The next version of the Googe-led mobile OS – Android 2.0 – is already encroaching on the work of HTC, INQ, Palm, Motorola and others in the universal address book space, and now we learn that the search giant has an even bigger target in its sights: Satellite Navigation systems.

TechCrunch has published a short video of Google showing off the upcoming Google Maps Navigation, which offers free turn-by-turn navigation, along with other features such as text search, voice search, and sat nav versions of Street View and Satellite View. The app will only be available on phones running Android 2.0 or at least that’s what Google tells TechCrunch.

Update: Much more info over at the official Google Mobile blog.

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Through the Open Screen Project, Adobe was already known to be working with smartphone platforms from Palm (WebOS), Nokia (Symbian) and Microsoft (Windows Mobile), along with a raft of content providers, chip makers and consumer electronics companies. Today, the company added Google and Research In Motion to the list, with relation to Android and Blackberry-powered smartphones respectively, leaving Apple’s iPhone as the odd one out regarding planned support for full Flash (or any Flash support at all).

Historically, Apple has always defended iPhone’s lack of Flash support by arguing that it’s too processor and power intensive, and that the cut down mobile version of Flash (Flash Lite) just isn’t up to the job. With Moore’s Law kicking in (faster smartphone processors) and Adobe working hard to optimize Flash for the latest mobile chips, this argument is holding less and less water. In the video demo below, we can see Flash performing pretty well on Palm’s Pre smartphone, a device that shares much under the hood with the latest iPhone 3GS.

Instead, as I’ve argued previously, Apple has a very different motive for keeping Adobe Flash away from the iPhone.

… as we all should know by now, the real reason why Apple doesn’t want to embrace Adobe’s Flash is that it would offer third-party developers an alternative “runtime” on which to develop and, perhaps more importantly, distribute apps for the iPhone, bypassing Apple’s control (and that of its partner carriers) and the iTunes App Store itself. And we can’t have that, can we?

The other big win for the Open Screen Project are the latest Netbooks and future MIDS (Mobile Internet Devices) or so-called smartbooks, reports Engadget. “Flash 10.1 will take advantage of GPU acceleration on a number of key mobile platforms, including both nVidia’s Tegra and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon alongside ION for smooth (well, theoretically smooth) 720p and 1080p video on the latest generation of netbooks and smartbooks.”

Where all of this leaves Microsoft’s own Flash competitor Silverlight on mobile is anybody’s guess, although probably not in the best of shape. While Nokia is partnering with Redmond to bring Silverlight support to Symbian, Microsoft itself is simultaneously supporting Flash for Windows Mobile, such is the anbundance of exciting Flash-powered content on the Web.

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(I’m expecting a loan of the social networking savvy HTC Hero later today, thanks to UK carrier Orange. A full review of the Hero should follow shortly.)

However, having lived with the Vodafone HTC Magic for a few months now, there are a few things that really bug me about the standard version of Android. Yes, this is going to be a bit of rant.

1. Notifications and Gmail

Two areas where Android is supposed to excel: Background notifications and integration with Gmail. Firstly, I’m not a big fan of the notifications draw of Android as I find the “finger-friendly” target of the draw itself to be a bit fiddly to hit and drag open at times. And even though the draw is accessible no matter which app you currently have open or in view, dragging it down every time to view the full list of notifications or any meaningful info gets old really quick. That said, I can just about live with the notifications draw itself but the way Gmail alerts are implemented makes me want to throw my HTC Magic under a bus. Let explain.

I receive a new email and the email icon appears at the top of the screen.

Fine.

I click and drag open the notifications draw to read the first line of the email and who it’s from.

So far, so good.

I then click on the email, expecting to be taken to the Gmail app and to the full email itself, but instead I’m dropped into the Gmail in-box where I have to click on the same email again to read the full content. That’s right, the Google phone can’t do efficient Gmail notifications. The standard Android homescreen is also useless when it comes to email alerts, especially compared to my Nokia E71 or any standard Symbian S60 phone.

2. Third-party app updates

I’ve virtually given up updating the majority of my third-party apps that I’ve downloaded from the Android Market. That’s because every app update — these are very frequent, which is a good thing — involves at least two clicks for each app. First to initiate the update and second to, once again, give the app all of its required permissions. This is really tedious to do when you have lots of third-party apps installed.

