboard to be OK, but not great.
A second big feature, or limitation, of the G1 — depending on your point of view — is that it is tightly tied to Google’s web-based email, contacts and calendar programs. In fact, you must have a Google account to use the phone, and can only synchronize the phone’s calendar and address book with Google online services. Unlike the iPhone, it doesn’t work with Microsoft Exchange, and it can’t physically be synced with a PC-based calendar or contacts program, like Microsoft Outlook.
So, if your world already revolves around Google services, you may find that the G1 fits like a glove. If not, you may be disappointed.
Also, like the iPhone, the G1 has a download service for third-party programs, called Market. I downloaded a couple of simple Market programs and they worked fine.
The G1 won’t win any beauty contests with its Apple rival. It’s stubby and chunky, nearly 30% thicker and almost 20% heavier than the iPhone. It’s a bit narrower — more like a standard phone than a “smart phone” — and longer, but has a somewhat smaller screen.
Still, it feels pretty good in the hand when closed, although I found it more awkward when opened.
But the software is slick. Programs appear in a virtual drawer you slide open via a tab at the bottom of the screen, and notifications of new messages and the like can be read by sliding the top bar of the screen down. The screen and software were quick and responsive.
The web browser is based on the same open-source technology as the iPhone’s, but works differently. You can view a portion of a page, and use a zoom control and finger-dragging to see the rest, or you can view the whole page in miniature, as on the iPhone. In the latter mode, however, you can’t simply use Apple’s technique of tapping or “pinching” to zoom in on a portion of a page. You must move around a virtual lens to pick out a part of the page on which to focus.
There are two email programs: one for Google’s Gmail, another for all other email services. There’s an instant messaging program, that works with multiple services — not just Google’s. And, as on the iPhone, there are programs for using Google Maps and Google’s YouTube video service. The G1’s Google Maps program has a feature lacking in the iPhone version: photographic street views of some locations.
The G1 has a couple of other things the iPhone omits: copy and paste functionality and a so-called MMS program, which sends photos to other phones without using email. Its camera is higher-resolution than the iPhone’s, but, like Apple’s, doesn’t record video.
It also gives you far more flexibility in organizing your desktop, or home screen, than the iPhone, or almost any phone I’ve seen. In addition to placing icons for programs there, you can everything from individual contacts, music playlists, folders, web pages, and more.
The G1’s multimedia capabilities are less polished and complete than the iPhone’s. There’s a very basic music player, and a built-in version of Amazon’s MP3 download service that works fine. But the G1 lacks a built-in video player — you have to download one from the third-party software store. Also, you cannot use standard stereo headphones with the G1. You need special ones, or an adapter.
And it lacks the iPhone’s ability to change the orientation of a web page or photo by just turning the phone. You also can’t move through groups of photos by just “flicking,” as on the iPhone.
The G1 also has much less memory than the iPhone. The base $199 iPhone comes with 8 gigabytes sealed in, but the G1 comes with just a 1 gigabyte memory card. Its maximum memory, if you buy a bigger card, is 8 gigabytes, while the iPhone can be purchased (for $299) with twice that.
T-Mobile is claiming similar talk time to that of the iPhone, but, unlike Apple’s product, the G1 has a removable battery.
Finally, a word about networks. In the U.S., the G1 will initially only be available on T-Mobile, whose high-speed 3G network will be up and running in many fewer cities than those of its larger rivals, AT&T and Verizon. Like the iPhone, the G1 does have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.
In sum, the G1 a powerful, versatile device which will offer users a real alternative in the new handheld computing category the iPhone has occupied alone.
Written by Walt Mossberg on September 23rd, 2008 with no comments.
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Now there’s a cool new way to follow the 2008 Presidential election anywhere you go. Today I discovered a rich, data-packed app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that displays updated polling data, both nationally and state-by-state, for the presidential campaign. It’s called Election ‘08, and can be downloaded here. It’s free, and it requires at least the 2.0 version of the iPhone/Touch OS.
This iPhone app lets you track the campaign anywhere you go.
Election ‘08 contains the latest national tracking polls, and performs an algorithmic calculation of who’s winning currently in each state based on multiple available polls in that state. Then, it generates an electoral vote projection. It also gives the sources of the polls, and provides recent and historical data for context.
Some iTunes commenters complained that the app’s polling data was stale, but today, it seems up to date.
