Technovia

Possibly not the most informative release notes ever

Up there with Apple's classic "Bug fixes".

So I bought a new computer

I bought a new computer. It's not a Mac.

It's a Dell. It runs Linux. It didn't cost me £1400.

And I love it. I'll write some more about why I decided to switch later, but so far I've had it a week, and the only reason I've picked up the Mac again is to get copies of some files which aren't supported by anything other than Mac apps and save them into something sane.

The G1's big weakness: the keyboard

I went along to the T-Mobile store today to take a look at the long-awaited G1, the first phone based on Google's Android.

Count me amongst the unimpressed. The keyboard, which should be a strength, is horrible if you're used to a Blackberry. Given that there's no on-screen keyboard this is a total pain. So I'll be sticking to the iPhone an Blackberry for now.

Asus takes on the MacBook Air

Asus S101, The MacBook Air that You Can Actually Afford:

It's been a while since an Asus product has rocked our world—we think the last time must have been the Eee—but the Atom-powered SSD-based Asus S101 looks amazing for its price—even better than we thought before. Just 2.2lbs and a tapering .7 inches thin (a bit thicker than the Air), its 10.2" LED screen runs at WSVGA (1024x600) resolution. And with 802.11n, ethernet port, Bluetooth, multitouch trackpad, 4-in-1 card reader, 20GB of free online storage and high quality speakers, the S101 packs plenty of useful features—though it only has 1GB of RAM and appears to have the same fatal flaw as the MacBook Air. Yes, the S101 uses a non-replaceable, 5-hour polymer battery.

And the price? For a version with a 64GB SSD, $799. That's $1799 less than a MacBook Air with the same SSD.

Joe Wilcox: I'm Googled Now

Joe Wilcox is very tempted by the T-Mobile G1, which, given that he's been a bit skeptical about the Android project is as much of a surprise to him as it is to anyone else.

I'm much happier with the iPhone than Joe was (he returned his due to the bad call quality), but I'm still pretty tempted by the T-Mobile G1. There's three things which make me look longingly at it:

Jason gets it bang on the mark

Macworld | Mac Word | Don't drive iPhone developers away, Apple.

"Yes, friends, I do think it’s that serious. If what we’re seeing now is Apple policy—in other words, maliciousness instead of incompetence—it risks the entire future of the iPhone platform."

T-Mobile G1 unlock "available after 90 days"

Says David Pogue in his review:

"You can unlock this phone after 90 days—that is, use any SIM card from any carrier in it."

It's difficult to see how T-Mobile could actually keep a phone with such an open operating system SIM locked for long anyway.

Joe Wilcox on Google's potential ace

Apple Watch - iPhone - God Phone Meets the Devil:

"What about the Google focus? The phone offers single sign-on to Google's plethora of online services, including Calendar, Contacts, Gmail, Google Talk, Maps Street View and YouTube. Suddenly, the hodgepodge of Google applications and services has a single point of connection and synchronization. If this mechanism works, and well, then the G1 and other Android-based phones will be powerful data and telephony devices out of the box.

As I've blogged before, sync is the killer application for the connected world. In 2007 I warned: 'If Google gets synchronization right before Microsoft, it's game over.' Ditto to Apple. Google's sync magic requires no PC."

As I've also posted, sync with no PC required is a huge feature. A phone which never has to connect to a PC is much more powerful than one which does.

What matters most about the T-Mobile G1: no PC required

Me, for Mobile Computer Mag:

"This is clearly a window into Google's view of the future – and it's a scenario that probably keeps many Microsoft executives awake at night. Microsoft's strength has always been the PC, and much of its marketing and technology has been geared to the idea of having a PC on every desktop. After all, Microsoft's Office and Windows franchises – the company's cash (sacred) cows – depend on it."

Both Microsoft and Apple see the mobile phone as an adjunct to the PC. Because Google has built the software inside the T-Mobile G1 to sync only with its servers in the cloud, this model is broken. The mobile phone gets set free.

Within a few years, I can see a large chunk of people not having their own "personal" computer, but instead relying on their phone for email, web, social networks, and so on. Oh sure, they'll use PCs - but why would you need your own when all your data lives in the cloud, and you can access that from any machine?

Time to give MobileMe another go

I'm told by people who I trust that MobileMe is now performing as it should, so I'm going to give it another week's trial and see how it goes. Will it really be "Exchange for the rest of us" this time? Tune in in seven days...