Anyone who knows me knows that I am an Apple fanboy.

I’ve been using it this last week, and it’s not perfect, but not bad either. I was skeptical because of Google’s massive social fails in Buzz, Latitude, Wave and +1 (although to be fair +1 on its own is a fail, and starts to make sense in the greater context of Google+), but Google+ is at least usable in a way that the others weren’t.

Now let’s extrapolate out a little. Given that Google+ is usable, and that they give you notifications EVERY time you go to Google.com to search, let’s just say it’s going to be big. While it may not ever replace Facebook, it may be the Pepsi to its Coke. Now, Google already has a Google+ Android app (naturally), but they have also submitted an iOS app. I don’t think that it’s a huge leap of faith to assume that Google will start baking Google+ into future versions of Android at the OS level, so you don’t need to install a separate app.

Think about that for a second. Hundreds of millions of Android users will have a native social networking experience on their phones–their primary tool for communicating and socializing with friends. Mobile is key to the next generation of social networking, and Google potentially has a huge advantage.

Apple famously snubbed Facebook in favor of adding Twitter OS level integration in iOS 5, and as much as I love Twitter, it is a much more shallow social experience than Facebook or Google+. Picture sharing is done with links, photo-tagging is nonexistent, and conversations are disparate ping pong matches.

But once (if) Google+ gets traction and is on hundreds of millions of handsets at the OS level, I have a feeling that Apple and Facebook might kiss and make up really quickly. An Apple alliance with Facebook would make sense in the whole “enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of way.

Whatever does happen down the road, Google+ is for real, and things are about to get interesting in the mobile social space.

You want to go around Apple’s 30% subscription cut, I get it. But you are missing the point–unless of course you just want to give current FT subscribers another way to get their news. But don’t you want to grow your online subscription base?

FT.com's cutting edge blunder

I’d venture to guess that way, way, way less than 1% of current iPad owners happen to also pay for access to FT.com. As long as you are going out of your way to format the news for a tablet, why not make a stunning app that can be part of Apple’s new Newsstand?

Oh, that’s right, you still want to hold on to that >1% of iPad owners who pay for access without giving Apple a 30% cut.

Here’s the thing though. How many iPad users are going to organically stumble upon your web app, decide that yes, they want access to this, reach into their back pockets, pull out their credit cards, fill out the registration forms by tick-tack-typing on their iPads one field at a time, wait for the confirmation email, create a username and password and then finally access the content? Maybe you’ll get a dozen or so new users this way?

Or let’s look at this alternative scenario, in a universe where the FT was part of the iPad’s Newsstand app.

iPad user John, who like many iPad owners is affluent, opens up the Newsstand app, which was pre-installed on his iPad with iOS 5. When he opens the app, he sees the FT prominently featured. He clicks on it, glances at the screenshots and decides “Yes. I want this.” The decision to give you money is complete. Now John must execute.

Step 1: He presses the Subscribe button
Step 2: He authorizes the purchase by entering his password
Step 3: There is no step 3

Don’t you see that users could care less if they get to your content by opening up either Safari or the Newsstand app? Unless the process at the Point-of-Sale is frictionless, who knows how many new conversions you are foregoing. Not to mention the problem of discoverability. Sure, you got some good PR when you launched this web app, but how much will you spend just to market it?

Chances are, if you had made a native iPad app, you’d be a regular in the Top 10 most subscribed to newspapers, always up there with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Being in that top list, not to mention the requisite times that you are featured outright by Apple, are free, hugely effective ways to market your properties to new users. Since the Newsstand app (after iOS 5 formally debuts in the Fall) will be installed by default and un-deletable on millions of iPads, that is a built in audience of affluent people with their credit cards one click away.

Yes, it may hurt to give Apple 30% and miss out on all that juicy subscriber data, but by bowing out of Apple’s ecosystem, FT, you are missing a huge opportunity to grow your digital subscribers. Like it or not, Apple’s channel has become like the WalMart of digital content–if you plan to sell physical merchandise en masse without having a SKU in WalMart, good luck.

Hold on to that extra 30% you’re getting from existing online subscribers. If this is indicative of your digital strategy for the next decade, I think you’ll need it.

By all accounts, Microsoft have made themselves a nice little smartphone OS in Windows Phone 7, but alas, they are shooting themselves in the foot with a very clever, very slick, very expensive, but ultimately horribly misguided ad campaign. I’m sure you’ve seen these ads all over the place. The message in them is clear: Buy Microsoft phones, so you’ll never get distracted by how cool your phone is.

