First though, let me take a wee look back.

It’s been painful to watch Android.

There are some fundamentals that have been missing.

Ever since I picked up a “T-Mobile G1″, they’ve been winding me up quietly. The fact my G1 couldn’t limp into mid-morning without the battery going to red was something that astounded many Nokia executives I know. How could they put something like this out to market?

The camera? Abysmal.

The voice quality? Robotic.

The user experience? Limited.

The best way of running my G1 — if I actually wanted to use it for a full day — was to actually switch everything off.

And looking at my Nexus S, not much has changed. As long as you’re never more than 5 feet away from a USB charge point, you’re good. And if you look good pixelated, then — broadly speaking — Android cameras are definitely for you.

Literally, I feel the best about my Nexus S when it’s switched off. Because I know it’s not using any battery and that when I actually NEED to do something, I can switch it on, use it gloriously, then switch it off again. Or at least, set it to Airplane mode to make sure it only gently slurps on the battery.

The operating system has prompted a phenomenal sea change across the marketplace. Prompted it. There are some wonderful innovations. Google Maps is just delightful. Voice search and integration, wonderful. Sync just works. I think it’s fair to say that the G1 experience heralded the first proper mobile experience — you needed to sign-in with a Gmail account, BUT everything synchronised without you doing any thinking whatsoever. Just a username and password. Calendars, contacts, (“push”) email. This was when folk were still having to tell their Nokia what the time and date was during activation.

The democratisation of the smartphone, prompted by Google “giving away” Android has been super to watch. All of a sudden, consumers upgrading from a shit feature phone got themselves a shit smartphone.

The priority was Google.

There’s nothing wrong with that. They funded it all for commercial gain.

The priority was always search — Google Search — and revenue. Everything about the Android ‘experience’ was about the Google ecosystem. The heavy reliance on search.

It’s been a really nice ride, too. Along the way, millions have been lifted out of feature phone poverty with a wide array of $99-style smartphones.

I began to get rather frustrated by the total lack of consumer focus. Android, I remember remarking, “is not consumer ready.”

Consumers still use it. They still get on fine most of the time. There’s just so many rough edges almost everywhere I look.

The problem with Android is that, for the most part, I believe it won’t take much to persuade a current user to swap, especially if they’ve been left a wee bit disappointed by their existing Android device. This is the big Nokia/Microsoft bet: That they can deliver a better, integrated experience that seriously delights users, at all price points.

In recent years, the rather crazy notion of HTC having to pay license fees for what was supposed to be a ‘free’ operating system, has had quite a lot of people in manufacturers chattering. There’s been the odd pained face.

Updates aren’t fast.

Just look at Sony Ericsson: The company used a ton of resources to get it’s first generation devices out into market running (if memory serves) Android 1.9. Or was it 1.6? I can’t remember but it was shocking.

Consumers were greeted with a wall of silence. Can’t you just buy the device and be happy with it? The culture change that many manufacturers have had to bear has been extreme and rather expensive.

At the end of the day, manufacturers want to see lots of boxes going out the factory door, ideally with a healthy profit attached to each one.

It’s not just about the equipment folk though.

The operators have been watching the Android juggernaut with concern. They’ve been trying to play along where possible. Witness Vodafone’s nigh-on-ridiculous attempts at adding a ‘marketplace’ to a phone that already had one on the front screen by default. Vodafone’s abomination was hidden away on the 10th screen, safely insuring nobody would bother. Right or wrongly, the operators have been staring at Google’s profits and quietly panicking.

One rather large gaping hole with Android is the marketplace. Developer support is still a problem, however Google has arguably done one of the best jobs possible at retaining mindshare. The consumer experience is something else. Dare you download that free game? Or are you likely to end up having every one of your voice calls, SMS messages and emails routed to a mysterious server in China? Because nobody at Google ever bothered to offer a consumer-level ‘managed’ service on Android market?

I’m making sweeping statements, but run with me.

We got to an impasse in early summer where I began to sense a reality shift: Google was, I felt, losing ground. The patent wars have certainly created a lot of problems. I can’t, in all seriousness, go about making devices that are likely to be invalidated or rendered illegal by other players. And, wasn’t all this shit meant to be free? Why am I paying Microsoft? Why is Nokia getting lump-sum payments from Apple? Who’s suing who? And what do these patents mean? And, while I’m at it — what do the chaps at Microsoft and Nokia know that I don’t?

It’s these sorts of issues that I’ve been exploring with quite a few OEMs & operators across the months. They’ve been high-level kick-about conversations usually supported by a beer or two. They’ve got PwC and Accenture to help out during the day with lots of graphs.

Google needed to do something.

Pitted against iOS 5 and Windows Phone Mango, Android doesn’t look that good.

Oh it still delivers. Device specs are still going to be up there with the best of them. It just — Android needs to iterate really, really fast. Honeycomb was a monumental screw-up. I honestly couldn’t actually find the sodding applications folder on the XOOM. I had to actually switch into ‘techie’ to navigate.

Faced with the beautifully marketed iOS 5, now surely about to spread far and wide with some kind of Nano-style pricing strategy, and with highly excited, confident noises coming from Microsoft and Nokia, I could see a time where manufacturers actually begin reducing their Android production.

It’s taken perhaps 18 months or so for Android to really begin to dominate.

That’s easily attacked. It’s easily eroded. Indeed, when it’s not free, when there’s lots other partners with cash ready to rock and when there’s hundreds of operators out there ready to see Google get it’s wing clipped a little bit, the future for Android was less than certain.

Buying Motorola fixes that.

It guarantees at least one manufacturer — a big one in Android spheres — will retain the operating system. I wouldn’t expect Samsung or HTC to walk away from Android overnight — absolutely not. But I think it’s fair to say none of them are committed.

Name me an Android manufacturer who is committed?