In contrast, the iPhone and iPod touch gives the option to ‘update all’, a one-click procedure.

Of course, Apple has the advantage of vetting all apps in the App Store, presumably negating the need for the user to check the list of required permissions with each and every app update to see if they have been sneakily changed. But still, there must be a better way.

3. Android Market and Google Checkout

I haven’t bought a single third-party app for my Android phone. And believe me, I’ve tried. The reason is that the Android Market requires a Google Checkout account. Of course I have one of these but bizarrely it’s not accepted by Google’s mobile app store. When I signed up to Checkout, I used a non-standard Gmail address (instead, one powered by a “Google Apps for your domain” account), which works fine for all of my Checkout purchases elsewhere on the Web but not through the Android Market.

There you have it. Let me know your own Android gripes in the comments…

Image Credit: Notifications draw – Techradar.com

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And along with music, messaging and turn-by-turn navigation, location-aware social networking, which the company calls SoLo, and other types of location-based services are key to this future. After all, Nokia has invested heavily in GPS-related technologies and applications, the boldest example being the $8.1 billion purchase of Navteq in late 2007.

What was and still is unclear is how much of Nokia’s SoLo strategy involves building out its own social networking offerings or partnering with and supporting established social networks. With today’s announcement of a tie up with Facebook and with it the death of the company’s own ‘Friend View’, with regards to the simplest of ‘SoLo’ applications — share my current location with friends — the handset maker has seen sense and decided to do the latter.

See also: Should Nokia get into bed with Facebook? Err, yes

The new application called Lifecasting with Ovi, which will soon be available for the company’s flagship N97 (see my review) and newly announced N97 Mini (a smaller and slightly cheaper version of the N97), enables users to publish “their location and status updates directly to their Facebook account from the home screen of [there] mobile device.” Photos can also be uploaded as part of a status update and friends who are logged into Facebook are presented with an accompanying Ovi map displaying their buddy’s exact location.

When Google launched a similar location-based social networking app, dubbed Latitude, as part of their Google Maps service, I used it as an opportunity to criticize Nokia’s social networking strategy as a whole and in particular their own rival offering, the now defunct Friend View.

My argument was that if you’re going to launch a mobile social network you need to be platform (handset) agnostic. Google Latitude launched on multiple mobile platforms, while Nokia Friend View was for Nokia handsets (S60) only. As I wrote at the time: “Imagine if Nokia phones could only call other Nokia phones. That’s not dissimilar to how Nokia’s social networking strategy works.”

By embracing Facebook for its SoLo ‘Ovi Lifecasting’ app, not being device agnostic is no longer an issue. Instead, Nokia is leaning more towards being ’social network’ agnostic. The voice over in the video promo for Ovi Lifecasting aludes to this U-turn with the line “lifecasting is sharing where you are, where we all are”. Where we all are being Facebook.

In the future, of course, Nokia could easily add a Twitter extension to its Ovi Lifecasting app. While, as it stands today, the tie-in with Facebook is also a clever way to get its Ovi Maps service in front of all of those extra millions of users.

In more Facebook love, Nokia also announced today an extension of its Nokia Messaging service (currently push email and IM) called Social Messaging. The plan is to develop a multi-protocol social networking app for Nokia handsets, with Facebook being the first social network to be supported. A beta of the app can be downloaded today for the S60-powered N97 and S40-based feature phone, the 6700 classic.

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See also: Linux on a Netbook? Intel thinks its all about the User Interface

While Google says it wants to build an OS from the ground up in order to make it easier for users to get on the web and utilize web-based applications – and view more Google ads – managing user expectations will likely be the bigger challenge. For all the technical hurdles that Google will undoubtedly overcome – faster boot up times, greater security, support for next gen web standards (HTML 5 etc.) – weaning users off of Windows will be no easy task. The failure of existing Linux distros to become the defacto OS for Netbooks, despite getting a head start and backing from OEMs, doesn’t bode well for Chrome’s chances unless Google is able to redefine not just the OS but what users expect from their PCs.