Now, I know that there is a greater message that everyone can get behind: Don’t ignore your loved ones or walk blindly across the street because you are engrossed in your handset screen. Yes, that’s a great message, but you know what? This isn’t a public service announcement. Microsoft is trying to sell you on a new phone, and instead of emphasizing its unique UI or features and overall sexiness, they are asking you to part with your hard earned money for a phone that is just adequate at doing what a smartphone should minimally do.

It’s as if Apple is in the game of selling a delicious ice cream sundae with caramel, sprinkles and a cherry on top (the iPhone), and Microsoft is trying to convince people that they should buy hearty, bitter vegetables (Windows Phone 7).

The reason why people are so engrossed in their iPhones is the dazzling retina display, the tens of thousands of powerful apps and games, and the simple clean UI of iOS. If people are paying hundreds of dollars upfront, and thousands of dollars in recurring monthly services, they want a desperately sexy phone that they can admire and fondle as often as they want.

It’s really a shame that Microsoft made such a nice OS in Windows Phone 7 and they are paying millions of dollars to make sure no one buys it.

Really, Microsoft?!?!?

Sigh…

Tango enables 3G VoIP and video calls between any two users who both have Tango installed and are registered. This is a pretty big barrier as far as user acquisition/usability, but before I get into that, I’ll talk about the product itself.

I saw a demo of Tango in action, and I’d say that in terms of quality, it works (and looks) a lot like FaceTime.

When you start up Tango, you use your phone number as your unique PIN. Then, you grant it access to your phonebook, which it scans for other Tango users. You can invite people from your adress book via email or SMS, and at next startup, Tango scans your contacts again and the list of available Tango users in your book auto-populates.

The app is available here in the App Store, and I can’t be bothered to try and hunt for the link on Android’s dreadful storefront.

Tango’s biggest potential problem that I alluded to earlier, was the challenge of finding people to use this with. As you probably know, Apple’s FaceTime is currently only available on the iPhone 4 and even then only over WiFi. These are significant enough barriers that people (like me) don’t regularly use FaceTime. Another barrier, is that often, I just don’t want to be on video when talking to my friends.

VoIP might actually be Tango’s killer feature, users may come for cross platform video calls, and stay for the voice. Tango’s VoIP feature, which sends you a push notification when you get a call, is pretty slick–especially since you don’t have to use your phone minutes to continue talking.

I also asked the Tango folks if they are using the open APIs that His Steveness talked about on stage at FaceTime’s launch. It turns out that Tango doesn’t use the FaceTime protocol, and in fact, Apple hasn’t actually open-sourced it yet (but plans to).

But if you can’t wait for cross-platform, over 3G FaceTime to happen, Tango just might be worth the download.

Today, Matt Thompson, GM, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft (maybe the person at MSFT who decides the product names also decides the titles?) took the stage at Mobilize to convince us they are indeed still in the game.

Taken at Mobilize, September 30, 2010

His delivery and tone were excited, if not apologetic. He rightfullly admitted the scenario Microsoft is currently facing, stating, ”We’ve been clearly dominated by Android, iPhone,” at the start of his preso.

After a game demo of Babylonian Twins–a game that Thompson’s cohort demo-er made sure to tell us was originally on the iPhone but ported to WP7 in “a matter of days”–Thompson put in a plug for developers.

“We have thousands of developers already signed up, and we’re looking for more.” As an evangelist, he has to paint a rosy picture, but to say they are “looking” for more is an understatement. I have heard many rumblings from within the mobile developer community of Microsoft essentially bribing–or attempting to bribe–coders to write for WP7.

Regardless of Microsoft’s challenges wooing developers, I’m intrigued with the platform. It’s the only major Smartphone OS  that isn’t just a honeycomb grid of apps. Noah from Phonedog thinks its UI makes the iPhone look like a dinosaur, and I agree.

Thompson touted the cloud connectivity of the OS, the baked-in social and gaming features and all the other reasons why WP7 is the better than the rest. I’ll reserve judgment on how well it all comes together until I actually have some quality hands-on time, but I think the elephant in the room here is Microsoft’s, flawed, old-world business model of selling their mobile OS to OEMs.

