Tuesday, November 13, 2007

If ever there is a GPhone, I would want...

Over the last two to three weeks, there has been increasing coverage of the various moves being unleashed by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and the likes. One of those that clearly stand out in this is the new “Android” API that Google has introduced for all cell phone operators and application developers to develop seamless applications on the mobile platform. That effectively meant that there would not be a GPhone as hoped by many.

I just imagined what I could have got if only there was a GPhone in the offing. Imagination was curtailed to the extent that I did not think about too many fancy applications like these

  1. I don’t want a GPhone, I want a GEM – OK. Let me explain better. A Gem stands for a Google emblem. And phone may / may not be just a part of it. Think something like an iPhone / SideKick / Blackberry. But not just limited to what Apple decides to put into their iPhone. It should be a truly democratic phone and there should be an ability to add on stuff (explained in the next point). Features that certainly should be supported right from beta include the basic phone, net browsing, camera, mp3 player, video, Bluetooth, gaming controls, qwerty keyboard, trackball, expandable memory, radio etc. with a couple of USB ports.
  2. I want a configurable Gem – Now comes the interesting part. I want to be able to choose what I want in my Gem. Currently even though I may not want a camera as part of my phone, I am forced to buy my phone with it since only such phones have the additional features I need. I want to be able to just plug and play these devices and configure my own phone. So if I need a camera, I will go for it and plug that in. If I need audio / video capabilities, I will plug that in and pay more for it. It is similar in case of a qwerty keyboard / net browsing capability etc. This is surely possible for the brilliant Google designers and engineers!
  3. I want complete mobility – EDGE / UMTS / ABCDE etc. Oh God I don’t want to hear any more technical jargons on what a phone supports and what not. Majority of the more than 2 billion that may probably own a phone don’t care about that. They may just may want internet browsing for example. And the Gem should certainly provide that feature irrespective of what the network supports or what a physical location supports (as long as it supports something!). Speeds may vary but the feature should be there and should not be insanely expensive as it is right now with better support and usage.
  4. I want to do things that can be done on a small screen– I don’t want to read an entire newspaper on my phone. I just want the summary of the news. Similarly, I don’t really want to play fast action games on such a small screen but I may want to play some classic games from the N32/64/Sega or Carmen Sandiego/Mario era. And I don’t want to keep downloading them from a million sites. I just want one place or better still, let them come by default maybe at some price. Google should start certainly looking at a better conduit for small-screen related content instead of just exposing the not so literate user to the big wide world from Google search results and sponsored links! Search can be considered a digression and I dont want to be searching all the time through a small screen device.
  5. I want my Gem to be the God of all things – In the long term, I would look at my Gem to be the all in one device to just connect to my monitor and look at the whole thing on a bigger screen (and the OS senses that and fine-tunes the display). I don’t need any operating system if I am in this mode, all the apps that I need – mail, docs, spreadsheets, browser, media player, messenger are already there inside the phone. In a similar fashion, you can expect the Gem to be the controlling device for your TV to get cable, satellite and internet videos all delivered. You can even look at your TV as a large screen device to play bigger and better games off your Gem. The Gem should also connect to maybe Bose speakers to play crystal clear music. The Gem becomes the all in one device with its connectivity and expandable memory. Other devices just connect and amplify!

Google’s motto is to “Don't be evil”. Hence I am implicitly assuming that connectivity across multiple systems such as live / yahoo as well as various different social networks like facebook / myspace / bebo etc. are all covered in addition to whatever I have mentioned above… Given the Google push, the Android platform will obviously provide choices for web browsers / other applications and the likes and it would be survival of the fittest then for sure – so the best would win.

It certainly is worth waiting for this Gem of a device, if and when it arrives…

7 comments:

Rajiv said...

doesnt work. google will only deliver the services it can get ad revenue out of. why should they do anything else?

the problem is, doing that from mobile phones is right now next to impossible for google. so they are attacking the root cause!

Unknown said...

This actually works even better than just providing the API / OS. In addition to whatever Google intends to do with Android (which will be the API / OS behind Gem as well!), they can license the hardware interface that is going to make third parties manufacture cameras, sound cards, qwerty keyboards and the likes for the Gem (like a Qualcomm).

The other big part about being customizable is that anyone should be able to buy the Gem, whether someone with a lot of money or someone without much money and the latter can have the option of advertising to pay for the phone while the others can just hv advertising for better connectivity.

And Google has even more info about a person now with his personal likes and dislikes since this device will in long term power every major device (TV, comp etc.) and so advertising can be even more customized on all these platforms as well.

Unknown said...

how about your 4 wishes out of 5 coming true?

Google is trying to do exactly what you have wished except your 2 wish.
Your 2n wish is about h/w and it is more to do with h/w developers like Nokia and LG than Google.
Google is taking the phone out of the phone and make it a true mobile computer trying to exploit every resource
Android is going to be open source like Linux that means that the large programmers community can develop programs to fulfill all our needs even if google chooses to provide us with it.
Lets just hope we have it in our hands sooner than later

Chanakya said...

macha.. how vetti are you!!! my god!!! -Chanakya

Unknown said...

yes power...but still out of the 4, google is yet to implement even one fully... point 2 attains a lot of significance specifically given their spectrum bid and if they want a serious competition to iphone..

charsi - lets not divulge professional secrets :)

Anonymous said...

I hope you are not too keen on the launch of the GPhone,now that you work for a certain competitor.

-Rohit Nair

Vikas said...

Excellent blog!! Especially I liked this post :)

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