Interesting take on the Nexus One from an iPhone Developer's Perspective.
In this posting, I'll talk about the device from my perspective as a user. My thoughts on the Android SDK as a developer will come in a future installment, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.
Slashdot story about a user who ported Quake3 to Android in a couple of weeks. Awesome. Hey google, I really do need one of those Nexus 1 phones to evaluate these things you know? Come on, there's got to be at least one googler that reads this...
Information from various Google blogs have some demos of some of the functionality on the new Google Nexus Phone.
Mashable has the news of the Google's Nexus One Phone via techmeme. Highlights are:
Via Aryk is the Camangi WebStation, which claims to be a 7" Android powered Internet tablet. Pricey ($399) and pre-order only, but if it's real, it could be cool. Wonder if this has any heritage in the now-dead(ish) crunchpad?
Robert Scoble's latest blog post, The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone is a good read and an interesting look at why specs don't always define what makes or doesn't make a good product. Related: Droid vs iPhone camera.
Droid is getting lukewarm to warm reception and reviews from what I've heard, but outside of that, this Motorola DROID: Stealth commercial is pretty damn cool.
Hard to argue with free. As in, "why pay $90 for GPS navigation apps for your iPhone when you can get it free from Google"? Google Introduces Free GPS Navigation for Android 2.0. Google Maps is optimized for online use (so not good if you're traveling and don't want to be raped by your provider for data transfer), and do voice input (as in "navigate to 1234 main street, Vancouver", or as I like to put it, "HOLY CRAP AWESOME!"), as well as have all the goodness that Google Maps has with spelling corrections, transit/walking/driving, traffic data, etc. Video included in the post is great stuff.
I won't lie, this makes me want to try out an Android 2.0 device...
The Android Developers blog has information on Android 2.0 support in the SDK. There's also a nice overview of some of the Android 2.0 highlights. Gotta admit, it's pretty sexy looking, but I'm still waiting for my Droid test phone unit to lure me away from my iPhone :)
Competition is good though!
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a nice editorial on The Android Opportunity, and what Google can do to bring the Android brand up and over the top.
Start by copying what Apple has done right. Release one new phone per year, every year. Split that one phone into separate models by storage size, keeping all other specs the same. Apple has shown you can make a lot of money by charging an extra $100 for less than $100 worth of flash memory.
It's interesting if you think that 2 years ago the iPhone didn't even exist, hell, the market hardly existed before that. Yes, I know there were smart phones, but they didn't have the mindshare (IMHO) that Apple has created in that time. And then in that time it's become a juggernaut, had a falter from some of the bureaucracy / BS at Apple, and other phones are making a play for it's market share, all in that short time.
Some leaked photos of Facebook For Android have surfaced. The client looks not too bad, though I'm interested in a refresh of the iPhone client.