The days of making money from selling a mobile OS are just over. Over over over. It’s genuinely sad to see this potentially innovative, forward thinking design sandbagged right out of the gate by such a backward-facing

business model.

With Windows Mobile, Microsoft tried to shove a desktop into a handset, complete with Start menu and squint-inducing menu items. This was the old world of mobility, with less than modest success, unispired plasticky hardware design and “good enough” software usuability. Then came the iPhone. Microsoft has conceded that a capacitive touchsreen and a touch UI is the future of mobility, but they are foolishly clinging to their ancient, desktop-inspired business model.

Note to Microsoft–you’re halfway there with WP7, but Android will continue to drink your marketshare milkshake unless you change your business model. Apple is too busy counting profits to care about marketshare, but they will crush you too.

Ewan has been giving us the goods from BlackBerry DevCon all week, all the while a small local blog called TechCrunch had its own Disrupt conference in our humble bayside town.

Well today, I’m at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference and next week I’ll be at CTIA.

I’ll do my best running around to bring you my insights from the shows, but check out the Mobilize speakers and schedule and drop me a line in the comments or @ me on twitter if you know someone I should talk to.

So I got one on Saturday. In fact, I got one for my girlfriend too. Rather than contrib

ute to the rash of hands-on reviews and pontifications that are littered across the Techmeme homepage, I’ll keep this brief.

All I have to say is that the iPad is a gorgeous device, a hunk of aluminum and glass that lets you reach out and grab the Internet by its dots and @s and manipulate it to your heart’s content. More specifically, Mobile Safari is awesomely responsive. I mean it’s literally awesome. And I mean “literally” in the literal sense, not in the figuartive sense in which the word “literally” is often used.

I don’t want to start continue gushing, nor ignite any flamewars or clichéd arguments about “walled gardens” and car analogies.

All I’ll say is this. Apple has another winner on their hands, period. And just as they did with the personal computer in 1976, and the GUI in 1984, the music industry in 2001 and the mobile industry in 2007, Apple is showing the world where we are headed.

I’m not saying that Apple will take over the universe and we will all have iPads by 2011–Apple’s closed software and hardware business model isn’t made to scale for mass adoption. But I will say that the industry will trend towards simple, task oriented tablets made for the masses. Others (maybe Microsoft, maybe Google, maybe not) will do it cheaper and with wider adoption, but Apple will make the best tablets–at a premium price. Kind of like the age old Mac vs. PC scenario or the new iPhone vs Andoid one.

We will always have some form of bigger work and content creation machines, but as far as 90% of coumputer users are concerned, the desktop and its baby brother the laptop will need to step aside for the tablet, who is currently being matriculated in Cupertino.

How? By burning the house down, throwing the baby out with the bath-water or any other cliche that describes them abandoning their ancient, god-awful legacy-ware that was Windows Mobile. Although the ‘Softies are keeping WinMo 6.x for enterprise which makes no sense to me, because it will eventually drive enterprise users–WinMo’s bread and butter–to a more modern platform. But regardless, the real news is that about three years too late, Microsoft seems to actually get what consumers want. Not a stylus, not an unresponsive resistive screen, no ridiculous start button.

But, these concerns not withstanding, if the mobile world wasn’t exciting enough, it just got excitinger. So sit back with a bag of crisps (UK readers only) and enjoy the show.

• The Name – It sucks. Who cares? I’m over it.
• Closed – Oh no! Whatever will I do? As much as some arbitrary app rejections might suck here and there, the App Store has set the standard for all other app stores. All my favorite apps that I can’t live without will be on the iPad. And the fact that the App Store is closed; the fact that Apple makes the hardware and the software, is the very reason why people love the Apple experience. Developers can cry all they want about its policies, but the App Store made buying a mobile app mainstream. Millions of customers that wouldn’t have existed otherwise  are now accustomed to paying for mobile content. You’re welcome, snotty developers.
• It’s $500 – OK, I already have a MacBook Pro, an iPhone 3GS, do I need an iPad? No, I desperately need an iPad. I just do. Tech is my life, it’s how I make my living.
• Just a Big iPhone - Yes! Exactly! That’s like saying that if you have a fifty pound pile of cash–a great thing, who would want a 100 pound pile of cash? Me who. That’s who.
• Huge Bezel – OK, I’ll admit, at first sight of the big bezel–especially after seeing those sexy barely-there-bezeled mock-ups–I was taken aback. But then I thought it through. Where else would you grip it? Would you hold it like a cocktail waitress holds her tray?
• AT&T – This is the only part that kills me. But for my needs, I’ll go WiFi only, and save on the $130 bucks and extra monthly subscription to yet another service. I’ll use it to surf the web at home, and use my iPhone when I’m out in the wild–who wants to lug around a tablet anyway? So by default this doesn’t matter to me at all (I know a total cop-out and AT&T’s SHIT 3G network should be a dealbreaker if you require 3G connectivity).