See also: Android’s biggest Netbook challenge (Hint: Windows)

Sure, I’d be happy buying a Netbook or Mobile Internet Device (MID), for Chrome OS will sensibly run on ARM-based chips not just Intel/AMD, knowing full well its purpose and limitations. I’m also, unlike 90+ % of the PC population, not emotionally or habitually tied to the Windows brand. But explaining to mass users why their iPod, printer, 3G dongle or whatever, doesn’t work properly on Chrome OS or why they can’t install Office or their favorite IM client, or simply why the UI looks a bit different, will be a hard sell. Google says it’s committed to web-based applications running on Chrome OS but it will inevitably be forced into supporting binary installations and/or to ship its own default ‘native’ apps for things like managing a music library/iPod syncing and multiple device drivers, if it’s to have any chance of winning over consumers.

That sounds a lot less like building an OS as a gateway to the web and more like building a traditional – kitchen sink an all – OS afterall.

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Where the original G1 is clunky, in part due to its death-trap of a slide-out keyboard – OK I exaggerate but only slightly – the HTC Magic is relatively slim with subtle curves and a much reduced “chin”, which is a universal complaint of the G1.

Of course, without a physical keyboard, the Magic has to compromise with an on-screen QWERTY – more on that below – but doesn’t do away with hardware keys altogether. There’s call start and end, as well as ‘home’, ’search’ (it is a “with Google” phone after all) and dedicated ‘menu’ and ‘back’ buttons. These, particularly the latter two, when combined with the clickable BlackBerry-style scroll ball means that, for the most part, the Magic can be operated one-handed. This is something that I struggle with on the iPhone and many other touch-screen only devices, and the slightly narrower width of the phone – due to its smaller 3.2 inch screen – also makes it more comfortable to hold in one hand and that bit more pocketable, although, admittedly, this is very subjective.

On the Magic’s touch screen itself, it’s a joy to use. Like the iPhone, it’s capacitive rather resistive, responding to the natural electrical charges emitted by a finger rather than using pressure to register a touch. It’s bright with vibrant colors and, despite being smaller, the screen resolution also matches the iPhone’s 480 x 320. One thing I noticed, however, is that the touchscreen doesn’t seem quite as responsive near the edges. Finger smudges also quickly become an issue but this is common with all touch screen (and even some non-touch screen) models.

A few immediate complaints hardware-wise: The 3.2 megapixel camera is very average – and that’s being generous – and HTC’s insistence on omitting a standard 3.5 inch headphone jack in place of its all-in-one USB port used for headphones, charging and data transfer, makes a mockery of the phone’s media playback ambitions (the included buds are lousy). There’s also very little on-board storage, and although Vodafone’s Magic offering does come with a 2GB microSD card, it wasn’t long before I replaced it with an 8GB one.

On the software-side, and this is increasingly the battleground for today’s smartphones-come-mini computers, the HTC Magic uses the latest “Cupcake” 1.5 version of Android, which introduces a number of UI improvements, new features (such as video recording) and of course that virtual keyboard.

Talking of which, it’s pretty good as far as on-screen keyboards go (I’m not generally a fan). The auto-suggestion feature works well, offering a number of suitable choices in a strip just above and haptic feedback (a slight vibration) can be optionally turned on. When the phone is in portrait mode the keyboard is pretty cramped, switching over to landscape naturally works a lot better.

As you’d expect from a part Google branded phone, integration with the search giant’s own PIM apps is seamless. Just enter your Gmail credentials, and email, calendar and contacts are synced over-the-air, including their avatars, which show up in the Magic’s address book and caller ID. It works just like Apple’s MobileMe but without the cost. Updates can be constantly pushed to the phone in the background or can be toggled on or off on a per-application basis.

There’s also a very robust and feature-rich version of Google Maps, including street view and the location-aware social network Latitude. Using the phone’s built-in compass you can also operate street view as if you are there, which is fun if a bit gimmicky.

Photos taken with the phone’s camera can be uploaded to Picasa and videos shot, to YouTube. There’s also a native client for the video sharing site, with the option to view in low or high quality. The former is designed to conserve bandwidth when on 3G, the latter more suited to WiFi. All very nice, all very Google.

