Jolla And MeeGo Have Me Excited

I like Google. I really do. I think that there have been moments in their history where they could have done better —censorship issues in China being one of them— but overall, they are a vastly superior company to other tech heavyweights like Apple, Microsoft, and Intel. That said, I still yearn for an OS that isn't Android.

Android is something of a mess. Many geeks don't understand the actual problem of fragmentation in the OS because they've never experienced it. Many of them are usually at the cutting edge, sporting a cell phone that is either cutting edge or at least current-gen. For those who don't have the money, time on their contract, or like me, simply prefer to buy unlocked cell phones, fragmentation is a major problem.

For example, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10/X10 Mini/X8, Pro, and other phones were pretty big successes for Sony. They are technically Android phones, but they barely run the OS. Getting them to run at all smoothly requires rooting and a custom ROM using the newest version of Android.

Making matters worse is the immense amount of noise being generated by the manufacturers and carriers. Carriers mandate locks on the phone and un-deletable software, while manufacturers muddy the waters with custom versions of Android that frequently are inferior to the stock Android interface. Google's answer to this problem is the Nexus line of "pure" Android devices, and I think that it's a pretty good answer.

But, what if I don't want the Nexus? What if I want the HTC One X. If I get it unlocked, it's either the super-expensive international version that doesn't run on AT&T's high-speed network, or it's simply an AT&T phone with all of the same junk that's on the locked AT&T phone... it just costs more. In this regard, both Windows Phone and iPhone are superior, since locked or unlocked, it doesn't matter. It's the same phone.

I yearn for an OS and phone that isn't victim to all of the noise, noise, noise, noise from the carriers and manufacturers. Similarly, I yearn for a well-made platform that isn't reliant on a major corporation. That's a difficult thing. Linux has been around for well over a decade and still isn't a significant replacement for Windows or MacOS. Open source can work, but it's always easier to have a major presence behind any initiative.

Jolla and MeeGo have all of the work done by Nokia, and MeeGo specifically still has support from large numbers of hardware companies who are keen to avoid an OS duopoly of iOS and Android. MeeGo also has the support of geeks who would like an OS over which they have more control. Because while Android is open and tweakable, it is still Google's baby, and they raise it as they see fit.

I hope that MeeGo catches on. I'll totally make an app or two for it.

I Hope That The Galaxy S III Sells A Gazillion Units

Inspired by nature, designed by lawyers.

I'm not a big fan of the new Samsung Galaxy S III. I'm disappointed with the screen, its materials, its design; I'm disappointed with everything but the performance.

That said, I still hope that it sells a gazillion units. There has been much speculation that the Galaxy S III looks as it does to get around the bat-shit-fucking-ridiculous lawsuits being thrown at Samsung by Apple. This seems likely. And if that's the case, I would love, love, love it if the S III sold a trillion units. Every adult on the planet should buy one thousand of them. Give Apple a huge screw you.

Of course, this is only one example out of nearly countless examples of patents and copyright being used to suppress innovation and destroy competitors. Microsoft and Apple are going bonkers. Microsoft earns more money from Android than their own still-born Windows Phone. Oracle is suing Google and just received a luke-warm verdict in their favor... so they're going for a hail-mary lawsuit in the hopes of extracting more blood money from The House of G.

It's disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

While there are many reasons to not buy products from many companies, their behavior vis-a-vis innovation and the free market sticks out, for me. If your company makes a habit of using patent laws to sue other companies, you can rest assured that you will receive no money from me. Apple, fuck off. Microsoft, take a long walk off a short pier.

I've never been an advocate of open source (most of it sucks), but I'm getting there.

Death Of Our Heroes

I have always semi-idolized Steve Jobs. The wild success of Apple, and some of his more trenchant statements indicated to me that he explicitly understood the principles that made Apple great.

For example, he was constantly referring to products as magical and beautiful. I believed that he knew that this meant attraction and minimalism. Magical meant that the design elicited interaction. The look and feel made people desire contact. Anyone who has ever caressed an iPhone 4 knows this feeling. Beauty is focus in design. No gew gaws or addenda. The perfect product is what it is and nothing more.