So yes, sign me up! I have already pledged my soul to the His holiness in the church of Jobs. Call me a sheep, a weak-willed fanboy, but when you are fiddling with your stylus, trying to get your sodding handset to work with that fragmented application, I’ll be joyfully multi-touching my way through the Internet, an ebook or one of the most compelling 140,000 apps ever made for a mobile platform.

Processed Receipt

I have been meaning to try the Shoeboxed app for the iPhone, and a recent business trip to New York was the perfect opportunity.

The idea behind Shoeboxed is solid, it is definitely a utilitarian app that aims to make your life easier. Rather than having to keep and then transcribe your receipts, all you have to do is snap a picture of your bill (you’ll need the autofocus of the 3GS) and then upload it. From there, it is magically sent to the Shoeboxed folks on the wings of a dove, where it is then sprinkled with magic pixie dust and catalogued by the receipt’s total, date and place. Maybe “pixie dust” is too technical of a term for you, so I’ll just say that they are probably processed through OCR or maybe even with human eyes on handwritten cab receipts. Let me just say, Shoeboxed does what it’s supposed to do and is brilliant at doing it.

In my experience using the app, the receipts were uploaded quickly, and processed usually by the next time I had another receipt to upload. To see the pixie dust on Shoeboxed’s end work its magic is really freaking awesome, or stonking as Ewan might say. Shoeboxed has that “WOW” factor to it that is essential in all apps on which I bestow the “brilliant” superlative. I found myself showing it off to my friends, unprovoked.

Once the receipts are processed, you can select which ones you want to be compiled and then send a report via email, complete with pictures.

I am not a frequent traveler, but if I were, Shoeboxed would be an even more useful app. It is easy to use, and very intuitive, which is also the hallmark of a brilliant app. If your app isn’t understandable unless you’ve read a manual about it first, then your app is simply not brilliant.

However, even a brilliant app can be imperfect, and there is one gripe I have with Shoeboxed.

The last receipt that I photographed on my trip wasn’t really a receipt at all, it was a BART ticket to the airport, with the amount printed on it in small text. Now I don’t blame the Shoeboxed folks for not being able to process this, but there is a flaw here. Having all the text entered on your behalf is usually great, but in extenuating circumstances (like my BART ticket) you should be able to be manually override the automatic processing. However, currently with the Shoeboxed app, you can’t edit a receipt until it has been processed, so this “receipt” wasn’t processed by the time that my expense report was due. Alas, I lost out on that $7.95.

Un-processed, un-editable

This is a small gripe, and one that could be changed by the Shoeboxed folks in the near future. So as long as you’re okay with the service costs (rate plans here), and you are a road warrior with an iPhone 3GS, Shoeboxed is a no-brainer.

There is a free trial if you’d like to try before you buy.

It turns out, the only thing that ever ended up killing the iPod was the iPhone. One cool, lustful Apple device over another.

But back in the glory days of the PMP, every competitor tried to out-feature and out-spec the iPod as the lack of features was the perceived weakness of the device.

“Hey! The iPod doesn’t have a removable battery or space for a SD card. There’s also no FM radio! Let’s get the boys in engineering on that–stat!”

When it was first released, people figured the Zune was probably over-billed as an iPod killer, but that it would be a successful product in its own right. However, the reason why the Zune turned out nowhere near anything that even resembled an iPod killer is because it’s not about a feature-war. Rather than trying to beat the iPhone by going after its perceived weaknesses–a lack of features, they should have taken the disgusting, slimey, but effective advice of Karl Rove–”Don’t attack your enemy’s weaknesses, attack their strengths.” If you best your competitor’s strengths, all they are left with are the weaknesses.

The reason people loved the iPod (and now the iPhone) was the user experience, not the feature set.

Which brings us to the Droid. Now that the PMP is irrelevant, the Droid is going the Zune route against a different Apple product.

