Google Nexus One vs. iPhone 3G – the comparison
This is something I have been asked recently most: can the Nexus One really substitute your iPhone? To answer that I took a week of testing in order to see for myself what the differences are and what kind of feature are worth to compare. So please consider that as very personal test with the given assumptions:
- I am a mobile addict, I am a Google fan, I am an Apple lover
- I am pretty aware of all possible platforms out there, incl. Apple and Android before the test - so this is not a technical test like you might have seen them 10 times before (camera pixel etc.), but a test from my personal user experience
- I am an iPhone user for almost 2 years, I am an Android user for 6 month (incl. Samsung Galaxy) and I am a Palm Pre user for 3 month
- I paid a lot of money for the iPhone 3G incl. contract & I got the Nexus for free
All these factors will limit my observation - but that is why it is called "User Experience".
Observing myself intensively the factors most important for me to be satisfied with my smartphone are:
- battery life
- speed (data & computing)
- applications / solutions
- data access (sync/push)
- fun factor (display/cover etc.)
MWC – my review
it is over - THE mobile industry congress - the Mobile World Conference (MWC) in Barcelona. Some people have already noted down their thoughts, like Heike from mobilezeitgeist (Link - in German) and various videos are spread via YouTube (Link, Eric Schmidt, Google CEO Keynote) that shows what was happening at the conference and will be happening this year in terms of mobile.
Their was the natural recurring question that all of us participating at the MWC hit us in the end: "What was impressing you most?". The question is set in order to check and identify the "hot" spots, the topics that shall drive the industry and checks if oneself got the right ideas.
For me personally there were, like every year, a lot of things to observe and a lot of notable things to consider in my upcoming work and therefore I would like you to give a high-level overview about it by dividing it into a) Services/Application Development b) Devices/Technology and c) Brand/Marketing:
MWC Day 3 – the Google Day
Even so Google already took the stage by their Management at Day 2 with the slogan "Mobile first" it was yesterday when Google made the most buzz. Deciding to have no booth at focusing only at the Android Application Development World was a logical one if you are aiming to get more attention to your service. But besides that offering they also took all Marketing power and combined viral strategies with simply investing in people interest here at the MWC: Phones. They simply gave every developer sitting in the session a Google Nexus One Phone or a Motorola Droid. The morning sessions went quite easy and everybody in there was of course happy. But what was happening in the afternoon looked like more a social human experiment. Hundreds of people (remember, MWC is an executive conference) were rushing to Hall 7 and queuing in a tremendous line just to get the Google Phone. This simply showed two things:
1) the need of the people (even so 50% of the people would state that they do not like Google they are using their perfect fitting services)
2) the brand Google already established in that new field for Google in the mobile industry (the attention and the discussion are only comparable to Apple and the iPhone)
And yes, of course I was successfully queuing as well ;-) (the report about the Nexus please expect later this week).
Nevertheless I also saw yesterday a lot of smaller solution providers in Hall 2 that had very excellent connected services like barcode scanning or mobile marketing solutions that gave me that picture that our industry gets more mature rapidly.
Watch out for my sum up and thank you to all the people I met here (gonna be a huge followfriday :-))
MWC Day 2 – getting excited
Today was some more exciting stuff happening besides the anyways great network-parties (thanks to GoMoNews and Smaato). Google was taking the stage and created a lot of "buzz" (yea,yea - I know, it is late ;-)) by simply announcing locical enhancements of their product portfolio. Google Voice Search in more languages and Google Goggles translation - no big game-changers but incremental development of mobile solutions.
Personally I was today more focusing on a "not very" successful player in the recent years - Microsoft.
I was simply interested in what they were able to show about Windows 7 phone besides the already spread YouTube video. Well not much - because only the first layer of the interface is ready and their focus is on launching in Q3 this year. Lucky me I was able to talk to a very nice and transparent speaking guy at their booth (really appreciated the open words!) who explained me their roadmap and the current state. All my questions regarding app store and development framework I need to take to a conference in March when Microsoft has planned to release all further information regarding Windows 7 phone.