I also always assumed that Jobs knew that what made Apple successful was not the ideas, but Apple itself. It was the machine that generates the ideas that is valuable. This is why Apple rarely sued. It was also why they kept things so secret, because they knew that as soon as their ideas were out, people would start to copy them.

Sadly, it appears that Jobs was not explicitly aware of the latter, which makes me question my assumption about his knowledge of the former.

Gizmodo is reporting about a part of the Jobs biography where he fumed about the "stealing" of ideas for Android and wanted to see the OS destroyed. This wildly contradicts his earlier, wiser statements about "great artists" stealing. In fact, he directly said "I want you to stop using our ideas in Android," to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He focused on the ideas instead of the implementation of those ideas.

For example, long after the iPhone came out, Nokia, LG, Microsoft, and Sony had not conjured up a legitimate response. Even if Apple had provided a blow-by-blow description of the iPhone as they designed it, they still would have been alone on the market for over a year. A year! If anything illustrates the importance of the implementation and not the idea, it's that.

RIM's Bad Strategy

There is an article over at The New York Times discussing how RIM might find salvation in the smartphone market by cozying up with carriers. Basically, the carriers are worried about Google and Apple having so much control over the cell industry and they want a counterbalance.

Unfortunately, doubling down with the carriers is the worst idea. RIM has been cozier and better served by the carriers than any other company in the past decade, which is precisely why they're in the shitter.

The carriers are lazy. They have an oligopoly in the United States and only really care about squeezing as much money from customers as possible. They are expanding their networks more slowly than their European or Asian counterparts, they're services are slower, and they cost more. What the carriers are concerned about, if Apple and Google have their way, is that they will lose the ability to squeeze money from customers when they become what's known in industry-speak as a dumb pipe. Basically, the company is nothing but the channel through which services run.

This is actually an enormously profitable place to be, but it's not romantic and it's very hard to be a rip-off, which is what the cell companies want to be. As such, the cell companies want the status quo to change as little as possible. RIM was attached to these corpses more tightly than any other company. If your company is tied to another company that wants to keep the status quo, there is no motivation to change and innovate. This state of affairs was as much responsible for RIM's current state as any internal problems the company might be having.

It was also directly responsible for a company like Apple, being lead by a legendary boardroom bully, being able to shove its way in and completely upset the old business model.

List Of "Best" Android Phones

Ok, it's actually a list of the most hacker friendly phones. But I call them the best because we're quickly reaching the point where cell phones are like computers. They're powerful as such. Today's cell phones could easily power the top-end games from ten years ago. This means that Apple-like nonsense of preventing me from doing things won't fly. That's why I call this list the "best" Android phones, because if I buy a computer, it damn well better let me do whatever I want to it.

Some phones aren't terribly hacker-friendly because the engineers designed something that just isn't conducive to hacking. This is annoying but understandable. Companies like Motorola, on the other hand, actively try to prevent you from doing things to their cell phones. Not a simple "Are you suuuuure?" security precaution. No. I mean road blocks. Big ones. Ya' know what Motorola? If you won't let me do what I want with MY PHONE, I'm not going to buy your fucking products. Go screw. Assholes.

As far as the list goes, this only covers Android phones. The iPhone, counter to Apple's usual M-O and their wishes, the iPhone is very hacker friendly. It can easily be jailbroken and enjoy access to alternative markets like Cydia. It's not like it could be any other way. The iPhone is an enormously popular phone, so it's going to have a huge hacker following making sure that buyers can continue to do WHAT THEY WANT with their newly bought phone. This also makes me smile since Apple frequently used to crow about their security compared to Windows, even though most security experts said this was simply because Windows had to face a much larger number of attacks. No, the iPhone is the big fish in the pond and look at how easily their phones crumble under hacker scrutiny. The only way Apple can guarantee security is to control, with an iron fist, the only way into the phone: iTunes and the App Store.

Sweet, sweet irony.