Scoble is much mistaken

Well respected uberblogger Bob Scoble wrote "here’s why Android is getting received with a yawn from me:"

Scoble is much mistaken. android is the most exciting platform for mobile development. Here's why he is so wrong.

It was released without a personal approach.
Hmm ... of maybe Goog needs another PR firm. I dont know. Anyway, this is secondary to the issue of whether the SDK willl enable great apps.

This stuff is still vaporware.
This is false. They announced availability of the SDK. Which is available now! SDKs always precede product launches. Developers need a little time to build for the platform. The only real issue is that devs can't yet get the prototype devices to test and build apps with. Thats a problem.

The UI looks confused.
Nonsense. The all touch approach of the iPhone is not best for all devices. For example, my dad would struggle to make calls with an iPhone. It would take a little instruction before he would get it. No so with most of the cell phones on the market today. In fact, the interface of the cell phone is ideal for its main purpose ... making calls!

"No real “love” for developers
Heck, I don’t know of a single developer who has had his/her hands on Android."
So what ... they didnt give you or your friends a prototype. This is unrelated to the quality of the platform and SDK.

"Heck, remember Facebook? Go back and see when I got excited by Facebook. It was two weeks after the F8 platform announcement. Why then? Because I saw that iLike got six million users in two weeks and was staying up. So, that communicated two things to me: 1. that the platform attracted interesting developers. 2. that Facebook was well enough architected to stay up, even under pretty dramatic load. Android is a LONG way from demonstrating either of these things to the market."

My guess is that every large social networking site is already working building multiple apps for android. This is a perfect way to increase their respective user bases. This is a perfect fit for somebody like iLike. Imagine a mp3 player that includes a way to send recommendations to your friends. They can tailor their UI any way they wish and get their brand onto the player and not just the web site.

iLike's six million users and Facebooks huge traffic (200,ooo new signups per day) is nothing compared to the millions of cell users in the US alone (200 million is on total I've seen) not to mention the many millions of calls they handle each day. Don't forget Google.com is a bigger site than Facebook, myspace or iLike. So I think both Goog and the wireless operators can handle the traffic.



Google’s PR comes across as “only caring about big bangs.
Bob writes: "Last week I was in the Open Social press conference. Everyone else in the room worked for a big-name media outlet. Business Week. Wall Street Journal. Los Angeles Times. CNET. Barrons. etc. etc. They also kept me from using my video camera during the press call"

Sorry to hear that Bob ... next time ... at the consumer launch ... get there early so you get a good seat. This is unrelated to your point that this isn't going to compete with iPhone and other devices.

It looks too much like a poor copy of the iPhone.
No ... it looks like an iPhone killer. Two things make iPhone special. Great browser and multitouch. Thats it. Android already got the browser part nailed. Steve jobs is the king of 2% market share (both PC and phone) because he insists on appealing only to the high end. Imagine a range of phones from $25 (with contract) to $350 with a great browser, capable of running customized business apps, downloadable games (some free), maybe wifi, great third party apps (many free), SD storage and 3d graphics. This is the nighmare Steve Jobs, RIM, Palm and Windows mobile must be having about now.

An android from Palm?

I seems a no-brainer. Palm needs a replacement for Palm OS, in fact, they've needed one for a long time. Android seems ideal. Free, open source and it enables those thousands of developers already writing for the Palm platform to write for Palm as well as a wider audience. Palm can refocus and compete as a hardware company. This is obviously their strategy since they've sold Palm OS itself. They already make well received windows mobile devices. They can still offer Palm OS if they want but their future has to be on another OS. Android seems ideal.

andoid rules

My response to the news that ... Google, Sun headed for conflict over Android? is ... android rules iPhone drools

Just spent a little time, about a half an hour, watching the android developer videos on YouTube. A few emotions (mostly awe and excite) and ideas things ran through my mind.

First, android is exciting. Google has done what Apple initially refused to do. That is .. allow developers to write apps and provide an SDK and documentation. Not only that but apparently they've spent a lot of time trying to make the APIs easy (relatively easy) for Java developers to use. They've provided details on their architecture, APIs and software stack. This is the kind of detail and tooling corporate developers want and need to enable in-house customized business applications. Nearly every corporate employee has a company supplied blackberry, pager or cellphone. The janitorial/engineering employees, bus drivers, secretaries and all the executives have devices. Some have several. One doctor I know has a phone a company provided blackberry and an iPhone (that he purchased). Other than email he uses no company apps on either device. Blackberries are great but there aren't great tools or many built in capabilities.

In stark contrast there is android. Third party commercial apps are encouraged. Corporate apps are enabled. The prize money is an awesome idea. This is the phone I can write apps for. This is the phone I want to write apps for.

Second, this is the phone I want to use. I've been a Palm user since the PalmPilot. Whats wrong with the Treo, Centro and TX? Lousy web browser. At best, Pocket Explorer is only moderately better. Anroid provides a great browser, based on webkit, which Apple uses for iPhone, that features touch scrolling and zoom. Just like the iPhone. 3D graphics and even a web history interface that looks exactly like iPhones 'coverflow'. Its ironic that the proprietary features that make iPhone great are freely available to third party developers from Google. Jobs must be hoppin' mad. I dont want a iPhone. This is the phone I want to use.

For Microsoft this whole thing has got to be embarrassing. The rumors on the blogs say the MS has known about most of this for more than a year. Pocket 6 has only moderate improvements and is not competitive with android. Anders and Erik need to figure a way to make C# and VB devs productive in the mobile space. MS loves a fight and Google has fired a devastating volley of strategic missles at Pocket PC land. The Pocket platform is going the way of Palm OS unless MS responds.

Symbian. Time to go quietly into the night or perhaps go cower in a corner. LG and Motorola two of Nokias big partners in Symbian are signed up for android. Realistically, small marketshare OSs with few apps are not gonna play well here. Apps are what make platforms. Not the other way around.

Sun ... shut up. So Google didn't go through the JCP first. So what? Apps that run on Java and apps written in Java are your friend.