The program, from a company called Chimp Software, lets you view the data in a variety of ways — most recent data, alphabetical by state, battleground states only, or in lists arranged by each candidate’s strongest states, in descending order (McCain is cleaning up in Utah, Obama is uncatchable in DC.)
If you care about politics, and understand that polls aren’t perfect, Election ‘08 can put a snapshot of the political horse race in your pocket.
Written by Walt Mossberg on September 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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Only a month or so after Apple announced its MacBook Air laptop, which it calls the world’s thinnest laptop, Lenovo is about to spring its own super-skinny machine: the ThinkPad X300. Here’s a sneak peek. My full review will appear after I have fully tested this unusual new laptop, which I expect to be of great interest to road warriors.
Like the MacBook Air, this is a rare small laptop that is built around a full 13-inch-wide screen display and a full keyboard, rather than the little screens and cramped keyboards common in subnotebooks. And, like the Air, it offers a fast, rugged solid-state drive instead of a hard disk.
But, unlike the Apple, Lenovo’s new skinny ThinkPad comes with a hefty complement of ports and features, some of the very things critics complained Apple left out. It has a built-in DVD drive, removable battery, three USB ports, and a wired Ethernet networking jack. Inside, in addition to Wi-Fi, it can be ordered with a built-in cellphone modem and even GPS. It comes with either Windows Vista or Windows XP.
Sporting the traditional ThinkPad black slab design, the X300 isn’t as skinny or sexy as the Apple, but it’s still very slender and attractive, at under an inch thick. Also, unlike the Apple, most of the ThinkPad’s configurations are a bit heavier than the 3-pound weight that traditionally denotes a subnotebook. But it still feels very light to carry around, at 3.12 pounds with the standard battery and DVD drive.
The biggest downsides to the new ThinkPad X300 are price and limited storage capacity. Unlike the Apple, which can be ordered with a higher-capacity, lower-priced hard disk, the new ThinkPad will only be available with the expensive, limited capacity solid-state drive. So it will start at between $2,500 and $2,800–up to $1,000 more than the Apple’s base price–and will be limited to a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage.
Written by Walt Mossberg on February 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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OK, so this isn’t my usual tech review or rant. As it is the holiday season, and I find myself in Israel, I thought I’d post a few optimistic words about Peace on Earth–real peace in our time, evidenced every day, among Muslims and Jews.
I came here to speak at a tech/business conference sponsored by the Israeli financial newspaper, Globes. And then my wife and I stayed for a week or so to be tourists–the first time we’ve been here since 1975. Anyone in the high-tech business knows that Israel is a beehive of digital and Web start-ups, and I met with some of them. But that wasn’t the most interesting experience I have had here. The most interesting experience came nearly a week later, when we simply strolled across the Israel-Jordan border (pictured below) to do some touring, and then strolled back that same evening. Every soldier and policeman and border official on both sides was polite, smiling and efficient. It was no more stressful or dangerous than going from the U.S. to Canada and back.
The last time we were here, these two countries were at war, and had been for decades. It would have been ludicrous to suggest you could hire a tour guide in Jordan through your hotel concierge in Tel Aviv, Israel, then walk across the border to meet him. But that’s just what we did. We flew from Tel Aviv to the southern Israeli resort of Eilat, which is a few miles from a similar Jordanian resort called Aqaba, and then just walked through a border crossing. We then spent the day deep in the Jordanian desert at the utterly spectacular ancient city of Petra, and returned to Israel that evening to catch a flight back to Tel Aviv. No muss, no fuss.
And it isn’t just Americans who can make this passage. Average Jordanians and Israelis do it, too. In fact, we went to Petra on the enthusiastic advice of a number of Israelis we met. This was all made possible by a peace treaty that has been in effect between Jordan and Israel since 1994.
On our way back to Israel, a two-hour drive through the gorgeous Jordanian desert and mountains, our Jordanian guide–whose family has lived near Petra for 12 generations–called a counterpart in Israel to meet us at the border crossing, pick us up, and take us to the airport. It was a normal, daily thing for him. In fact, he told us, the weekend before, he had invited an Israeli friend on a mountain hike in Jordan.
Now, I am not naive about peace in this region. For readers who don’t know, I spent years as a defense, foreign policy and national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal before becoming a tech columnist. I have been in many Arab capitals and covered the U.S. policy aspects of the 1991 Gulf War. I know the Middle East is mostly a murderous mess. In fact, the day before we had gone to Jordan we were in a town in Israel that had been hit by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza and were only a few miles from where Israeli troops had killed some Palestinians inside Gaza. So I know that our border-crossing experience doesn’t mean everything is fine and dandy. I know that average people are suffering badly and unfairly on both sides, and that there are rigid people on both sides who aren’t anxious for peace.