Go on.

Name someone who absolutely positively would never look at Windows Phone. Or QNX. Or anything else. Can you guarantee HTC will always deliver Android devices? What about Samsung? The company’s doing very, very well with Android right now but it’s got (highly capable) Bada in the back pocket and it’s playing with Windows.

Everyone’s hedging their bets.

Today’s news helps change things.

Android is a permanent fixture.

Don’t read that sentence and think I’m being flippant. Yes it’s the planet’s largest smartphone operating system today, but this doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll stay that way.

Guaranteeing that Motorola — one of the best known brands in the States — is on your side is rather useful.

Patents are certainly useful too.

Some of the utter shit I’ve been reading today has been laughable. One patent could generate a billion dollars. 1,000 patents could generate $500,000. Motorola certainly has a library of ‘em.

Google’s move is, I think, not just about patents.

The biggest benefit of the news is that, today, thousands of board directors will have dropped everything to dial into hastily arranged emergency direction meetings. Google buying Motorola is a turn-on-a-six-pence moment. All bets are off. Continents are shifting.

The Motorola acquisition has now prompted a lot more companies to look at the whole sector in a different way. Once Google’s done it, then it’s ok.

One senior operator executive I spoke to this evening likened the news to a very smart if rather blatant, bold chess move.

“We think they’ve done it 25% for the IP, 25% to assure a continued position for Android and 50% to unnerve the industry.”

I think there’s a bit of truth there.

The chest-beating is fantastic. It’s big, bold, direct. Android is safe[r]. The purchase will give comfort to the others who might have been thinking about adjusting their Android strategy into 2012/2013.

It also gets Google into the box-shifting business — rather unfamiliar territory.

Bring it on though. I’m looking forward to seeing what they can mutually deliver.

I’m most excited by the emergency board meetings though.

Make no mistake, right now there’s lots of plotting going on.

It gets a bit boring when things are steady-as-she-goes.

This week we reminisce about the devices we’ve owned and loved over the years. We highlight a few we think were real ‘market changers’, a few lemons and speculate about who might make the next game-changer. Rafe also lets slip the secret of his magic drawers.

Amongst the devices we discuss this week are the:

• SonyEricsson P800
• Sony CMD Z5
• Nokia 6210
• O2 XDA (HTC)
• Nokia N95
• Nokia E61 and E61i
• Nokia N82
• Blackberry 7230
• iPhone 2G
• Orange SPV / HTC Canary
• Nokia 1011
• Motorola RAZR
• Nokia 5110 and 3210 with Xpress-on Covers
• Original Sidekick
• Treo 180

Episode 7 is also available on Soundcloud.

There are lots of ways to follow the podcast or you can subscribe using iTunes and other popular services.

Technical note: We’ve changed the way we serve downloads to podcast subscribers this week – this should address some recent feedback about tags and also improve audio quality. Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions or problems following the change.

Why?

Well. It’s almost obligatory.

Like most mobile media folk, I’ve had hands-on, I’ve had-a-play. But that isn’t good enough. Not when you’re an international jetsetter mobile influencer. I have a policy of making sure that, all things being equal, I own and use (or at least, attempt to use) the best and brightest new technology out there.

So I’m giving a lot of thought to getting a Xoom to properly experience.

Furthermore, I’m thinking carefully about whether to get an unlocked one or to get it with-a-sim. I have to admit that the Carphone Warehouse ‘never pay for internet again’ advertisements are working on me.

Every time I walk by a Carphone Warehouse, I can’t help but look. Their Talk Mobile MVNO actually does offer ‘unlimited’ data. Proper unlimited. No messing around, no fair use policy. Talk Mobile uses Vodafone. So this is a rather efficient way of getting a high quality Vodafone connection that doesn’t come with the company’s rather limited ‘unlimited’ standard offering.

The deal I’ve been looking at is a 24-month contract at £25/month, plus £199.99 for the device. Total cost of ownership over 2 years? £799.99. But that, of course, includes the service plan as well.

I tweeted that I’ve been looking and got a nice hello from Carphone Warehouse in response.

Then the team there sent me a link to this video.

It’s definitely worth your time.

Almost 60,000 folk have watched it — and I can see why.

The Carphone Warehouse team has taken the standard piece-to-camera device introduction that we’re all accustomed to seeing from retailers nowadays and they’ve hit it for six.

Half way through the introduction, Richard Smith (from Carphone’s Fenchurch Street store) strides out on to the street with the Xoom in his hand, declaring, “Why don’t we give it a proper test drive?”

The camera follows as he jumps on to a bike and boom, before you know it, he’s on boat, a horse, a car… Worth a look.

Here’s the video:

Nice marketing Carphone Warehouse, excellent work everyone. Really nice marketing. I took one look at the video and thought, “Yeah, I should get one…”

In the bad old days of mobile, I often used to attend the most lacklustre device launches you could imagine. At the end of the presentations, I’d invariably ask a question from the back along the lines of, ‘what do you think of it?’ or ‘what phone are you using?’

I was always surprised by the amount of times the CEO or C-level person (or worse, the sodding product manager responsible for the device) would respond with an answer like, ‘well, I don’t really like QWERTY phones’ or ‘I’m not much of a fan of camera phones really.’

It took me a long time to eventually realise that most folk in some key positions in the mobile industry were just pushing paper about. It’s still a shock to meet a disinterested, couldn’t-give-a-toss product manager or senior whatsit at a product launch. It’s fascinating to ask them questions about their product because they generally can’t be bothered to lie, spin or be at least a little creative. Then when I get to my computer, I find it really difficult to summon up any will to write about the resulting output.

So it’s nice to see the care and attention radiating from the Motorola XOOM team. First we had the scene setting (“Tablet Evolution presented by Motorola“), then we got the introductory product video and now we’ve got ‘the making of’ video which I’ve embedded below.

