Posts tagged cell phone
Pick your poison: mobile messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in
Dieter hits on everything I’ve been feeling about messaging as of late.
Once upon a time, we created interoperable communications standards like email, Internet Relay Chat, and hell, HTTP. Now, apparently, the only way to create a new way to talk to each other electronically is to wait for a big corporation to do it for us.
Between GroupMe, Hangouts, iMessage, Twitter DM, SMS… I’ve got a lot of chat conversations scattered throughout the Internet. Part of me just wants to ditch everything in favor of SMS. But those were simpler times.
Found in my parents basement: a RAZR v3i with the box! So thin!!
That iTunes + Cingular box is really funny.
Google acquiring Motorola Mobility
Google is buying Motorola for 12.5 billion dollars. Engadget says that Google will make Motorola a “dedicated Android partner” to “supercharge the Android ecosystem” and “enhance competition in mobile computing.”
Larry Page , Google CEO:
Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.
This is crazy news. Apple makes its own devices or iOS, HP/Palm makes its own WebOS devices, Nokia is a preferred partner for Windows Phone 7 and now Motorola is owned by Google. Meanwhile HTC, with it’s storied history of making premier Android, WinMo and Palm OS devices is left to license operating systems and will be actively competing with first party hardware. Samsung, who worked closely with Google developing the Nexus S will also be fighting that same fight. Crazy.
[via Engadget]
iMessage, Skype, Google Voice, and the death of the phone number
Anyone with a cell phone needs to read this article by Nialy Patel.
Asus - PadPhone
What Asus is lacking their products name they more than make up for in enthusiasm. Just look at Chairman Jonney Shih. He is pumped about the PadPhone. And rightly so. It’s a tablet with a docking station for your smart phone. From the press release:
This convergent device combines a smartphone and a tablet computer into one symbiotic gadget that allows consumers to choose the screen size that best fits their activities while seamlessly sharing data and 3G internet access.
I totally understand the Atrix. It’s a cellphone that runs Android but if you dock it into a laptop shell it runs Linux and it keeps the state of everything as you move it from place to place and switch OS’s. Really awesome.
I’m not sure I totally get a phone that docks with a tablet. I understand that it’s a bigger device, but usually if I can’t accomplish a task with my phone it’s not because the screen is too small but because the platform is limiting. Maybe I want a keyboard to write a long email or I need to open and edit an Excel document. Or write an email with multiple attachments. iOS and Android don’t handle any of that too well and simply having a larger screen isn’t going to solve my problems.
That said, the more devices that we can attach our phones to the better. I’m glad more and more companies are making products like this. Check out Asus’ weird commercial for the device, embeded below.
[Engadget]
Motorola Atrix
I talked about this a bit during CES. But man the Atrix is a cool device. Moto just released this video and it really makes me want this. Having your phone with a dock attachment also be your computer is genius. This is how the future should work. display and keyboard shells are left at home and at work and you just connect your phone and everything is always in exactly the state you left it.
Motorola Atrix
This is one of the coolest devices to come out of CES this year. It’s an Android phone that, when docked, runs a Linux experience as if it’s a desktop or laptop. And it saves your state when you switch OS’s so you don’t have to think about it. I love the idea of your computer scaling in size.
GroupMe hopes group texting will be the next breakout hit
Laurie Segall helps introduce the world to GroupMe a mass texting service that actually makes a lot of sense (so much sense that I actually use it to get friends together for brunch).
GroupMe’s biggest advantage is the so-called “normal factor.” While companies like Foursquare have to sell users on the benefits of sharing their location, and Twitter took years to convince the world that tweeting is useful for things beyond broadcasting your breakfast choices, group text messaging isn’t such foreign concept. Users don’t even need smartphones to do it.
Editorial: Should your next mobile OS update cost you?
All too often, the question isn’t whether a particular device is great, it’s whether the manufacturer and carrier have committed to upgrading it — quite often to a version of its operating system that hasn’t officially been announced.
Great article by Chris Ziegler.
