I, Phone

I had a couple of feature ideas for the Google phone today, because even though I don't like Java, they are still offering prizes. So, without further ado, here is my list:

• I know this has been proposed for the iPhone: a barcode scanner. Just like delicious library, but on your phone. You scan a barcode and your google phone reads the number and finds out what it is, through some online service. It would be really cool (and somewhat practical for corporations) if it recognized other types of visible codes, such as postal tracking codes. Scan your tracking code and it connects to FedEx or UPS's website and brings up the page for your order.



• Some kind of database accessor, or authentication through LDAP or something like that. Corporations would buy it, and you have bulk orders for phones.



• A thermometer. Wouldn't it be so cool if, next to your weather report you have the current temperature exactly where you are? This is more of a hardware feature, but it would be cool.

More on Phones and Keyboards

So, I watched the android youtube demonstration today. I still haven't downloaded the code yet, but that will be the next thing I do. Yes, the 3D acceleration is great, and google earth on the phone is cool, but I am still wondering, HOW DO THE PHONES WITH NO TOUCH SCREEN USE THEM?!? Google earth would take probably about six to seven buttons: four to move the globe, two to zoom in and one to bring up dialogues and display information. That's an idealized version of google earth, it could get much more complex and require more buttons than are on the phone. What if some application needs a different button not on the device the developer will just have to find a way around it, not add a button like on a touch screen. What I think will happen is that developers will simply release two versions, one for the touch screens and one for the keyboard. People will get confused by the choices of phones and just buy an iPhone, or another brand of phone. Since Android is actually just an "alliance", there will be no distinct version 2.0 of the phone hardware, and new features that could eliminate the problems in the old phones just won't happen. Google will have to get it perfectly the first time, or it will kill itself for the next decade trying to fix its mistakes.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your compilers...

Google is offering $10 million in prizes to developers that can write apps for the gPhone (now Android). I think that they may use the open-source licensing of the operating system to bundle some of the best apps with the phone. For example, the productivity apps item on the list seems mighty like some of the features on the iPhone, and I think that Google may decide to add a "your software is now open-source" clause to the prizes

Two other items also caught my eye. They are:

• Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos (emphasis mine)
• Gaming

If you are going to be doing editing on a mobile phone, or any mobile device, so help you god. It's hard, even with a touch screen. A phone is no place for image editing. The gPhone does run Linux, so it may be able to run the GIMP, though.

Quite frankly, and with regards to gaming: unless you are going to be playing tetris on this phone at super-sluggish phone speeds, this phone is going to have a dedicated video card. Just like the iPhone. And if you are going to do 3D games, you may need a better video card than the iPhone, because the iPhone does not have OpenGL. 2008: Who's phone has a bigger, better video card. This is something that the other phone providers are going to get in, like, 2012.

Overall, I immediately see one problem with the gPhone: some devices have touch screens and no keyboards, some devices have normal screens and physical keyboards, and some are abominations and have both touch screens and keyboards. Google's android website says that everything right down to the dialer is going to be able to be swapped out, so... are people going to be able to swap out the keyboard? Oh, and another thing: there is not going to be a version without the keyboard program customized for physical keyboard phones; Google chose to use the Apache license, which requires the whole project to be distributed. Oops.

I am planning to download the SDK as soon as I get my Linux Kernel working (it won't load right now; The recent xkcd comic makes me suspicious, although I think it was just an update), and I think some, if not all of my questions will be answered.