See also: 10 best apps currently running on my Android phone (HTC Magic)

Third-party apps are a bit of mixed bag. There’s tons of potential and the Android Market, Google’s own app store, is really easy to use and has certainly filled up since I first looked at the G1. Having said that, I challenged my iPhone touting friend to pick 10 of his most used third-party iPhone apps and I’d try and find an equivalent on the Magic. For the most part I succeeded – streaming radio, podcast client, Twitter, London Underground status, cinema times etc. – but the iPhone choices are many and a great deal more polished.

This reflects not only the success of Apple in attracting developers to the iPhone but also perhaps the different approaches the developer tools take themselves. Apple, I’m told, provides a lot more out-of-the-box help with UI / look and feel than Android does.

A few areas where the Magic definitely trumps the iPhone: The app store (Android Market) feels more open, so for example, there’s a BitTorrent remote control app that has the same functionality that got a similar app banned from the iPhone App Store. You can also bypass the store altogether and download apps from anywhere on the web if you’re willing to ignore the security warnings.

The Magic, when plugged into a computer can be put into USB mass storage mode so that the phone shows up as a USB hard drive for easy transfer both ways of music, photos, video or any other file type. In other words, you don’t need to be tethered to iTunes. Media playback is pretty much on-par with the iPhone in terms of file format support – sans DRM – and any MP4 video file I threw at it that had been formatted for iPhone/iPod just worked.

Sadly, though, you can’t transfer files via Bluetooth to a PC or other phone, one sign of Android’s immaturity as a mobile OS.

Multi-tasking and background notifications is another area were the Magic performs well, and prior to iPhone OS 3.0, definitely beats Cupertino’s best efforts. However, I’m not sure this is the case anymore. Although the iPhone’s ‘push’ solution is still a bit of a fudge for managing multitasking and notifications, judging by the Magic’s limited battery life – if background syncing is on for Google apps and third-party goodness, let alone home screen widgets that pull in data from the web – Apple could be right in limiting the way the iPhone handles its always-on connectivity.

I also think Android’s notification system is kind of inefficient. An icon appears at the top of the screen to indicate a new email, for example, but you still need to drag that draw open to view the first line and click on it to launch the phone’s Gmail app where you’re taken not to the full email message itself but to the in-box. Worse still, the Magic’s home screen doesn’t show the most recent emails either, even though there are numerous home screen widgets for almost everything else (weather, twitter etc.)

I’ve purposely left the best to last. The Magic’s Android web browser is closest to iPhone’s yet, although I haven’t tried the Palm Pre, which also gets favorable comparisons. Admittedly, there’s no multi-touch (pinch to zoom) or double tapping but the on-screen zoom in and out controls that appear when you move around the page work fine. You can also copy and paste links, save images, open multiple windows but, frankly, its the speed and quality of rendering and the fluidity when scrolling or moving around the page that impresses most.

Again, like the iPhone, Flash isn’t supported, although the included YouTube client and other available third-party video apps (StumbleUpon, iPlayer etc.) go someway in making up for this.

See also: How I plan to use my HTC Magic Android phone

Bottom line: if you want a phone to surf the web on and can’t afford the expense of an iPhone, or are already overly reliant on Google apps (that’s me by the way), you won’t be disappointed with the HTC Magic.

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Not only are Netbooks sales making Google take notice, their primary use case – surfing the web and accessing other Internet applications – fits perfectly with the company’s own ‘cloud computing’ vision (think Google Docs, Gmail and other Google services). “Keep an eye on this space”, attendees at a recent Google press event were told by Schmidt. So if not Android, what exactly does the company plan to bring to the Netbook experience?

It’s the browser stupid!

Android's web browser running on T-Mobile G1

As with Android running on a smart phone, the most important application as far as Google is concerned, and more important than the OS itself, is the web browser. It provides the ‘run time’ for Google applications – search being the most lucrative – regardless of what operating system is powering the device. The company’s investment in Android is all about replicating the ‘open web’ that exists on the PC by standardizing the web browser – and therefore the platform – on mobile phones. Netbooks, in their current state anyway, don’t need such a helping hand as they already run a standard desktop web browser, the same as any other PC. And this explains why Google isn’t focused on porting Android over to traditional Netbooks, although it won’t/can’t stand in the way of others doing so.