In that video you’ll see a few fancy-angle shots of Motorola XOOM people talking about designing and using the Evolution tablet. The film looks good. It sounds good. It’s very well made. It’s rather Apple-esque in that the people featured appear competent and passionate. Clearly a lot of thought went into the marketing of the XOOM. And one would hope that the presentation effort will be commensurate with the product. After watching the video, I came away with the impression that — yes — however the XOOM actually performs, it should perform well.

To the industry I say: More of this please. More passion, more excitement, more confidence.

I look forward to checking out the XOOM.

Here’s the vid…

A colleague of mine arrived back into the UK recently with one of Motorola’s latest Android devices, the Droid Pro (otherwise known as ‘the one with the QWERTY keyboard’). The Pro has been raising a lot of eyebrows recently given the addition of the physical keyboard — something that’s been keeping many an executive tied to his or her BlackBerry.

The Droid Pro is running Android 2.2 and is what’s referred to as a ‘World Phone’ — that is, it’s CDMA for Verizon and it also includes a (Vodafone and Verizon branded) SIM card too. So the device will work on Verizon when in the States and roam on to GSM networks when abroad.

What do you do if you’ve been given a Droid Pro and you want to get it to work in the UK, though? Permanently?

Simple.

All you need to do is unlock it.

And I’ve done the hard work for you. I blew $19.99 on behalf of my colleague and on behalf of you, dear reader, to check if the unlock worked.

I used the service http://www.unlockitnow.com to do it. I simply gave them the IMEI number and about 3 hours later, got two unlock codes back. I typed one of them in and boom, the device unlocked right-away.

The only thing I had to do was program in the Vodafone APN details.

So if you’re wondering if the Droid Pro will work abroad… the answer is it did for me.

And in case you’d like to get a quick look at the ‘DROIIIIID’ welcome screen, I made a wee video:

Have a look at this rather swish video from the team at Motorola. It’s rare to see a manufacturer actually reference other products and services in their marketing (or, pre-marketing), but it’s the way ahead. It gives an air of authenticity — that there’s some confidence amongst the Motorola team that they’ve got something worth looking at.

Time will tell

Meanwhile I like the video. I like what they’ve done with the ‘evolution’ theme. It certainly left me looking for more.

Have a watch:

The whole concept behind the video is the message that ‘our tablet is running Android that’s made for the tablet’ (as apposed to the Tab).

All will be revealed in a glorious and no doubt well attended CES launch early next month. Not long at all.

This will certainly get the cat amongst the pigeons in the tablet market. We definitely need a bit more choice and competition. We should also be seeing the PlayBook from BlackBerry in the next few months too. Bring it on.

Looking forward to a Motorola tablet?

Have you come across the Motorola Flipout before? I found it lurking in the Expansys.com ‘coming soon’ section and was minded to take a look.

Here it is:

It’s running Android 2.1, it’s smaller (width and height-wise) than a credit card and it swivels or ‘flips’ out.

The keyboard, of course, doesn’t look that intuitive (speaking as a BlackBerry QWERTY fan) but I could really see this rather unique format being hugely popular with the young’uns around the planet.   Indeed I see it as potentially rivalling the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini / Pro units that are also very popular with those who like small devices.

In case you’re interested in the specs, have a quick glance down here….

And if you’d like to see how the device works, the Expansys guys have a nice big image here illustrating the flipping and showing the back/front/side of it.

Very interesting.  If this is priced right, I think a lot of people will snap it up.

In the post, I wondered what noted social media expert James Whatley made of it. James is Engagement Strategy Director for 1000heads. He was kind enough to send me an email with his viewpoint. If you’re supervising or managing your company’s social media strategy, take note.

Here’s James….

- – - – -

Ewan,

In short; you’re spot on.

This really isn’t of any benefit to you, the devoted twitter follower of old or really to anyone else who makes up the sub-20,000 follower list. This competition is quite meaningless. I mean, what about the folk who have been with them since the start?

MotoMobile (I would imagine) has probably been through some tough old times in the past… *cough* motorola razr *cough* …and pre-android at least, one would imagine that they were pretty close to the brink. Building up a following of 20k+ followers is no easy feat, admittedly. To have got this far they must have had at least some kind of engagement strategy to build this up, right?

This strategy, with the right PR behind it, may well raise the profile of the presence significantly (as those who care not for the brand or the conversation sign up and race to be that 20,000th follower) but the quality of engagement will surely dip.

A better idea would be to offer a free device – at random – to any one of their 20,000 followers once they’d hit the magic number.

This competition doesn’t incentivise me as much as it doesn’t you… and I don’t even follow them.

There is no engagement here. No long term plan. This is simple carrot and stick. But the carrot isn’t for you, for all your hard work and support – it’s for the next donkey that turns up (who hasn’t done a damn thing).

MotoMobile’s tweet is poorly worded, it may as well say – “To thank YOU for YOUR support, we’re going to give a Moto device to SOMEONE ELSE!”

I could go to town on the lack of personalisation, the poor use of the Twitter B/G, the lack of intent to make their presence work that little bit harder… but that’d be too easy.

At the time of writing there are eight of your followers who have called you on this MotoMobile (and that’s not including Ewan and his post) -

http://twitter.com/mariobutter/statuses/20157994452
http://twitter.com/kartracer3886/statuses/20157541502
http://twitter.com/mobilevation/statuses/20157137867
http://twitter.com/MuslimGirl11/statuses/20157137552
http://twitter.com/agousetis/statuses/20156944877
http://twitter.com/fonixmunkee/statuses/20156939441
http://twitter.com/keyboardxbully/statuses/20156887935
http://twitter.com/mosherjm/statuses/20156882005

– Will you respond?