Every review I’ve read says that the two biggest pain points in the Droid are the unusable camera and the dreadful physical keyboard.  I have not had any significant time with the Droid myself, but I ran my thoughts by mobile hardware genius Noah Kravitz of PhoneDog.com who had extended time to play with his Droid review unit, and he agreed in this respect.

In the “Droid Does” campaign it’s a classic case of going after your enemy’s weakness. It seems that they tacked on a horrid physical keyboard  just so they could say that they have one. And the camera?

“Who cares about the actual quality of the camera, let’s make it five megapixels–two better than the iPhone 3GS!! Then let’s make a commercial about it!”

Everyone says that the Droid is the thinnest slider ever, but imagine how much thinner, more lightweight and sleeker a phone it could have been if it didn’t have a keyboard-in-name-only.

The media player also has been receiving poor marks in every review. This is one of the iPhone’s strengths and should have been one the things they were trying to attack. But this brings up a good point: who is “They?” Motorola? Google? Verizon?

This is the fundamental difference between Apple and  Android (and if we’re assuming Windows Mobile is still relevant, then them too). Apple controls the hardware and the OS it uses, and can tweak the hardware/software mix to (near) perfection. This is why it’s not fair to compare any other phone makers, save for RIM and Palm, to Apple.

This is why we have yet to see a phone that will “kill” the iPhone and why trying to create a killer is futile (unless you are Palm with the Pre or RIM with the *snicker* Storm). This still doesn’t mean that there can’t be great phones that don’t kill the iPhone. From all accounts, the Droid is a great phone–but it could have avoided its two biggest drawbacks if it hadn’t gone down the Zune path and stayed out of the attempted murder business.

Funambol (previously covered by Ewan here) is kicking off the OMS show with some early news.

Later today, Funambol will announce its acquisition of Zapatec, a provider of AJAX Web 2.0 solutions (not a prescription heartburn medication as you might glean from first glance at their website).

The full info is in the release below. I’ll have to track the Funambol people down tomorrow so they can tell me more about this in plain English.

Funambol has no comment on acquisition price.

Funambol Acquires Zapatec to Usher in New Generation of Rich
Mobile Browser Native Apps That ‘Sync & Push’ Billions of Devices

Funambol open source mobile sync & push plus Zapatec AJAX web 2.0 framework uniquely provide all required ingredients for open mobile native apps to address device fragmentation

Redwood City, Calif., November 4, 2009 – Funambol, the leading provider of open source mobile cloud sync and push email for billions of phones, today announced it has acquired Zapatec, Inc., a leader of AJAX web 2.0 frameworks. The acquisition enables Funambol to uniquely address the industry pervasive device fragmentation challenge that plagues developers and requires building native apps for too many platforms. The combination of Funambol’s open source mobile sync and push server, with Zapatec’s AJAX web 2.0 technology, will foster a new generation of open, rich mobile browser native apps for billions of smart- and feature phones. This provides the best of both worlds — rich mobile web native apps that ‘sync and push’ and that work on all devices.

“Future mobile apps will resemble PC AJAX apps, they will be web-based yet will sync data with mobile devices and have push notifications,”

said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO. “We are very pleased to acquire Zapatec, the leading provider of AJAX web 2.0 frameworks. Together, our technology allows us to create the next generation of open, rich mobile browser native apps that sync and push billions of devices.”

There are four billion mobile phones today, growing to five billion over the next few years. These phones represent a major device fragmentation problem for the industry, as they are splintered across numerous platforms and manufacturers, including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BREW, Java ME, mobile Linux and several proprietary offerings. Further, entire new classes of wireless devices are emerging, such as e-book readers, wireless digital cameras and printers, netbooks and appliances, with their own operating environments. This makes it extremely challenging for developers to build rich mobile apps that work across a wide range of devices.

Many industry experts believe that the next generation of mobile apps will be web-based, similar to AJAX web 2.0 apps for PC browsers that provide desktop-like capabilities and ease-of-use. Funambol recognizes that just providing rich mobile browser apps will be insufficient. Apps must also sync data and content locally with mobile devices and have push capabilities similar to push email. They must also be integrated into the core apps on devices such as their address book, calendar and messaging clients.

