Whats Going On With The Future Of Mobile
Sometime last month, I came across Google’s Vic Gundotra’s “Two turkeys do not make an Eagle”. Though I wanted to blog about it, the article sat in my folder for a while as I got busy traveling for work. It is still the kind of comment that puts a smile on my face. Who needs mindless TV shows when a TwittER like that can make your day or month?
The Nokia plus Windows 7 Mobile may well offer some synergy. The largest seller of handsets globally is … and the winner … you guessed it! Not HTC, Samsung, iPhone or Blackberry it is not.
Nokia leads the way in Handset sales and the dominant Mobile Operating System is still Symbian according to Garner. I’m not one for splitting hairs so to speak but there are reasons for Sony and Nokia Symbian systems leading the way. Purely it is a function of the economics of the devices that operate IOS, Adroid and Symbian in general. This will be the subject of a series of articles to come.
And yet they don’t even have hundreds of thousands of Apps. Biggest problem I saw right there was lack of apps. Apps First question is why Apps? Well how else can one read Browser content and services that is not optimised for Mobile browsers. Do you all remember the days when sites were being optimised for Mobile such as an m.site.com Well all of that stopped with the proliferation of iPhones and dominance of Android. All content being offered are then optimised for Mobile Apps.
Why does not Microsoft or Nokia or any Symbian or Bada (Samsung’s) proprietary Mobile OS platform get that! Seriously how many PhD’s do you need to work that one out? For one you can’t force website publishers to create m.website.com version of theor site.com page as Apps changed all fo that. What Steve Jobs did was create a new eco system when there were not. So those Mobile OS other than Android or Apple’ who don’t have Apps and a tiny screen cannot offer the user the immersive experience that App enabled phone do.
Though immersive is strong work when with age those small screen sizes start to get into your nerves. This is what got me started into a new train of thought. Here I am busy, busy just like everybody else trying to read up, catch up, connect, communicate and respond on the go … well, just like everybody else. How much do I get done using the iPhone part of reading a few emails and making calls? No a whole lot!
So I bought the iPad as a bigger screen means more productivity on the go plus can demonstrate a few concepts over a business lunch if need be. However it a massive device that needs its own carrier bag and this means a walk to my local coffee shop for any purpose, followed by a movie and a dinner with friends means I have to lug a hunk of hardware. Not convenient at all. Unlike my iPh or Blackberry, cannot put the Tablet in my pocket or strap it in my Mobile Holster.
So I got wind of the Dell Streak and though great this may well be the compromise that I needed. A smaller tablet that also operates like a phone of big phone that can also function as a tablet sounds ideal right. Well no, battery life is so poor I am told a few hours of talk time and web use if ambitious at most.
Undeterred, I have bren looking at what coming up and yes LG’s Optimus Duo Core and Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phone or tablet sounded like this may well be that special Digital companion I have searched for my whole life – seriously I love gadgets! The only issue I see here is size of the screen think about it, you have a powerful Duo – means 2 x 1Ghz phone I guess with dedicated graphics card and a tiny screen. In my opinion the only issue is still screen real estate.
2011 is going to be a game changer for all in the mobile hardware game with the advent of duo core technology powerful enough to rival the humblest workhorse in my laptop family, a HP Pavilion. My only request is to have a screen big enough as I am done squinting over that must read PDF or my favourite only articles and yet not so big that you can’t stick it in your Mobile Hip bag.
As some you know from my previous posts that Apple and how it essentially created a whole eco system is an amazing story in its own right. However, there are far too many restrictions in syncing and using the iTiunes dashboard. The simply task of adding file and syncing entire folders meant that I had to buy File Pro and then quick office and then again I can’t edit those folders unless I have an online connection.
There is a lot to say about windows explorer, in that files are whrere you put them in their folders and can be seen, changed, edited, moved, deleted on the fly which is something I cannto do with Apple devices. Its really time consuming to update and sync content on an iPhone, iPad and the iPod (which I use for my runs). Recently, everytime I update iTunes and plug my iPhone in, it asks me to restore the device. My brand new iPAd was faulty and had to be returned. Well Mr Jobs, I have not got all day and as my wife tells me, those toys are more like a digital girlfriend that requires a lot of my attention for me to get the most of them all. All up 3 hours to get all my stuff to sync such that I am productive and functional on the go and that is almost half a day.
When it comes to sync, I have used Sugar Sync but not anymore. I will explain why later. Have used Dropbox and will keep using it but entire folders do not sync to Apple’s devices. What I need is simply and I am sure many like me feel that same. The only device that came close enough was the Blackberry Bold that I used till about a year. Screen was still too small and it is quite expensive to use. When I go overseas on vacation and wish to use a local SIM card, well I could’t with the Blackberry.
In terms of design and UA and overall robustness and screen real estate, one cannot go past the Sony Experia except that it is low on Apps, being a non-Android Phone. That was then and at that time the trend was going strong for Touch screens. The Experia has a big screen a flip out keyboard in landscape mode, you know just like a mini keyboard with island keys. Alas I came close and yet lack of what I perceived to be productivity Apps swayed me against it.
My search continues for the ideal device of the decade as Moore’s law pushes the limits of how small computing on the go gets. We can deduce hence that processing power doubles every year, we should have Quad core devices by the end of the year that fits in your pocket. A device that is powerful to be your ultimate portable computing device supplemented by Apps in the cloud for both online and offline productivity.
Think about it for a moment. You leave for work with you Mobile, arrive at work and dock you only computing device into a docking station which powers both your mobile, your monitor and wiresless connects with your keyboard and mouse. You finish work, un-dock the fully changed mobile computing device or “MCD” back in your pocket and jump on the bus, taxi, train or airplane. A call comes in as you about to take off the flight and you need to access and edit the file that you were working on. Great news as once the seatbelt sign is off, the Mobile Computing Device plugs into the Airbus A380 external monitor and you start working away off of the synced file.
You land and the MCD syncs all of that data to your intranet whilst it updates its own hardrive based data as you head to your meetings. That way the data updates and does not need to always use mobile data to get what you need on the go as that kind of mobile roaming data is not cheap. I can imagine doing an overnight business trip with just the MCD plus maybe 1 shirt, spare underwear and socks. What a future that could be … guess Marty McFly and Doc did not see this one coming.
So if money and time was no object, which it is … I would build my own phone … Just kidding! Or maybe not as Atrix 4G, an Android device is launching this month in March in the US – close but not quite the Quad Core machine I want