Instead, we can expect the company to start targeting Netbooks by tweaking the UI of its existing web-based applications to provide a better user experience on a PC with a 7-10 inch screen, in the same way that it already does for users of Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, and other mobile phones, including those running Android. In fact, a recent advert on Craigslist indicates that the company is preparing to do just that.

Do you use a Netbook? A Netbook is a small portable laptop computer with a screen smaller than 10 inches and no CD/DVD drive. If you use a Netbook, we want to talk to you about participating in a research study. This study will help the Google team better understand your needs in order to incorporate them into future product enhancements.

That’s not to say that Google won’t ever put resources into developing a version of Android for a device other than a mobile phone, it’s just unlikely to do so for a traditional clam shell and non-touch screen Netbook or any other hardware that can comfortably run a PC operating system.

Related: ‘Android’s biggest Netbook challenge (Hint: Windows)’.

Were a new breed of Internet tablets to take off in numbers that rival or better the current crop of Netbooks, however, then that could be a different matter altogether.

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If that sounds a lot like Nokia’s Friend View and, more broadly, the handset maker’s social location strategy (SoLo), that’s because it is. But there’s one significant difference: despite investing heavily in its own mobile operating system, Google Latitude has launched simultaneously on multiple mobile platforms: Blackberry, S60, Windows Mobile, and Google’s own Android. iPhone support should also arrive soon, says the company. In comparison, like other Nokia web services, Friend View is only available on S60 and targeted solely at Nokia’s own cell phones.

While this isn’t necessarily a problem in countries, such as India, where Nokia completely dominates, it flies in the face of network effects where the more people that join the network, the more useful the network becomes. Friend View, like any social network, only becomes truly useful if all or the majority of a user’s friends or contacts join. But to do this, they’ll have to use a Nokia smartphone too. That’s unlikely to be the case for all of a user’s social network, especially in the UK where competition amongst handset makers is fierce.

Imagine if Nokia phones could only call other Nokia phones. That’s not dissimilar to how Nokia’s social networking strategy works. At least for now. If the company is serious about transforming itself into an Internet company, this is something I’m convinced they need to address.

Video presentations of both services embedded below.

Google Latitude

Nokia Friends View

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After more than a year of writing about the so-called Google phone and the Android mobile operating system, I actually held one in my hands. The G1, as it is known, called to me. It wasn’t as poorly manufactured as I feared it might be; its display was bright, crisp and intoxicating; its operating system seemed fun and promising.

At first blush, I was smitten. But as in any relationship, the more time you spend with someone — or in this case something — the more you learn.

What I learned about the G1 I’m sharing with you. Like the wise Om Malik, I prefer a less formal review format because there are many fine reviewers out there who’ve been testing the G1 for weeks. Like Uncle Walt from the Wall Street Journal. Or David Pogue at The New York Times. And all the usual gadget and mobile blogs.

I tend to focus on the user experience of any product, which in this case is important as the G1’s chief competitor, Apple’s iPhone, seemingly has cornered the market on usability and consumer imagination. Since the release of the iPhone 3G in July, Apple has sold nearly seven million phones this quarter.

For the so-called Google phone to reach that kind of success, it must complete with Apple on the user experience battlefield, not just over features and functions. This will be harder for the G1 because it has three parents, not one like the iPhone.

There’s Google, developer of Android.

There’s HTC, the manufacturer.

And there’s T-Mobile, the carrier.

In the near future, other manufacturers and carriers will be involved with the development of Google phones. All of them will provide different interpretations of Android with new features and functions and user experiences. Will they rival that of the iPhone? Or will they become another, albeit solid, contender?

We have our first answer.

Introducing the G1

Kudos to HTC. The Taiwan-based manufacturer of primarily Windows Mobile-based portable devices has delivered a solid, reasonably attractive, functional product.

The G1 is not on par with the iPhone for overall design and elegance, but it doesn’t feel cheap thanks to a bit more heft, less width (more in line with traditional cell phones), and a rubberized material coating on the back for grip-ability. The bottom of the G1 also is angled up slightly to give the impression of better voice-to-microphone communications when making calls.

