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Rory Cellan-Jones

Impressions of Android

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 23 Sep 08, 19:03 GMT

I don't know about you, but getting to grips with a new mobile phone takes me some time. I have to load up thousands of contacts, set up my e-mail, surf a few websites and even make the odd call before I know what I think. So half an hour spent playing with the T-Mobile/HTC/Google G1 - the first Android handset - this afternoon wasn't really enough to reach any firm conclusions. But here are my first impressions.

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The G1 looks much like HTC's recent efforts for the Windows Mobile platform. The slide-out keyboard gives a bit of added bulk, but it's a reasonably compact device. The touch screen seems to respond quite rapidly, and there's a jog-wheel too for faster navigation.

But what quickly becomes clear is that you'll be sliding out that keyboard much of the time. If, as I suggested earlier, there is now a schism between the touchers and the typists then this is a phone for the typing tribe. Even sending a text means using that keyboard rather than the screen. There are also several buttons to press to take you to a home screen, to bring up a range of applications, or to make a phone call.

The Android platform seems to be operating pretty smoothly, with Google applications - Mail, Talk, Maps - prominent on that home screen and launching quickly. The web surfing, which is such an attractive feature of the iPhone, is pretty intuitive on the G1 too, although you have to zoom in and out by tapping on the screen, rather than pinching and dragging on a multi-touch screen.

Other features include a barcode scanner, which captures an image of the code on the product, then searches the web for price comparisons, and an Amazon mp3 store which will apparently be available only in the US.

Most important, to my mind, is the Android Market, which allows users to install a whole range of applications from independent developers. I didn't get a chance to try any of the apps, but presumably they will be similar in range to those in Apple's App Store, allowing users to customise their phones with games, social networks and the like.

I didn't have a chance to try the 3 mp camera - but with no video capture it looks as though this phone isn't really aimed at keen snappers or instant movie-makers.

As you can see, I've made frequent reference to the iPhone and the G1 will inevitably be compared with Apple's product. For those who don't like the idea of a phone totally dependent on a touchscreen, the first Android will prove an attractive alternative.

What it lacks is the wow factor. I can't imagine there will be an awful lot of "oohs" and "aahs" when the G1 hits the shelves in November. But Google's first entry into the mobile phone world is a lot more impressive than many had predicted, and should hasten the development of the mobile internet.

Rory Cellan-Jones

Mobiles - are you a toucher or a typist?

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 23 Sep 08, 10:19 GMT

Later today I'm hoping to give the G1 a spin. What's that, I hear you cry, some new high-performance sports car? Well no it's the latest gadget to get the tech blogs hyper-ventilating, the first mobile phone to use Google's Android platform. It's obviously a big day both for Google and for a mobile phone industry which is now becoming a battleground for rival operating systems.

But it could also prove a decisive moment in the new schism which has opened up between two tribes - the touchers and the typists. The first smartphones all offered traditional keyboards as the means of text input, though a few mavericks chucked in a stylus and let you tap on the screen - in my experience that always ended with a lost stylus, a scratched screen and a bad temper. But the best of these keyboards, notably on the Blackberry, allowed users to become rapid typists, albeit with a couple of thumbs. As I still type on a computer with a couple of fingers, the difference in speed was not that great.

Then came the iPhone - and touch. Now I know there had been other touch devices before Apple's device, but it was the iPhone which made a touch-interface the new, new thing for mobile phone makers. Others rushed to follow suit - and at long last there's even a Nokia touchscreen phone around the corner.

I love the swift access that touch gives you to websites, to your music, and to the manipulation of images, but it has one major drawback. When it comes to text, I find myself reduced from two thumbs to one finger - and that's a pretty slow way of writing anything, from a text message to an e-mail. So for the last year I've been a member of both tribes. I'm still carrying two devices with me, one with a touchscreen for web surfing and calls, the other with a keyboard for e-mail.

From the look of various leaked pictures, the new HTC G1 hedges its bets with a touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard. That may prove to make the handset both clunky and ugly - and while smartphones used to be aimed solely at business types who valued function above form, they're now trying to capture a wider market, where looks matter.

So which tribe are you in - the touchers or the typists? And will the physical attributes of a handset prove a more decisive factor in choosing a new phone than the fact that it boasts a brand new open-source operating system? We'll hope to bring you pictures and information about the first Android phone later this afternoon.

Maggie Shiels

Google and the mobile future

  • Maggie Shiels
  • 23 Sep 08, 09:10 GMT

There are more mobile phones than cars or credit cards in the world. That's a figure that Google's engineering director Andy Rubin highlights in a company blog ahead of it's release of what has been dubbed the new Gphone by T-Mobile using Google's Android operating system.

As well as being ubiquitous, Mr Rubin maintains cellphones are "Ten times more powerful than the PC you had on your desk only eight or nine years ago."

He writes, "It has a range of sensors that would do a martian lander proud, a clock, power sensors, thermometer, and light meter on the more basic phones; a location sensor, accelerometer and maybe even a compass on more advanced ones. And most importantly, it is by its very nature always connected."

So given its popularity and necessity, Mr Rubin ponders just how we might use our phones in the future.

I won't go through the list because you can read it for yourself here.

Nothing in there about simply making a call. So yesterday huh?

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