Jesse Ross | jesseross.com

I got my G1 on Tuesday, and two days in, I already love it. It’s largely eliminated my need to carry my iPod touch with me everywhere. Sure, there are problems, and I’m constantly comparing it to the aforementioned gadget, but most of the issues I find with it (with the notable exception of multi-touch) look to be resolvable with software.

My biggest issue so far is that it’s really, really easy to get lost. The screen transitions so readily apparent in the iPhone are truly useful, giving you a sense of flow and sequencing that make the system feel much more physical and navigable. I don’t know what degree of difficulty there would be in trying to get something similar implemented in Android, but it should definitely be doable now that the system has been open sourced. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that very feature built into Android version 2.0.

I also find myself not very keen on all the buttons on the chin of the device. The iPhone shows us you can get away with just two physical buttons (Home and Power/Lock/Sleep), and taking a cue from that design would have been nice. I have to admit, the scrollball is a nice input mechanism, but I would have preferred that be the only addition above the two buttons of the iPhone. The Menu button is a constant source of consternation for new users, as everyone I’ve let play with my phone gets totally confused when they try to figure out how to input a URL in the browser. One could argue it’s a case of having been trained by Apple’s devices, but I think there is an obvious disconnect between the locus of attention (the address bar) and the physical button at the other end of the device you have to click on to interact with it. Again, it’s resolvable in software, but only if developers eschew the Menu button.

Speaking of the address bar, a non-physical keyboard would be handy at times… I find myself missing it, but that feels more like a UI convention I’ve become accustomed to with my iPod, than an actual limitation of the device.

Enough complaints, though… what’s good? The Google apps integration is seriously top notch. My email always hits my phone first, before it hits either my desktop or my iPod email client, and IM and search are really well done. The Market is good, comparable to the App Store, and will only get better as we get more apps (someone build a better Wikipedia browser than what’s up there now and I will be forever in your debt… oh, and I could use a PDF reader while you’re at it…). The fact that it has removable storage means I can make this device grow with my disk usage, and SD cards will only get cheaper and higher capacity.

Overall, it’s a solid device, and I’m happy with the fact that it’s open source and that it has a much more open development and distribution model than the iPhone. Of course, you have to do development in Java instead of Objective-C, and you don’t have the benefit of Xcode or Interface Builder, so whether that development is even worth doing is another question.

The only thought that I have left after playing with this device for two days is…

How does not having a non-carrier based Android device affect Google’s potential developer base… and when are we going to see the iPod touch equivalent of the G1?

And lo, The Great Googley One said unto me, “I bring to you a phone, a phone powered by open source, which you will still pay through the nose for, because the telecom companies are greedy, greedy bastards, but nevertheless, a phone that will let you easily add new applications, and share those applications with the world, in a share-y, share-y, love-y, love-y, socialist-y sort of way, and it will not be an iPhone, but it will at least provide a decent alternative, and it will not force you to switch to Ma Bell.”

And thus, I bought said phone, and I will patiently wait until October 22nd, when it appears at my door, as if delivered from the loving hands of The Great Google itself. And in my waiting, I will learn the SDK and develop applications. And it will be good.

This is really, really cool. CallWave is a service that replaces your standard cell voicemail with their own system. Their system is amazing — sending you emails when you get a new voicemail, giving you previews of voicemail (iPhone Visual Voicemail style), allowing you to reply to that email via a text message or–and this is awesome–calling your phone, so that when you answer it, it automatically dials their phone. And it’s FREE. So sweet — try it out.

Via The Raw Feed

It looks like Jeremy Tregunna is leaving behind his work on Io to start his own small, beautiful, dynamic language (suitable for embedding), called Moose. I’m really excited to see what he ends up with, as I’ve been looking for something exactly like this to use for my own nefarious purposes.

Peter Saint-Andre, the head of the Jabber community, agrees with me about the future ubiquity of wireless and what that will mean to mobile communications:

Going Mobile

Final thought: once IP phones take off, presence will indeed become the new dial tone (why call someone if they’re not available?). So the buddy list will become the center of the universe, even more than it is today.