Rather than focus on an exhaustive comparison of features and the details of rate plans, I’ll concentrate on three important pieces of the G1 user experience — display, keyboard, and interface/operating system. I’ll dig into applications and the Market, Google’s equivalent of Apple’s App Store, in my next post.

Display

The 3.2 inch display (480 x 320 pixels), working in tandem with Android, is the best feature of the G1. It’s not as large as the iPhone display, but it’s bright, crisp, colorful, legible, and solid-feeling when the G1 is closed.

It’s a touchscreen, of course, and it’s also touch-sensitive, meaning in some programs you can touch and hold to receive additional options, depending on the application. (In email, touch a message, hold it, and get options to read, archive, mark read, add star, delete, change labels, report spam.)

The only thing I don’t like about the display — and this is more of a potential problem than a reality at the moment — is that the display over time and heavy use might wear and loosen at the hinge on the right side. The display swings to the left, then up; it already droops to the left just a bit when opened.

Keyboard

The “full” QWERTY keyboard is the biggest differentiator between the G1 and the iPhone. This is where the two camps draw their lines.

Those who hate the iPhone’s virtual keyboard probably will love the G1’s physical keyboard.

Those who like the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard (myself included) most likely will find fault with the G1.

I suspect, too, that younger people used to texting will like the G1 keyboard because they are blazingly fast touching keys, not glass, when sending messages.

I found the “chicklet” keys too small for my medium-sized hands. But in all fairness, if you trust that your larger fingers are pressing the right key — even though they may seem to hover over neighboring keys — the G1 keyboard will work for you.

My issue with the keyboard is that the phone’s smallish form factor made thumb typing cramped and cumbersome, especially while holding the device in such a way to thumb type and access the touchscreen and track ball/roller tip.

Additionally, the keys are backlit (a nice touch in the dark), but the labeling is difficult to read in bright light. The letters and orange characters are painfully small, not much of an issue for young folks with 20/20 vision but a point of contention for older people or those needing glasses.

Interface

Unlike the iPhone, which has only one button (home) on the front of the device, the G1 has five standard buttons and a track ball, or roller tip. These are: call (for phone functions), home, back (exit or return to previous screen), and end call/put the device to sleep. The menu button acts as a right mouse click in most applications providing contextual options.

The roller tip, ironically, looks and feels like the one on Apple’s Mighty Mouse. My problem is that the G1 roller tip is highly sensitive and tough to control in a small area. I often zoomed past a link or icon and had to force myself to slow down.

The decision to include buttons on the front of the G1 contributes to the feeling that the Google phone is rooted in more traditional cell phone/smartphone design than the iPhone, which is more adventurous and forward-thinking in its approach.

Apple designed one button (home) on the front of the iPhone; everything else is controlled by “soft” keys inside the display. Users have only one surface to navigate.

On the G1, users have three surfaces to manage — the keyboard, for all data entry; the touchscreen for scrolling and panning and tapping to select; and the roller tip for scrolling and highlighting/selecting links. Many actions found in the touchscreen are also a part of the roller tip, making navigation redundant and giving the G1 more of a computer-like feel.

As much as tech pundits like to call devices such as the iPhone, the Google phone, BlackBerries and others like them mini computers, they’re not. They’re new hybrid devices that are communications and information tools — part phone, part Internet browser, part content creator, part computer. These should have new, appropriately designed interfaces, not ones borrowed from desktop and laptop computers.

Android Operating System

Without a doubt, the Android operating system is spectacular. It’s fast, with little or no lag time. It’s responsive, fun to use, and full of promise. It feels more innovative and up-to-the-moment than even the iPhone OS.

The G1’s implementation of Android follows the computer/desktop model. Dialer, contacts, browser, and map icons sit on top of a wallpaper image just like they do on your computer. Also like a computer, you have more customization options: drag favorites  like contacts, playlists, folders, or Web pages onto the desktop for quick access.

Android integrates extremely well with the applications provided, although a majority of third-party apps have yet to be released, so this may change. Also, it remains to be seen how Android will be implemented on devices manufactured by others like Samsung or LG Electronics and provided by carriers like Sprint in the U.S. and others overseas. (The G1 is due in Europe at the end of the year.)