Personally I have to admit that the userinterface is inspring and something we haven't seen yet - so based on my assumption that Steve Ballmer really needs to come with something "extra", I am pretty satisfied.
50 meters across the hall I was able to visit the HTC booth where they showed the recent models. Two devices are really astonishing: The windows 6.5 based HTC HD2 and the new Android HTC Desire.
The HD2 is a real eye-catcher with its huge display and thinness - but also with a smooth and easy working Windows on it - really great for people that look for an iPhone substitute and are still working in the Windows sphere. The HTC "Desire" is the update-version of the Nexus One, but simply faster - but so much faster, that you can actually feel the speed by using it (especially me working with a Samsung Galaxy device on Android...)
Another 20 meters away in the hall 1 I visited Adobe whe announced yesterday Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on almost every browser and Adobe Air 2 on Android (and iPhone). Both technologies are enabling real flash development on a mobile device - on one hand in a browser (e.g. youtube) or as external application on Android. Both are basically running with the same specs and have a minimum capacity requirement for the device of 600MHz - which is basically focusing on the high-end class and future phones.
MWC Day 1 – my observations
Even so day 2 is almost gone - here the first things that took my attention yesterday:
- ntt docomo: showing "eye-steering", seperatable phones, wooden phones or the mobile concierge simply showed that our Japanese colleagues set their goal to track attention and to entertain at the fair. And I highly appreciate that - too much "metoos" and "service provider" are already showing things that do not fulfil any purpose to spend so much money on a fair.
- Wireless power: with induction technology this company hits the big need of all the mobilist and most of the end-users - we hate cables, and we are seeking for getting power wireless!
- SonyEricsson: With the new Symbian phone capable to record high definition video and photo they set a new level of brilliance in photography with an mobile phone - really exciting quality. In comparison to the Motorola Milestone which is also capable to record in 720p, SE has a brilliant lightning and obviously a way higher fps.
- Motorola: Introducing their new phones with the "Swype" functionality and all based on Android, Motorola proves that they were able to make the change and are now looking for being the "fastest" on the market. With "Swype" you can easily insert text, without actually "typing". What you do is that you "swype" over the keyboard in a logical order as you would type and the the new technology(from the T9 people) automatically recognizes which word you were supposed to type. With some training you can easily save more then 50% of typing time, especially on touch screen keyboards.
Rudas Studios – mit Benjamin Rose (“closer” von Ne-Yo)
Für alle, die noch nicht im Rudas Studios waren, bzw. sich gern erinnern - spielte er auch gestern abend ... wirklich gut
iPad – from an Apple Product Manager perspective
If I would (and I'd wish) be the Product Marketing Manager for the iPod product family I really had a great day and my future would look pretty bride in the coming month. Why is that? Well because my family got a new member that perfectly fits in my portfolio. The iPad is the missing peace next to iPod and iPhone and serves the "couch" consuming excellent, as well as positioning itself as eBook reader in competition to the Amazon Kindle and all the Netbooks out there - without being an actual Mac!
So, from a iPod Product Management point of view a great deal!
But what about if I would be the Product Marketing Manager of the Mac product family? Well, then I could read all the consumers wishes that came with the Apple Tablet idea, but I would not be in the position to have such a family member available. I have some kids like the MacBook Air or the MacBook, but they are pretty expensive stuff and they are not very "hot" in the last 12 month. And it looks like that my family will not get any "update" soon which gives me actually a pretty bad time, because all the attention and market share goes to my colleague dealing with the iPods.
I really cross fingers that Apple shifts its focus this year at any time this year back to the Mac family - they are really falling back to competition at the moment.
iPad – what has changed?
Well, not much. It is basically a huge iPod touch which optional comes with 3G and a special data flat deal in the US (and hopefully also in Europe in June/July). Apple simply copied the Amazon Kindle approach and combined it with their store capabilities - and named it iBooks. A nice technical asset is the powerful battery that last 10 hours of video or a month of standby. But that's it - no moon-landing, just another Apple device.
So - like said in my recent blog entry - they are only approaching the book industry and "killed" the Amazon Kindle market share.
P.S.: I like the keyboard dock - looks really awesome
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