A recommendation:

Fair enough, it is quite difficult to retract a competition once it’s out in the public domain. So I would advise MotoMobile should stick with it but, once complete – open a new competition/giveaway to the participants of your MotoPic Monday entrants. Creating content AND raising the profile of one your weekly features.

Or maybe even (as one of Ewan’s commenters suggested) give a new (and maybe even better) prize out for free to one of your followers at random. Do this live, using Qik. Not only demonstrating your honesty and transparency but also showing off one of the best apps available for your device.

That wouldn’t be too hard… would it?

- – - – -

Nice recommendation James and thanks for taking the time.

Step changes in technology always provide opportunities for significant shifts in market share driven by reduced loyalty and YouGov’s new Smartphone Mobile Internet Experience study highlights the opportunities for non-traditional handset brands in the smartphone gold rush. How smartphone handset brands are regarded by their users is the foundation of YouGov’s new report.

The newer but more focused handset brands are shown to be the best regarded by UK smartphone users with Apple and BlackBerry leading the remainder of major handset brands.

The majority of users do not expect to get their next handset from their current brand / manufacturer. The winners in this are Apple, BlackBerry, Nokia, and HTC. At the other end of the scale only just over a third of Sony Ericsson’s and LG’s users expect to get the same brand handset next time around, just over a quarter of Motorola’s current users can be considered loyal but the brand most users expect to switch from is Samsung (only 21% expect to replace their Samsung with a Samsung). In contrast nearly four fifths (79%) of Apple users believe they will get a handset from Apple the next time they upgrade or purchase a new handset.

“Whichever metrics you look at, Apple and BlackBerry lead the smartphone pack in terms of satisfaction, recommendation and loyalty”, commented Marek Vaygelt, Head of Technology & Telecoms Consulting at YouGov. He continued, “The traditional handset brands are suffering in this transition to smartphones and even Nokia, normally a brand with high loyalty, has lost ground.”

Furthermore, the survey shows that mobile Internet users value ease of use, menu navigation and function speed as the three most important attributes of a mobile Internet handset, all areas where Apple in particular demonstrates market leadership.

Here’s the associated graphic:

Samsung is not doing well at all, is it? I wonder if that’s because the majority of Samsung users in the UK are perhaps using rather limited feature phones? (A rather broad assumption, I know).

I think Motorola’s 28% is representative of the amount of people using older-generation Motorolas. I wonder how Droid or Milestone users would react to the survey.

So, how about you? Are you sticking with your current brand or swapping?

Me: I’m pretty concerned about hopping from a BlackBerry Bold 9000 to a Bold 9700 simply because they’ve made it smaller. And I really, really like the wide QWERTY keyboard on the original Bold… What’s a guy to do?

I was walking down Tottenham Court Road the other day when I saw a sign advertising the Motorola Aura for £900+.

I remember wondering if any readers know anyone who’s bought one. Obviously I doubt any MIR reader worth his or her salt will have purchased one given the fact the device itself does more or less nothing interesting other than calling folk.

It *does* have 2GB onboard memory for a ‘media player’. Yeah. If it ran Android or something that was a little bit more extensible I might be interested.

If you’re thinking about it, Expansys will sell you one in exchange for £1,294.

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.

While most sensible folk were staying inside or heading home, I was doing the opposite, trudging along Millbank to get to Altitude on the 29th floor of the Millbank Tower.

This was for the Orange/Motorola Motoblur & DEXT event. I arrived to find the pre-launch in full swing. I dodged out the way of Leila from TelecomTV was recording a spot to (their very big) camera and spotted SlashGear’s Chris Davies sat in the corner with a glass of champagne, waiting for the magic to begin.

As I walked over to see Chris I was offered a glass of champagne by a waiter. No, actually, I think it was a flute. A flute of champagne. Not a glass.

It’s not all bad, these press launches.

As we waited for the ‘launch’ bit to begin, Chris and I compared notes. He was first in line for the Motorola StarTac handset when it came out, years ago. Me too. I remember it costing 550 pounds. Likewise with the first generation RAZR, we were there. So both Motorola fans back in the day, but to confess to even thinking about using a Motorola as your primary communications device in this day and age is a sure way of getting yourself carted off to the looney bin by the Mobile Industry Review Phone Police.

It’s not that Motorola devices aren’t cool. It’s the fact that you can do almost nothing with a bog standard MOTO-something device. And the user interface… uggggghhhhhhh. Total bollocks.

Recent Windows Mobile Motorola devices have been utter shit, too. I stupidly bought a Motorola Q9C using Windows Mobile. Very stupid. I did a video demonstrating just how pants the experience was. The software routinely disconnected itself from the hardware. I’m not sure who to blame as I’m no fan of Windows Mobile when it’s playing up. But the device was manufactured by Moto.

So I have been deeply unimpressed with Motorola for some time.

But I’ve been looking forward to seeing the next generation. They’ve obviously taken a step back and refocused — and putting Android at the heart of their new operation is a super move. This becomes apparent when you watch Motorola people demonstrating their new devices. Because their default answer is now ‘yes’ — they don’t have to worry about the small but important stuff that users care about. Service augmentation is now left to the burgeoning market of Android developers.

Right then. To the Motorola DEXT (or the ‘CLIQ’ as it’s known in the States).

I had hands-on last night and I’m impressed. I liked the solid build. The QWERTY keyboard is good — I think that with a bit of acclimatisation I could get very fast with it. It’s a heck of a lot better than HTC’s T-Mobile G1 keyboard that has that great big lump or ‘lip’ on the left. The 5 megapixel autofocus camera is very encouraging — although I didn’t get the opportunity to properly try it out. I’m working on the (slightly incorrect but more or less reliable) method of assuming that, in the case of the DEXT, 5 megapixels is better than the equivalent 3.2 megapixels you’d ordinarily find on such a device.