The operating system is one area where Apple needs to watch out. Android is open source, so third-party developers can create apps limited only by their imaginations. Want a virtual keyboard to use when the G1 is closed? Someone will write one.

Other Hardware Items of Note

• The G1 cannot be synchronized with any data directly on a PC or a Mac. You must manually transfer music files, for example, to a removable storage card, then load the content onto a computer.
• The G1 is a sub-par music player at best. It has no headphone jack and also feels as if music playing is an afterthought since Apple has the digital music market captured with the iPod (the iPhone comes with a built-in iPod). The G1 does support multiple audio formats: MP3, M4A, AMR, WMA, MIDI, WAV, OGG Vorbis.
• The speaker on the back of the G1 is loud and tinny-sounding.
• The battery is removable and replaceable, but it doesn’t appear to be any better than the iPhone’s.
• The G1 comes with 1 GB of MicroSD memory storage. It’s nice that it’s replaceable and expandable, but that comes at an additional cost. The $20 you save on the purchase price of the G1 over the iPhone will easily be eaten up by buying 8 or 16 GB of additional memory.
• The G1 features a 3.2 megapixel camera, but in my limited tests it’s not as good as the one on the iPhone. My problem: You receive a green light at the top of the display indicating that you can take the picture, but when you do there’s a slight delay — just enough time for a subject to blink or shift and blur the image.
• The G1 allows for the sending/receiving of pictures via MMS, something the iPhone does not do.
• Like the iPhone, the G1 does not offer video recording, although this is a possibility in the future. It also cannot play Flash files.
• The iPhone carrier, AT&T, has 320 U.S. metro areas built with 3G; T-Mobile has 20, with eight more due to come online at the end of the year. I’ve sat in the same spot and watches the G1 bounce between 3G and Edge networks.
• For now, the G1 is available in two of the three planned colors: black and a surprisingly nice bronze. The white model is delayed in production.

Verdict

From a hardware and interface perspective, the G1 is a strong, promising entry into this new hybrid category of connected communications and information devices. But it will not unseat the iPhone as the device of choice. Even so, it’s perfect for those who . . .

• hate Apple
• love the open source principle
• hate Microsoft Windows or BlackBerry devices
• don’t have access to (or can’t afford) upper-end Nokia smartphones
• don’t have to rely on Outlook or Microsoft Exchange
• love Google and all of its Web-based products and services

For now, my relationship with the iPhone is intact.

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“Over the last few weeks I have learned that numerous companies are tinkering with Android in an attempt to get the OS to power a whole slew of gadgets — everything from set-top boxes to navigation systems to mobile Internet devices to smart picture frames”, reports Om Malik.

Motorola have already confirmed that it has at least one Android-powered handset in the pipeline, but the company is also a major player in the television set-top box space and is said to be exploring the potential of Android in the living room too. Malik also says he’s heard from “fairly reliable sources” that two large PC makers are experimenting with Android-based Internet devices. None of which I find surprising. From both a technical and business point of view, Google has laid the foundations for Android to move quickly beyond its cellphone roots and, the company hopes, eventually become a ubiquitous platform.

Technology-wise, as Om notes, Android is “not just an operating system, but comes with middleware and key applications”, not least a robust mobile web browser – and a key factor in Google’s commitment to Android – along with the ability to handle 2D and 3D graphics, and various audio, video and image files. I’d also add into the mix location-based APIs and Google Maps, and an already growing library of third-party software and extensions, much of which will be open source in themselves.

While on the business side, the decision to make Android’s source code freely available to hardware makers at no cost isn’t enough in itself, Google’s choice of open source license makes it particularly attractive to consumer electronics companies who want to use Android to power new devices but in a way that will allow them to maintain control and differentiate their wares from competitors. Under the free-wheelin’ Apache license, device makers are free to make their own changes to the OS, such as altering the User Interface or adding new functionality, without submitting those changes back to the open source community, which would also include their competitors.

All of which, as Om says, makes it hard not to get excited about the potential of Android, despite being available today on only one handset and through one carrier. For every consumer electronics market, however small, that you’d like Apple to enter but which they likely won’t, we can probably expect multiple Android-powered offerings to try to fill the void.