The integration of Funambol and Zapatec technology provides all of the required resources to build the next generation of open, rich mobile browser native apps. It combines Funambol’s open source mobile data sync and push server platform, with Zapatec’s AJAX web 2.0 framework. This will enable Funambol, its customers and open source community to create a new generation of open, rich mobile native apps that ‘sync & push’ billions of devices to address the device fragmentation problem. As part of the acquisition, Dror Matalon, Zapatec CEO, is joining Funambol’s leadership team as Vice President, Emerging Technology.

“Open source is on fire in mobile, and Funambol is at the forefront,” said Dror Matalon. “Together, our technology can make it easy for people to build rich mobile native apps that support all major platforms.”

About Funambol

Funambol is the leading provider of mobile open source cloud sync and push email for billions of phones. Funambol open source software has been downloaded over three million times by 50,000 developers in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed by the largest device manufacturers, mobile operators, portals, service providers and ISVs in the world, including AOL, 1&1, EarthLink and CA, Inc. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, California with an R&D center in Italy. For more information, please visit http://www.funambol.com. You can follow Funambol on Twitter at http://twitter.com/funambol.

Ahoy!

I’m heading out to the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco tomorrow.

Have a look at the agenda and tell me, dear MIR readers, whom should I make sure I talk to?

I’ll probably write up a post at the end of the day tomorrow, and I plan do be doing some real-time updates on my twitter stream.

So let me know in the comments, or shoot me an @reply on Twitter, who do you need to hear from?

Killer robots sent to destroy WinMo

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece about CTIA in which I said that Android could be the next Windows Mobile.

Obviously, this story was read by Saul Hansell of the New York Times (although he did not comment on the post), because today he published an article in the Times saying pretty much the same thing.

Except he added fancy quotes from execs, analysts, and used things like “proper grammar” and “research.” Whatever (sentence fragment).

He also followed the piece up with a post to the New York Times Bits blog, where he didn’t really beat around the bush in asking if Google had made Android only to harm Microsoft and kill their business in mobile (which they tell me is the future).

So let’s not beat around the bush either. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Is Google only using Android as a tool to kill Windows Mobile? Is that being, errr.. evil on their part? Does Microsoft deserve it for having such an outdated product?

I know at least Ewan has an opinion on this one. Have at it.

I know Ewan loves and adores the N900, but even he can back me up on this. Just as having a serious smartphone without a 3.55mm headphone jack is a joke (yes, I’m looking at you G1, various BlackBerrys), having a smartphone with a stylus is becoming unacceptable. To the early adopters/mobilegeeks like me, it is a deal-breaker, and it’s only a matter of time before the disgust with the stylus seeps down to the general public (normobs as Ewan says).

I know some business men and women must be used to the stylus, as they’ve been using them since the days of the PDA. The stylus is like a security blanket for these people. But if they could have back the hours they devoted to learning the Palm Graffiti 1 & 2 alphabets and instead spent that time to learn how to play guitar, they’d be Randy freaking Rhoads by now.

The point is, that styluses (styli?) had their day in the sun. As did the rotary phone. As did the phone before the rotary phone where you’d pick up the receiver and say “Operator, get me #12!” But we are living in the age of glorious, gorgeous touch screens: the iPhone, Palm Pre, the HTC Hero, and the BlackBerry Storm (OK, just kidding about that last one).

About half the time I’m using my phone, I do so one-handed. I don’t operate it when I drive if that’s what you’re thinking, but rather when I’m carrying a cup of coffee, my lunch etc., so using a stylus is just out of the question.

Even with two hands, I hate the stylus. The act of sliding the ugly plastic wand out of the side of the phone is always the last resort. You try to think, “OK, this webpage only has two links I want to click, maybe I can get away with using my fingernail.” Then, invariably, you try again and again until you are so frustrated that you resign yourself to removing the stylus from its plastic cocoon.

Then you get to a website with fields. It’s too much trouble to go into a field put the stylus back, use the slide out keyboard, then remove the stylus again. So you try to hold on to they stylus by pinching it between your pointer finger and the side of the phone, as you attempt to type with your thumbs. Then of course, the stylus, awkwardly held in place merely by friction, tumbles to the filthy ground, and then rolls into the gutter. You then go to the nearest bridge or tall building and hurl your body towards the sweet embrace of the afterlife, a world with no stylus.

So I know that the N900 is a serious smartphone, and I’m sure that Nokia engineers were loathe to include a stylus. They would probably say “We had no choice, how else are you going to navigate the parts that need a delicate and precise touch?”