But you know what, you don’t want to know the rest of the specifications, do you? Not even the Orange Newsroom post bothers to tell you the exact specifics. Because it doesn’t really matter any more. It’s getting very, very to distinguish between devices. A few years ago it was critical to weigh the advantages and disadvantages between devices very carefully. Just like it was when you were buying a laptop or PC years ago. I can see we’re getting to the point that it almost doesn’t matter *what* QWERTY Android handset you buy.

It will probably be quad-band. Probably have a half decent camera. Probably have a decent touchscreen, battery, form factor…

Which is why Motorola have decided to distinguish themselves — like HTC — with a user interface layer of sorts. Whilst HTC have their gorgeous ‘Sense’ layer sitting on top of the familiar Android UI, Motorola have MOTOBLUR.

And MOTOBLUR is actually pretty sexy. As the chap took me through the demonstration (the video is below) I got more and more impressed. I could see myself using it heavily.

MOTOBLUR does away with individual apps (like the address book — although the default Android one is still available as you’d expect) and instead delivers a unified ‘social media address book’. Here’s the explanation:

MOTOBLUR keeps track of all your contacts so it’s easy to keep up. Contacts are automatically synced to the phone from personal and work email as well as social network accounts, and MOTOBLUR updates any changes friends or contacts make to their info so you don’t have to. When making or receiving a phone call, friend’s latest profile picture and status is shown on the screen. In contacts view, see your communication history with each person and their latest social network broadcasts organized in an easy to read manner so you’ll always know that latest info about friends and family. Plus, communicate with them anyway you like, all right from their contact information.

I really like this. I’ll need to check it out and see how it performs.

Through a series of widgets on the home screen(s) you can use the access the following MOTOBLUR features:

* Happenings: View all your social site updates in one spot with the live Happenings application. Every friend feed, status update, wall post, bulletin and photo upload is automatically delivered and ready for immediate reply, anyway you like

* Messages: Quickly scroll through the Messages application for a snapshot of current work or personal emails, social site messages, and texts, with the ability to respond to any message however you want no matter how it was sent: text, email, IM and more.

* Social Status: Blast your status right from the home screen and even save time by updating your status to one or all your social networks at once

* News Feeds: Keep track of your favorite news feeds, sports scores or even celeb gossip without leaving the homescreen

* Calendar: Integrate work calendar with GCalendar into one widget that shows the next appointment right from the home screen

Again, this is becoming very, very compelling.

I’m particularly impressed with this backup offering:

MOTOBLUR is easy to set up and secure, so there is no need to worry about misplacing the phone. All contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, email and social network messages are backed-up on the MOTOBLUR secure server. Lost or stolen phones can be found with integrated GPS from the online owner’s portal, and data can even be wiped clean. Users can simply enter the account username and password on their next MOTOBLUR phone, and all the information will be ready and waiting.

Really, really cool. I like this A LOT. It’s a total arse when you swap, change or lose your device because the familiarity that you’ve built up over months (or sometimes years) is lost in an instant. All of a sudden you have to try and find the inbox icon or add in a favourite bookmark again. Even if you’re using an Android device from another manufacturer — which has some of the best synchronisation on the planet for contacts, calendar and email — you don’t get your home screen customisations backed up, ready to access at a moment’s notice.

The remote locate and wipe functions are smart — I like the fact that these kind of offerings were previously reserved for the very top of the range devices. But Motorola has made it available for the masses.

And I think the masses will like it. The DEXT is free on contract. It’s a 24-month contract, mind. That’ll get a few consumers panicking briefly before agreeing. At £34.26 per month, you’ll get 900 any network minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data. Plus Orange Maps (sat nav style) are included too.

The masses — the Facebook masses — are going to love it. There are legions of Orange UK customers out there who have, for too long, been subjected to a poor range of rubbishy phones. Orange is most definitely ‘back’ with this offering — and so is Motorola.

I’m excited to see how consumers react. I think the time is right. I’m picturing a 26 year old female office worker who’s been paying 35 quid a month to Orange for years. She walks into the Orange shop on the hunt for something that will ‘let her do Facebook’. She’s heard of the iPhone but she’s been indoctrinated with the ‘only available on o2′ line and doesn’t want to swap. She doesn’t want to spend any cash on the device up front and is looking for a deal from Orange. She’s heard of Google and would like to do more ‘internetty’ things on her phone. Yup. I reckon she’s going to love the DEXT.

I’ve got two videos for you.

The first is the one I took yesterday evening at the Orange/Motorola event. It’s quite noisy but you will see some of the MOTOBLUR features in use:

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

The second video is the official Orange UK overview of the DEXT device by Conor and is definitely worth a look:

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.

Motorola has confirmed that the company plans to shift to Google’s Android platform as a way to reinvent its handsets division. Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola said “[The new Android-based phones] will get us back in the game in smartphones,” He also mentioned something about the company’s venture with two major US mobile operators to carry the devices

via Motorola to focus on Android-based handsets.

Bring it on.  I can’t wait to see what Motorola deliver into the marketplace.

Just a preface: We’re at America’s largest, most influential trade show. Motorola’s spend hundreds of thousands to deliver a big stand, they’ve flown in all their top people and … this is the bollocks they’ve got to show off:

I kid ye not.

A bollocks flip phone. With a bollocks camera. And — contain your excitement — I’m pretty sure this one comes with an Alarm Clock function.

Goodness me.

I couldn’t bear to look at the other devices on show. I simply couldn’t suppress my utter, utter disappointment. I didn’t want to start vomiting over the nice helpful Motorola team.

When I arrived on stand, there was a 40-year old chap going nuts with excitement over the next generation RAZR-bollocks handset. (Yes there was a RAZR in his holster on his belt).

“OH WOW! This is the new RAZR?” he said, picking it up as the Motorola stand person beamed with delight.

“Yeah!” she said, watching the chap obsess over it, before listing the rubbish specifications to the pure joy of the chap.

I felt like ripping it out of his hands and jamming it up his arse.

With his holster.

Is this the best Motorola have got to show for their few billion dollars worth of investment over the past months?

Come on.

I’m sure they’re working on some good stuff.

I hope they are.

Original post by Ewan and software by Elliott Back

‘Bout time.

The actual quote:

Motorola will use Google’s Android operating system for many of its new handsets although they will not go on sale until the fourth quarter of this year.

‘Many of it’s new handsets’? Good news.

It’s an illuminating and rather direct interview. Check out this quote:

Mr Brown told the Financial Times that Motorola “didn’t see the trends coming in smartphone and 3G with the kind of foresight and customer attention that it should have”.

He goes on to describe Motorola’s failure to anticipate the growing importance of mobile software rather than handset design.

You have to wonder what sort of people were running Motorola during this time. Everybody else saw the trends coming.

Anyway. I think Motorola could do some really good work if they can focus. I await news with interest…

Since we’ve been publishing more or less every day since 2006 we — now and again — have a rather interesting set of articles at the bottom of every post.

Under the ‘On This Day’ section, you’ll find posts that we published on this day last year, or in 2007 or in 2006. Fascinating.

Today it seems that I didn’t publish anything back in 2006. So the system randomly pulled out this post I made on the 29th March 2006. Shocking. Embarrassing.

YES I was actually writing about a Motorola SLVR. I even mention my brother’s RAZR.

SHOCKING.

It was a long time ago though….

I left the Motorola SLVR L7 in the bag for over 24 hours. Being a slight technical geek I do enjoy ripping the boxes open and playing with shiny new technology. However I had lots to do last night so I didn’t get the opportunity.

… Read on!

In nearly a month from now, Mobile World Congress will be over, done and dusted, put to bed, an ex-event, acabado – finished.

What are we expecting to see, what are we likely to experience, what will astound us and what will we all be talking about five weeks from now?

From what we’ve already seen aired at CES and the meeting requests with various companies – the following is what we believe will be the main themes from the event. Along with the topics that could be addressed, and the avenues of discussion that we suspect will be throughout the event.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, the very large grey beast that is the OS. We doubt the whole event will be taken up by talk of platforms, but they will have a significant presence at this year’s MWC.

With the inclusion of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer as a keynote speaker, the attention will turn to the next generation of Windows Mobile on phones. At least we’re assuming he’ll be there to announce a product, as we doubt he’s just going along to increase his air miles.

Rumours have been around for a while now as to what Windows Mobile 6.5 will most likely contain, from the likes of multi-touch to the known IE version 6 being included. All that anyone can really wish for is that the new OS will fix the issues that plagued 6.1. Saving us all the bother of downloading cooked ROMs from the xda-developers website to resolve them.

Motorola has already spoken publically about their new handsets running this OS, due in the second half of this year which realistically means Q4. We’re wishing good things for that company too, as they need all the luck they can get right now.

We’re assuming, as most will be, 6.5 will be more of a service pack than a long term OS that will be with us for many years to come. As we’re hoping the attention will be on Windows Mobile 7 at MWC. If we’re all led to believe the hype, this will include the likes of Zune-esque features and an integrated live mesh mobile version.

With the world’s economy being what it is right now, the cost of Windows Mobile will be undoubtedly drawn in to the argument this year. As the alternatives around will be surely weighed up as a comparison, now they’re all here and phones around running them all. At the end of last year, a slide was shown at Orange Partner Camp just highlighting the cost associated with WM as compared to the others. To quote a tweet from Rafe Bladford “in open platform session – cost of platform – Symbian, Limo, Android = $0; Windows Mobile $14 (est). not often you see that slide comparison”. Seeing this in black and white just hammers home what Windows Mobile will have to achieve, if it wants to survive in these times.

There’s bound to be a heated, intense discussion of this nature, which we’ll enjoy and throw some spanners in to the works in order to get some decent feedback. Arguments will be made from all corners, which will be interesting to say the least on what everyone will say. Some will be diplomatic on the costs, although we’re hoping to hear from the European against the North American perspective. As it’s no secret the Americans love their Windows Mobile handsets, so we’re unsure if they can give a balanced opinion.

It’s been a year since Android was first shown off on a few phones at last year’s MWC, and only a few months since the HTC manufactured G1 came out. Since then there’s been a lot of rumours as to who will have the next Google OS powered device, who will be the first to market, who will be known as leader with these handsets in the future and not tied solely to a network.

CES saw a few models of not all that well known companies doing the rounds, with a few whispers of who really will be next. With leaks of late coming from HTC, Asus and others all showing they supposedly have Android phones in the mix. Perhaps one of those will show up with a ready-to-market model. Let’s not forget that only two months ago 48 of the biggest players in the mobile world all signed up to the Open Handset Alliance, so we’re all expecting good things from everyone soon.

We have it on good authority, the next one will be around very soon so keep your eyes peeled and stay reading MIR. We are expecting everyone and their dog, to be making some noise over their Android handsets either publically, or behind closed doors. Our money goes with HTC and we’re taking good odds on that spread right now.

They’ll also be talk of the next Android version or the updates, in the form of ‘cup cake’ and possibly how this will be rolled out. If not that, then at the very least what it will possibly contain, if not how the development is going. Although most of what’s what is already known, there’s bound to be some news to be aired as they’ve been rather quiet of late.

Not to be out done, and in the realm of keeping up with the Joneses, there’s bound to be news from Nokia’s Symbian platform. This time last year the world was completely unaware of the grand scheming going on. As far as we all knew Symbian was just a good OS running phones, which included Nokia and that was that. A few months later, the landscape of the platform world would change forever, with Nokia announcing its intentions.

We doubt we’ll hear anything great from Symbian at the event, perhaps some minor announcements but nothing too much. We do however expect to hear rumblings from Nokia, perhaps leading with an update on the N97 and when it’s actually due. Perhaps more on location based services, along with how well Ovi mail is doing on the Series 40 handsets, plus how that service will be expanded.

Some other rumours we’re hearing are that nVidia possibly, maybe, could be, might have something to say at MWC this year. This is all to do with them entering the mobile graphics world on phones, with a possible association with HTC being in the pipeline or so we hear. Whether or not this holds any water is yet to be seen, but it sounds like an interesting concept and partnership.

There’s bound to be noise over LTE, WiMAX and HSPA+ with some networks, carriers and handsets being spoken about. Don’t hold your breath in seeing any of this on the horizon anytime soon, just watch and read with glee and think of flying cars.

We’re even hearing completely unsubstantiated mutterings that even DELL will be making an appearance. This is with a view to be showing up with a Smartphone in tow, of all things. This rumour is picking up even more and more worth in the last week, as more and more sites have begun reporting on it. Why not have a phone; DELL seems to have everything else. They’re turning out to be like a large Sainsbury’s, a one stop shop for everything you need.

Other keynotes that have been booked in already come from large companies such as Vodafone, to even MySpace’s CEO and its co-founder. With the latter obviously appearing to let everyone know MySpace is still around, despite the fact Facebook jas stolen all its limelight and people have completely forgotten about them.

Many CES delights will surely make an appearance, there’s no getting away from that. The LG watch phone and the palm pre will be shown off to the coos and the wonderment of the Europeans. It’ll be interesting to see if the Palm phone and webOS will have the same reception as it did in Las Vegas, also if they’ll be tougher questions to answer now the dust has settled on the announcement.

It’s bound to be a veritable smorgasbord of mobile delights and treats, we’ll undoubtedly bring you as much information as your eyes can handle.

Two new phones will be unveiled by Motorola at this year’s CES, one of which is the very first handset to be made from water bottles.

Known as the MOTO W233 Renew, it’s an environmentally conscious phone in more ways than just one. As it’s all been designed and laid out in such a way that it’s even earned itself a Carbonfund.org CarbonFree product certification.

First up is the Renew’s casing, in which it’s comprised of plastics made from recycled water bottles where there’s 20-percent less energy used in going into its making. Not only that, but it’s also 100-perecent recyclable in itself highlighting that its future has been taken into account. And just to hammer home how Green it is, Motorola has even coloured the phone’s casing green. How very subtle!

If all that wasn’t enough and why should it be with the planet being in the danger it’s in, the Renew is also supposed to be the world’s first carbon neutral mobile. How this is achieved is through a partnership with Carbonfund.org. Where Motorola has offset the carbon dioxide used in the manufacturing, distribution and operations of the phone. Moto has made investments via that very same company in both reforestation and also renewable energy resources, which aided in achieving a CarbonFree product certification.

They didn’t stop there either, as the packaging has now been said to be 22-pecent less in size over others which in turn cuts down on transportation. With all the materials used making up the box is now also printed on 100-percent recycled paper. They’ve also bundled in a postage paid recycling envelope, for sending off the existing phone the Renew has replaced solely for recycling.

Underneath all this greenness beats the heart of a GSM phone that boasts a 9 hour talk time, with 18 days of standby that comes in at 45 x 110.97 x 14.7 mm in size. There isn’t really anything outstanding about the phone apart from being very environmentally friendly, it’s more or less what you see is what you get.

MOTO Renew is expected to hit T-Mobile USA sometime in Q1 this year.

The second Mobile to be shown off in Las Vegas is the MOTOSURF A3100. This is a handset they’re calling a touch tablet, which just appears to be a wide-screen phone than the usual and that’s about it.

It’s running from Windows Mobile 6.1, with a full 2.8-inch QVGA touch screen operational from a stylus or its omni-directional trackball.

On board it’s a Quad band phone with 3G and HSDPA plus WIFI. It has all the trimmings possible for web surfing with Opera installed, playing MP3s from Windows Media Player and minor satnav with the likes of built-in aGPS.

When the A3100 arrives sometime in Q1, it will be available in Latin America and Asia.

Now, we’re not entirely sure if the Renew will ever see the light of day in the UK or main land Europe, for a couple of reasons too.

One, we weren’t contacted by Motorola over these mobiles being announced at CES. No email, no calls, no carrier pigeons – nothing whatsoever.

Two, we have been made aware that other journalists elsewhere in the world were pre-briefed under embargo on their arrival. Curiouser and Curiouser.

Both of which screams to us it’ll never be seen anywhere close to home, that along with any emails to Motorola today fell upon deaf ears surrounding the two handsets.

Let’s hope, for Al Gore’s sake the W223 isn’t the last of the Green practices surrounding a Motorola mobile phone, only just the very start.

We’d like to see all of them being produced in the very same way. In fact so much so, that we’ll look forward to the day that we’ll all be sick and tired of writing how Green a phone is, just as you will all be in reading it.

Here’s to the future and that we all have one.

The main competitor is Nokia’s S60 (which also sits on top of Symbian) and it looks like the Finns have won the user interface race, though there’s still a chance someone may buy the UIQ unit, though it’s looking unlikely especially as Symbian is being made open source.

Nokia is trying to regain it’s market position in the smartphone/touchscreen market – and their phones run Symbian/S60. They just need to ensure they keep it advanced enough so it can compete with Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberries.

I most certainly didn’t hold back on my viewpoints. I recall writing:

Switch it off and let the device run through it’s flocking annoying startup rigmarole (you can, almost feel it creaking through it’s startup sequence like one of the very best IBM 386SX’s) and it’ll work.