See also: Why Google should have developed its own Gphone

On that note, however, a word of warning. Apple’s strength has always been its ability to control the whole user experience through the marriage of software and hardware. Or as User Interface pioneer Alan Kay once said, and Jobs likes to quote, “people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Google’s making a different bet that, with their help at least, people who are serious about hardware no longer need to make their own software.

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Other sites such as Hulu, the joint venture between Fox and NBC, have been getting much of the long-form video attention and name recognition, whereas YouTube remains known for short-form content that lasts 10 minutes or less.

Google, YouTube’s parent, is seeking to change this as it has added select full-length content from CBS in an attempt to take on Hulu and attract other network content to YouTube. [YouTube blog]

Available full-length shows include 20- to 48-minute episodes from CBS’s past and present lineup, including “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” and “Beverly Hills 90210.” The season premiers of “Dexter” and “Californication” and current episodes of “Young and Restless” will also be shown on YouTube.

To improve the viewing experience, YouTube has introduced a new player for long-form video — known as Theater View — which plays video in a less pixelated 16:9 format. It’s no where near as nice as watching a full video on Hulu, but it may suffice for most viewers.

“When you go to full screen  you can actually kick back and watch it,” Shiva Rajaraman, senior product manager, told AdAge.

To support the effort, Google is also experimenting with advertising [see NewTeeVee]. The content will be  supported with pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads. YouTube will get a revenue cut, but neither CBS nor YouTube would discuss the terms of the agreement or revenue sharing.

If long-form video gains traction on YouTube, the balance of power — already in YouTube’s favor — will shift even more toward the Google property.

YouTube served up 5 billion videos in July, representing more than 44 percent of online videos viewed in the U.S. The next closest competitor was Hulu, with a share of 3.9 percent.

The YouTube giant has 330 million users, according to comScore, while Hulu has just 3.3 million. Even so, Hulu’s relative success with long-form video content has caught the attention of the cat-napping Google.

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The idea has merit, but its execution — at least in this early stage — is in need of improvement. It’s not unlike other Google initial-release products.

Here’s how it works: The Good

Say you’re messing around on YouTube and you watch a video from an artist you like — Katy Perry or Raphael Saadiq. Just underneath the video, below the ratings and the sharing and social network links, there are two buttons to download the song or video from Amazon’s MP3 store or iTunes.

Clicking on either one takes  you directly to the song at either store. The purchase process is exactly what you’re used to at AmazonMP3 or iTunes.

“If you like the song,  you don’t need to leave Google or leave the site to buy it,” Bakari Brock, business affairs counsel at  YouTube, told The New York Times. [See also Advertising Age]

That’s not exactly true. Clicking on Amazon, of course, takes you to AmazonMP3, while clicking on iTunes takes you to, naturally, iTunes. But you still leave YouTube, although the page you were viewing remains intact.

Here’s how it doesn’t work: The Bad

But that’s not where YouTube’s e-commerce fails. Ironically — for the undisputed king of search — finding songs to purchase is an awful process and calls into question whether you’d want to use YouTube as a purchase conduit in the first place.

For example, I searched for a new Raphael Saadiq song, only to find I can’t purchase it using YouTube. Also, because there may be many versions of a video on YouTube, finding the one with purchase links can be hit or miss. (Look for “Official Video” in parenthesis next to the video title, if it exists.)

I chose another few songs before I finally found purchase buttons for Saadiq’s “Be Here,” which I already own and don’t need to purchase again. I searched for other artists of interest, but these also did not have purchase links.

Playing around on YouTube, looking for music or videos to purchase, may be interesting at first, but ultimately it’s an empty experience. If you like an artist, why not go directly to iTunes or Amazon MP3?

What YouTube e-commerce is good for

Ultimately, where YouTube e-commerce will shine in the short term is serendipity. You’re rooting around YouTube, looking for bands and artists to watch and listen to. If you like a video or a song, there may or may not be purchase buttons. If there is, great, it’s a convenience. If not, you move on.

What might be helpful would be a way to search for music and videos — and ultimately TV shows, films, video games, books, and concert tickets — available for purchase.

“There’ll be lots of different solutions for lots of different problems,” Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube’s director of product management, told Reuters. “We’ve tested a lot of things already, and we’re going to be testing more in the future. Some will work, some won’t.”

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