RSS Feed

05 October 2008

Powering all of these androids...


It's like the plot of a science fiction movie. Androids invade earth, need power, and either plug themselves into the nearest outlet, set up solar panels, or start using humans as batteries.

In all seriousness, one feature that the iPhone has over Android is the fact that it syncs through iTunes. Android provides sync services, but those sync services do not lead into one central "Android Control Center". In addition, I would bet against HTC/T-Mobile including a USB-to-special-phone-connector cable in the Android box. So most likely there will be a hodgepodge of sync services for android phones, which will differ based on what applications are installed. Sync your music with Amarok, your photos with who knows what, your movies with something else… It's all very confusing.

Then again, Google may have decided to skip the rigamarole of desktop syncing and may go straight to syncing pictures with picassa, your email with GMail, and later possibly a deal with Amazon for music over the air. YouTube is the obvious choice for videos, and everything else is small enough to be synced over the air. While users may not be able to set up their android phones in a desktop program, I am sure they will be happy to wait in a carrier's store for the carrier to do it for them.

Probably the only thing that the Android phone lacks in this regard is syncing TV shows and Movies, which, based on the open model of the Android phone, could be done, though studios and distributors may receive pressure from carriers to not back this service, as it uses a lot of bandwidth. Of course, there is always wireless syncing of movies from MythTV and TiVo over WiFi.


Although wireless sync is a lot slower than wired sync, it will probably be fine for most people. For a few months after she got her iPhone, my mother didn't really want to plug it into a computer, and instead used the adapter. Wireless sync simply adds complexity, due to the fact that no software can make it more clear that your phone is being synced wirelessly than the simple statement that a cable can make.

No comments: