Robots need juice. No, not from fruit (well, according to this video, that's a possibility), but juice in the form of a stream of negatively charged particles called electrons. Put simply, our more popular mobile robots--Android phones--need batteries, and lots of them.
It's no secret of the companies manufacturing Android devices and the customers that buy them that the battery life of even the newest phones may have you anxious every time you must leave the house and your precious wall outlets. Let's face it, the Android phones shipping today, with all their horsepower, have at most a battery life to the tune of 4-5 hours. And that's still a theoretical. Real-life battery runs are about 1.5 hours when doing something processor-intensive like playing a game.
Of course, some Android devices are better than others. I haven't been able to play with all of them, but it's safe to say that if you have a 4G Android phone, you're looking at maybe 2 hours of real-world talk time. That's a lot of (fruit) juice for a robot, especially if you plan on toting your robot friend on a long journey.
I look at this as a big problem for the future of Android phones in the face of ubiquitous 4G data and more powerful phone processors. And I feel this is an important discussion that is seemingly ignored by the media and those reviewing these products. Consumers looking for a new phone probably don't know about the energy problems plaguing these phones and are most often surprised when they realize that most of their day involves managing battery life.
Which leads to the next important point about user experience. The first thing a new Android user is told to do after buying their phone is to go on the Android store and purchase a task-killer app. As someone who spends most of the time on a iPhone, this just seems ridiculous. Not only do iPhones get spectacular battery life, but at no time does the user need to focus on managing background apps for the sake of battery life.
Not to sound like a iPhone snob, but when it comes down to what smartphone you'd feel most comfortable taking out and away from nearby energy sources, the iPhone wins hands-down. As a Nexus One owner and having extensively used various Droid devices as well as the Motorola Atrix, the future looks a little bleak for Android when battery technology has remained relatively idle and the new energy-hogging processors and 4G data bands look to chew your Android into a lifeless hunk of parts.
Much like 2010, this year's Google I/O conference made quite a number of new announcements, some projects still under development, and some of which may never see the market. Though Google may seem like it is developing a lot of concept-only products, that still doesn't diminish the excitement us geeks enjoy when we hear news like this.
Google is looking to extend the Android operating system beyond the phones, tablets, and even the TVs it currently ships in. First, the Android Open Accessory platform, which is an open peripheral development protocol based entirely on USB, will allow Android devices to plug into any hardware from third party manufacturers. Second, and even more interesting, is a new project called Android@Home.
Android@Home is Google's new concept product for home automation. The only place you've ever really seen home automation is in movies, where the bad guy's underground layer can be operated with voice commands and/or from an exquisite-looking control panel. In real life, however, home automation has never seen mainstream adoption. Previously developed systems either weren't that great, or you'd had to be Donald Trump to afford anything like it.
To give you a taste of what Google is proposing, chew on this: light switches could soon be a thing of the past. Let's imagine the possibility of placing tiny radio receivers in light bulbs that respond to the electronic cues of the automation system—a system that of course can be operated by Google Voice and its advanced voice-recognition technology.
Pretty cool, right? But that begs the question: I know that technology is supposed to make our lives easier, but how hard is flipping a switch to begin with?
I know this is basically old news now, but I've had this video stored in my phone for over a month, and it was time to finally do something with it.
Hanging out in one of my favorite electronics retail stores, I finally got to play with the introductory Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" tablet—the Motorola Xoom. After using it for a while, I can definitely understand the excitement surrounding the product, especially for people already using Android or who are just all-round, good ol' geeks. But it still has a lot of catching-up to do before it can truly be as mainstream and as competitive as the iPad 2. However, if you are intentionally looking up Xoom reviews, then you are most likely already a supergeek like me and will probably love it anyway.
Interface:
Quite simply, the interface is really, really "geeky." It's kind of like a Star Trek fan's wet-dream, with all kinds of buttons, sliders and controls galore. Or, if you prefer, probably a better comparison would be to the holographic-looking controls of the computer systems in the Matrix trilogy (remember that crazy white control room in The Matrix: Revolutions?). Either way, it's not inherently bad, but considering that this is Google's answer to the iPad makes it a little silly. I say that, because I doubt the general public and target market, which includes kids and grandparents, will want much to do with this if they perceive it as too "techy." That is something that the iPad has going for it, and Apple knows it quite well. And my little sister knows it too. At 8 years old, she uses an iPad with ease, and only on a few occasions has she ever asked for my help to figure something out. Just being as honest as possible, the Xoom, though extremely powerful and harnessing limitless potential, can and will be hard to satisfy such a dynamic range of consumers in the market for which this is to compete.
The biggest complaint I had is the color scheming of the OS and most applications. As is common with Android, almost everything is white text on a black background. And if having a glossy screen wasn't already bad enough, now everything glares so horribly that you constantly have a mirror image of yourself as you use it. Let me just say, this is a real misstep that is easily rectified. I mean, one of the first things taught in design classes is to avoid white-on-black as much as possible. It looks bad. It's hard to read. And here it permeates throughout most of the OS.
Other considerations:
I love Android's multitasking and notifications system, although I thought all the system functions in the little tray menu on the bottom seemed a little confusing. The widgets I thought also may be too small on the home screen, and although the user can customize how it looks, too many widgets can easily make everything really cramped and nearly useless when too much information is laid out in view.
The app selection from the Android Marketplace is ever-increasing, and it includes apps for most of the functions you could want in a phone. Obviously, it will take a little more time to get the types of more immersive app experiences made possible by the higher-resolution screen. Some estimates peg the selection of tablet-specfic apps to around 100. But beyond just numbers, one should hope for and expect some developers to come around and develop something that can compete with Apple's new apps iMovie and GarageBand for iPad. Just as Apple has set to making its own highly developed app experiences, I wonder if Google has anything like that up its sleeve. But, when you think about it, Apple has a long history of music and media appliction development. Google just kinda does web stuff. Not bad—that awesome native Gmail client on the Xoom—but it may be a long while before GarageBand has any competition on the Android side of world.
Competition:
There are some excellent design decisions in this form. It was made to directly compete with the original iPad, which it does quite well. On the spec sheet, the Xoom seems to win: front and back cameras, a dual core processor, larger screen resolution, and a competitive battery life and app selection. But then there is the iPad 2, which kind of sucks the air right out of that spec sheet and makes it a level playing field. The only thing left to really differentiate the Xoom depends on Google and its Android tablet operating system. Honeycomb, as it stands today, has been said to be in a public beta-like mode of development, as Google has even hesitated to release its source code, thought to be for reasons of untidiness underneath the hood. In a rush to get the product to market, Android 3.0 needs to be around 3.5 in terms of manufacturer expectations and feature set and use to really appeal to the widest audience possible.
All in all—it's good, it's powerful, but your grandmother will scoff at it.
If you like technology, industry news, and like to laugh, then let me recommend a podcast. It's called This is my next Podcast. The name is odd, I know; it actually refers to an inside joke. But this is the best podcast you can find for your money (it's free). Trust me, you want to give this one a listen.
It features the gang that formerly ran the Engadget Podcast: Joshua Topolsky (seen often on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon), Paul Miller, Nilay Patel, and friends. Informative (sometimes) and entertaining (all the time), I look forward to these guys' ramblings every week.
Topolsky, the head geek, is like the that quirky, yet funny friend you like to keep around because there's always something witty on the tip of his tongue. Patel always has an interesting point of view, seemingly able to make really technical stuff easy to understand and digest. And Miller, a little outspoken, attempts to be the logic of the bunch, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not.
Regardless of some shortcomings, there isn't anything better. I've looked. That is until I start my own podcast...