To which I would say: figure it out. Just figure it out, you’re the high paid engineer. We can put a man on the moon, but we’re still in the dark ages of mobile devices with the stylus. Actually, a little known fact, the original stylus was a crude hunting and gathering tool used by Neanderthals. A million years later, little has changed.

Google and Verizon set the tone with their announcement at the beginning of the week. With Motorola showing a major commitment to Android with their CLIQ/DEXT, and phones either released or in the pipeline from every major OEM,  the little green robot was on everyone’s lips the whole week.

Everyone seemed to be mentioning Android as the “next step” for their company or product. Maybe it’s just hype, but you get the feeling that the iPhone was just a preview of what we will see with Android. As if the iPhone rewrote the rules and just set the stage for what Android can/will do.  At last year’s CTIA, everyone knew that getting on better hardware than the dodgy G1 would be the next step for Android, and open up a world of opportunities. Well, with the HTC’s MyTouch and  Hero, this next step has happened.

Android–the Next WinMo?

With WinMo 6.5 only a touch-up on 6.1, and Motorola announcing  they will skip 6.5 entirely, are consumers  (or the bigger question–other OEMs) going to be patient enough to wait for Windows Mobile 7, especially since Microsoft is notorious for missing internal deadlines? With Motorola and Samsung and even Sony Ericsson going Android, are we witnessing the birth of the next Windows Mobile and the death of the first one?

But never count out Microsoft, because even if they aren’t the most nimble company around, they basically have unlimited acquisition assets and  can buy the companies that are nimble. Also, if Microsoft wanted to cease mobile operations, and start from scratch once the smartphone OS industry has matured, they can afford to do that. Remember the X-BOX launch? Microsoft insinuated itself out of nowhere into an industry that was dominated by a handful of players.

But I’m getting distracted–the point of this post is not about WinMo, it’s that I’m extremely bullish on Android, and the time of taking a “wait-and-see” approach from folks in the industry is over. If you don’t have an Android strategy in the smartphone game, then you simply don’t have a strategy.

Rich Wong, of Accel Partners wrote a great summary (ok, way better than mine) of what he saw at CTIA, give it a read to get the scoop straight from the whip-smart VC himself.

Also on the open theme of Android, I plan to file a report from the Open Mobile Summit next month in San Francisco. Anything I should look out for at the show? Let me know in the comments.

Over to you, Michael!

- Ewan

I had the chance to check out the new hotness from Motorola yesterday is San Francisco, the CLIQ. Motorola launched their new QWERTY sliding (ugh) Android handset with the MotoBlur UI, or service, or philosophy, or whatever (Lance Ulanoff of PCMag nailed the confusion over the keynote) yesterday, and I was there. Overall, the CLIQ is a solid entry.

I was lucky enough to attend the hands-on press event, and get a tour of the handset from one of Motorola’s friendly PR’s. My first thoughts:

It’s a slider. Yuck. Personally, I hate sliders, just a matter of taste here, but having said that, the keyboard was pretty good. The keys were responsive (not mushy) and a nice compromise between squishy rubber and hard plastic in feel.

The capacitive touch-screen was nice, really nice. Very quick and responsive.

Not sure about the hardware. The 3.5 mm head jack is absolutely essential these days if you are serious about making a media player ready smartphone, but it seems a little tacked on last minute up top and center as it is. The slider doesn’t close flush on both halves, exposing a gap. However, I didn’t have any build quality misgivings of other slider smartphones like the Palm Pre or the horrid HTC Mogul handset. The CLIQ didn’t feel like a hunk of plastic the way those do.

It’s not an iPhone “Killer”. But hey, it doesn’t have to be. If it’s priced correctly, I think it’s an attractive option for people who like QWERTY sliders and want an Android phone.

The social features are very neat but…

OK, so the social features work as advertised. They are swish, as Ewan would say. But I don’t know if I want to be all that connected all the time. I can just imagine signing in to my Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr etc. and just being bombarded with phone beeps and notifications all day. But maybe tweens of today want and like that? At 30 years of age however, I am beyond over the hill. I can just imagine myself yelling at these facebook notifications to get off of my lawn… err desktop.

I took a quick demo video with my trusty iPhone 3GS, but with the dim-lighting, background noise and lack of Rafe Blandford, it’s not as stonking as a video from Ewan. For more (and better) videos, head over to Phonedog and IntoMobile). Special thanks to Tracy from Motorola who did a swish job organizing the event.