Useless.

Class-A FLOCKING useless.

However unimpressed I am doesn’t compare to reader Mexiken. Ken is deeply annoyed. So much so, he was moved to point his feelings out this morning by adding this comment:

You’re just a douche that doesn’t know how to use WM phones. People like you should be taken out to a farm and shot, to put the rest of us out of our misery, and to stop you from taking up “invaluable” web space.

Well then, Mexiken, thank you for taking the time to post. I have got a video showing exactly how bad the experience is. Watch and enjoy:

I also standby my cock paragraph, thus:

If you’ve got a Motorola Q9, then you’re a cock for choosing it, you’re a cock for giving them money for the rubbish device, you’re a cock for reading this and STILL owning it. You’re a cock. You’re a HUGE cock. Just like me.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is a huge cock:

Next!

One of the most interesting leaks of late came to us from the mobile phone news website site shanzhaij, with images that are truly amazing and we hope are for real.

They’ve compared it to a crosspollination between the Motorola RAZR V8 and the iPhone; we can see where they were going with this.

Obviously Apple will have nothing to say or to do with the handset and we won’t even waste our time trying to get a response from them.

However, it’s interesting to think; why wait around for someone to create a phone you’d like, just commission some smart engineers and have your own bespoke one made up.

Known only as the iPhone V126 (so are there 125 more handsets in the series?), it appears to even be running a ported version of the Apple OS.

How this was achieved is anyone’s guess, but good on them.

We’ve got some basic spec’s from a rough translation of the website, so we could be way off base here. The iPhone V126 measures up being 105 x 53 x 17mm, weighing in at 110grams.

They’ve (who ever they are) have managed to fit in a 2.6-inch screen, with a resolution of 240 x 320 and a 3MP camera.

Also it appears to be just a GSM based handset, but really, who are we to criticise. If someone goes to all the trouble of making a handset like this we just have to applaud them.

Later on today we’re at the launch event of the new handset from Moto, the AURA.

If you weren’t already aware, and you will be by the end of reading this, it’s their designer mobile phone par excellence.

We’ve been told it’s the world’s first 16 million colour, circular display with a 300 dpi resolution, and a 62 carat lens made from the most scratch resistant sapphire crystal on earth.

Just in case that wasn’t enough and why stop there, it also has a stainless steel housing that’s been chemically etched and takes nearly two weeks to sculpt and polish.

At the heart of the case is a mechanical Swiss-made main bearing, which enables the blade to rotate seamlessly. The rotating mechanism itself has 130 precision ball bearings, which is like opening the door on a high-end luxury car. Even on the 100,000th opening, the blade should glide with the same fluidity that it did on its first attempt.

There are also over 700 individual components on the handset, comprising of features including up-scaled, nickel-chrome-plated exposed screws. Its mirror polish finish is PVD coated, which is the same used whilst making luxury watches.

Oh yes, and there is a phone in there somewhere too.

With a 2 MP camera, 2GB of memory onboard, capable of Quad-band and EDGE, weighing in at 141gram with a talktime of 7.3hrs and standby at 400hrs.

If there’s anything you’d like us to put to Motorola, drop something in the comments below and we’ll endeavour to have them answered.

I paid the 500 quid for the StarTac back in 1999. It was a brilliant, revolutionary handset. My favourite feature was the fact it carried a credit card sized sim card. Not that useful but I liked the concept. Of course the form factor was simply amazing.

I was the coolest kid at University College London as a result. Everyone else was walking about with brick handsets.

Then I upraded to the RAZR. Again… phenomenal.

But let’s be clear, the operating system — or, more to the point, the UI — was appalling.

No problem when all you want to do is sod about with text messages and phone people.

But when you want to run applications — meaningful applications? Dream on.

When you want to DO things with the device you found you were limited to the highly uninventive and seriously shite imagination of the Motorola UI/Operating System designers.

The innovation dried up. Motorola lost their way.

Android could be their salvation.

Motorola are shit hot at device design. Look at the SLVR and any other RZR style product. I’m not always a fan of their buttons but the devices — the build quality… usually pretty decent.

It’s the day to day use that sucks. It’s the fact you can’t easily get your pictures off the handset. It’s the fact you can’t easily run Google Maps, or any number of cool little toys, services, features. Motorola devices — even their top of the range — are a billion miles away from offering the functionality that the market is beginning to get used to from the likes of the iPhone.

Manufacturers shouldn’t ever get involved in the interface and front-end of their handsets. They’ve proved, time and time again, that they’re utterly shit at it. Of course, they’re designing for the lowest common denominator — for Joe Plumber. Joe Plumber doesn’t need a Starmap application. He doesn’t need a TV Guide. He doesn’t a restaurant rating system or a dedicated Facebook app on the handset. In fact he just needs to call and text.

The manufacturer does their best at fitting out the handset with a few features that they reckon most folk will want.

But that’s it.

When the manufacturer can take a step back and focus on device features rather than the UI layer, that’s when the fun begins.

Can you imagine a range of 15 Motorola devices — all with different form factors, flip, candybar, qwerty — and all running Android?

NOW you’re talking. Shortly you’ll be able to take your device profile across every handset automatically. Someone will build that functionality for Android. And all of a sudden my aim of being device independent could be realised.

If I’m wearing a suit, I want a RAZR style lightweight handset — that I can still do all the Android-stuff on (email, IM, calendar, applications and so on). Going out with friends, I might swap to a Moto Candybar with an 8megapixel camera so I can QIK the whole evening. The next morning I might swap to a QWERTY Q9 style handset because I’m taking a long train journey and I want to do a ton of email and a lot of IMing.

Go for it Moto. Take Android to heart and a hundred thousand mobile developers will immediately start setting about innovating and, in short order, convincing the planet to turn Moto.