I got my Zaurus on Thursday. It’s a pretty cool little thing. After struggling with it for two days, I finally figured out how to get it to do (most of) what I needed. I first flashed the ROM to use OpenZaurus and Opie, rather than the provided Sharp ROM. I don’t know if it was just me or what, but as soon as I did that, I ran into a zillion problems. I couldn’t install software, battery usage was really bad, and I was just not a happy camper. So, I did some research, came across the Crow ROM — which is basically a version of the Sharp ROM modified to use an SD card as your home directory — and have been getting along pretty well with that. I got a working Jabber client on it, and was better able to install software. I’m still having issues — it seems like IPKs over 1 MB just kind of crap out after a while. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but I’m basically left without Opera for the moment. I did really like the Opie interface — it had a lot of great features: screen rotate, larger pool of apps to draw from, better Wi-Fi handling, nicer overall interface. Still, I think the Zaurus will prove to have been a good investment.

In other news, I’ve made some decisions into how the phone’s interface will be set up (thanks in large part to Jeff and Robb). The faceless phone idea, while really cool, just won’t let me explore everything I want to be able to do with this phone.

In reality, it’s not a phone. It’s an IM device.

And with that comes a lot of really cool explorations. Jabber just provides so many possibilities for providing services: live weather, restaurant reviews, address/direction search, blogger, news feeds, file transfers, whiteboarding, email notifications. It would be a shame not to take advantage of everything that Jabber is through this device. Thus, I’m definitely going touchscreen based, with no hardware buttons, save for power on/off and screen lock. That gives me the most flexibility to explore interface variations, makes i18n much easier and more cost effective, and allows for doing some more PDA and tablet-like functionality. It will still be most definitely a “phone-ish” form factor though. It needs to maintain a distinct identity from PDAs, and shouldn’t feel clunky holding up to your ear to talk into.

I’m having a hell of a time deciding whether the prototype phone I build should have a display or not. On the one hand, a faceless phone would be pretty damn sweet… if it works. And by works, I mean works flawlessly. I’ve been less than impressed with voice dialing and voice commands in general. If voice dialing on my phone isn’t perfect, I will seriously kill the whole project in a fit of immense rage and violence. But, if it does work, it would be pretty damn sweet, and I would love it.

On the other hand…

I wanted this phone to be an IM device that does voice, not simply a phone you don’t have to pay monthly charges on. In that case, I’d need a screen to do texting and to view presence info. A display is easier for people to deal with, more obvious. But, it’s also more expensive, more hardware, more wiring… and in the end all I’ll have done is created a PDA that is locked down to doing only IM tasks. Lame.

So, I need some guidance. I’m not sure what the smartest route to go is.

Maybe I just make two phones…

I told Michael about the direction I was thinking of going with the phone, and he posed a challenge to me:

Could I build a phone that was just a phone? No IM, no text messaging, no calendar, no games. And, most importantly, no buttons and no display.

Since all the contacts could be managed via an IM app on the desktop, I guess it’s conceivable that you wouldn’t ever have to dial a number. Hmm… that’s still a challenge. Well, Michael, here’s my first conceptual go of it:

The Faceless Phone

In lieu of a lengthy post this week, I think it would quite beneficial to hand out my del.icio.us account. If you’re not using del.icio.us, well, you should be. del.icio.us is one of those things, like telephone or email, where the more people on the network, the greater the worth of the device/service.

And, speaking of telephones, many of you may or may not know that I am developing a phone. Specifically, a cell phone. Well, not exactly a cell phone, since it’s not on the cellular network. I’m a big fan of Jabber/XMPP, and when Google released their IM app (based on Jabber), I thought “wouldn’t it be brilliant to develop a mobile device, something that used Wi-Fi, and used the VoIP technologies behind their service to talk to your friends, rather than having to pay monthly fees?” So, I’m building the thing. I still have to order the parts, but I’ve been watching what Surj and Deva and others have been up to. I’ve got a name for it (to remain secret for now), and have been working on some software and infrastructure stuff, but it’s happening. You can check out some of the progress on my wiki.