Overall, listening to this podcast is kind of like being delivered a broken or neglected UPS package, but the delivery guy is super funny and cool. You'll look forward to each week just to see what that quirky delivery guy is going to say.
Apparently at CES this year, some 100 or more tablets were announced or introduced.
That's crazy.
Just one year ago, right before the iPad was announced, Steve Ballmer got up on stage to announce a few tablets, highlighting one -- the HP Slate -- that wouldn't even go into production. Why? Because once again, the ideas and concept products from manufacturers all had to be re-thought and redesigned in order to compete.
The iPad. When it was announced January 2010, most tech journalists screamed disappointment, their favorite word to describe it being "underwhelming." Oh, it was "just a big iPod Touch." And most people wrote it off as unimportant nearly instantaneously. The problem wasn't with the device at all. The problem was with people's expectations. If the iPad cured cancer, it still wouldn't have satisfied those people. What, with all the hype and speculation the Apple Tablet had garnered for more than a decade?
But it turns out that being just a big iPod Touch is freaking awesome. As soon as I saw the iPad and then heard its "big iPod Touch" description, I thought, "Alright! A big iPod Touch! That's great!" What else could it have been? It seems that being just a larger iPod is still better than what any manufacturer could come up with for the past year and possibly even another year.
So the tablet hype is in full swing, and opinions about the iPad have come full circle. As soon as a few other manufacturers started seriously trying to ship Windows 7 tablets, we then had a more telling look at the devices when we could see them in action side-by-side. And the iPad won, over and over again.
Since then, Samsung recently has been the most direct competition for Apple with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It is built by using the phone Android OS, with Samsung doing what it can to make it more tablet-y. But after having high hopes for what it was and what it could do, after using it I was sadly disappointed. Samsung seemed to rush this thing into market, as it lacked real polish (as does most Android phones). And in many instances across the OS, there were too many references to the "phone" the OS thought is was running on. Looks like they forgot to erase the term "phone" and switch it to "tablet" or "tab." As an example, using a demo model, the Galaxy Tab told me that the phone was missing its card-storage.
However, now Android is finally out to compete is better products, and with the Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" OS coming on a bunch of new devices, we might finally see some actual competition for another market that Apple has once again dramatically influenced and/or dominated.
And as for Windows tablets? God, if they don't soon make the Windows Phone 7 OS over to a tablet form and call it Windows Tab 7 -- or something -- then they have no hope in this catagory. Somebody over there has got to get it together and realize that Windows 7 wont make it in the current market landscape. At CES, Microsoft announced that Windows will make it over to support an ARM-based infrastructure, which just means that they plan on making their desktop OS more fit for tablets. Get you heads out of your ass, Microsoft. Put all your resources in to Windows Phone 7 OS on tablets. It's good. You did great on that software. As soon as you join the pack with a real offering -- an OS with real simplicity, tight underpinnings, and a re-worked UI that's as fluid and seamless as your great new phone OS, then you might have a chance.
While we have been waiting on viable alternatives to the Apple iPad, as the newly announced Blackberry PlayBook has yet to reach market, the Samsung Galaxy Tab may have the ability to grab consumer attention and pull in some market share.
There are quite a few people out there that simply do not want to give in to Apple, the iPad, or even acknowledge that a device similar to the iPad, i.e. tablet devices, can be considered viable alternatives to traditional laptops. To those people, I say wake up and smell the greenbacks, because this new tablet market is thriving.
So what if Apple is the leader in all this again? Because they do so well and because they are, by some people, hated so much, that means demand is high and the market ready for other companies to step up their game and make something just as "magical." That's how technology gets better and how capitalism works. And it's all for you.
For example, Samsung's new tablet looks really good. I haven't used it yet, but this video shows just how usable and iPad-like the Galaxy Tab is:
The Galaxy Tab is supposed to be released over the course of next week from Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile, all with their own separate data and pricing plans. It's confusing, so if you plan on getting one, make sure you do the math and figure out what works best for you before signing the contract for one of these things.