I also know that relations between Israel and Jordan aren’t exactly the same as U.S.-Canadian relations. In fact, the border crossing we used (pictured below) was named for the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic for being too willing to make peace with the Arabs. And, on the Jordanian side, we encountered a large picture of the late King Hussein, whose own life was threatened many times by Arab fanatics who thought he was too soft on Israel. It was Rabin and Hussein who worked out the peace treaty between their two countries.
Still, it was exhilarating and amazing to take our little trip, and it proved to me that peace is possible and normalcy is possible under the right conditions.
Oh, and there was a tech aspect to all of this. In both countries, even in the middle of barely populated stretches of desert, my iPhone had perfect voice coverage from multiple carriers. How come AT&T can’t guarantee the same level of service on the same phone even in the middle of some major American cities?
Written by Walt Mossberg on December 17th, 2007 with no comments.
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As regular readers know, I have frequently attacked the U.S. wireless phone carriers for exerting near-total control over what phones, software and services American consumers can use on their networks. In fact, since 2005, I have dubbed the carriers “the Soviet ministries,” for inserting themselves between the producers of mobile hardware and software and the people who might want to use these products. My most recent essay on this topic, called “Free My Phone,” ran in The Wall Street Journal and here on Mossblog only last month. You can read it here.
So it’s only fair that I commend Verizon Wireless for its announcement this week that, starting in the second half of 2008, it will allow “any device” and “any application” to run on its cellphone network, without any restriction, or interference. The only requirement, Verizon says, will be that the devices–phones, computers, anything else–must meet a “very minimal set of technical requirements” to show that they can run on the Verizon network without damaging the network or other devices or services that run on it.
This new, open approach won’t replace Verizon’s current walled-garden system, with its heavy controls. It will exist alongside the current system, as a sort of parallel universe.
Still, this is potentially a huge step, a sign that perestroika has arrived among the Soviet ministries that rule the American cellphone industry. If Verizon Wireless does what it is promising, it could be even more significant than Google’s plan for an open cellphone operating system and its creation of a coalition of companies to support it. The reason is that anyone, not just the companies belonging to a particular alliance or group, should be able to build a phone, a data device, a software program or service, and run it on Verizon’s strong, fast, extensive network.
But, as the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” And there are a couple of details of the company’s plan that could diminish the sweep and importance of its new commitment to openness.
First is the question of what Verizon means when it says a product must pass a sort of certification to run on the network. In a conference call explaining the plan, Verizon officials insisted that the testing and certification process would be much simpler and less onerous than the hoops companies must now jump through to get onto its network. They also promised the certification process would be “relatively short” and that the fees for certification would be “surprisingly reasonable.”
But until we learn the details next year, we won’t know if the certification process will be a mere technical formality, or a barrier to entry.
Even more worrisome is another issue: user pricing. Verizon officials made clear that, because they won’t be able any longer to limit the types of devices and applications that will run on their network, they will be applying “usage-based” data pricing. While they said this pricing would be “competitive,” any system that charges by the kilobyte or megabyte could be a real deterrent to the blossoming of the wireless Internet that Verizon’s open plan promises.
To be sure, Verizon has real concerns here. The bandwidth available on the cellphone networks is much more limited than that on landline networks. If somebody starts running Internet TV networks, or Web servers, or massive online games over the Verizon network, it could put a serious strain on the system.
But there’s a difference between setting higher fees for truly unusually high usage and erecting a payment system where everyone pays by the byte for even simple, common tasks like email, Web browsing, casual gaming, instant messaging, or simple video or audio streaming.
Taken to its extreme, that kind of metering could–intentionally or unintentionally–kill off the kind of innovation Verizon Wireless says it wants to encourage. That’s because the kind of innovative devices, software and services people are hungering for aren’t about making better voice calls. They’re about using the Internet, consuming those bytes that Verizon wants to meter.
So, let’s give credit where credit is due, but let’s watch how those details play out in the coming months. Verizon Wireless should be praised for giving up some of the control that was stifling wireless innovation in America, in my opinion at least. But, just how praiseworthy the move will be depends on some things we don’t know yet.
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Written by Walt Mossberg on November 30th, 2007 with no comments.
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