bradKELLETT

Like many, I have been watching the news related to Google, among other’s, announcement of the Android mobile platform and the Open Handset Alliance. Until today’s release of several videos demonstrating the UI and parts of the system itself, there was not a lot of meat to get excited about. Now, I am filled with cautious optimism over Android.

After viewing this video in particular, one can see that at this point in the development cycle, it appears as though Google is looking to pull in the best features of Windows Mobile and the iPhone UI. On first inspection, Android looks most like Windows Mobile, especially the home screen. Once the device is in use, however, a very ‘smooth’ quality reminiscant of the iPhone can be seen. The browser especially is obviously modeled off Apple’s efforts, though there is a lack of finish at this early stage.

The most interesting and exciting part of Android is the level of openness. The iPhone is a great product, but like many Apple releases, it is basically Apple’s way or the highway. Sure, Apple has now announced an SDK for third party applications, but it is an afterthought, rather than Google’s release of an SDK months before devices are in the hands of customers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPhone, but should Android provide the same slick UI elements on an open platform, I will switch in a second. Many features demonstrated on Android so far are available on other handsets, such as Google maps, but with Google’s announcement of a $10 million competition for the best applications, I am looking forward to seeing what can be done. Particularity, I am keen to see where developers go with the built-in OpenGL support. Already Google has shown some pretty cool features, though, like Street View in the Maps application.

What I am really curious about is where this leaves the Apple/Google relationship. Google is basically releasing the best competitor to the iPhone, despite Eric Schmidt serving on Apple’s board, and Google taking a large part in the development of the iPhone. I was surprised at Google’s involvement with the development of the iPhone originally, considering its love of all things open, and this proves my point in a way.

Indeed, if Android shapes up to be the open version of the iPhone as it is appearing as at this early stage, there might just be an iPhone for sale out of my place.

A post over on WinExtra and my recent dabble with Adobe’s excellent AIR have me thinking about the further evolution of the internet. The WinExtra post gives a good background into what I am about to say, so it is worth reading beforehand.

Let me begin by saying that overall, I agree with what Steven is saying. The current crop of web applications are cool, and certainly have their place insofar as they are convenient for those working in multiple locations and on different computers, but in the end that convenience looses out to the loss in functionality. What is really useful to me is a new breed of web-connected applications.

While I don’t really like the whole Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 nomenclature, I do agree with the concepts being expressed for Web 3.0, specifically the idea of the web as a database. Though there will always be a place for the traditional website, I think standardized and open data interchange is the key to bringing the internet to the next level of usefulness.

I have been toying with AIR, making small applications to connect to some web services I have made, and I really love these kinds of desktop web-connected applications. That web connection is the key: it is all well and good having Google Docs there so I can edit a document from anywhere, but what I would really love is if that document was seamlessly exposed for editing by any application. I imagine opening a document in Word, saving it directly into the cloud, opening it on a mobile device like my iPhone and messing with the formatting while on a train, then popping it open in an online word processor on a colleague’s computer for comment.

This does, however, bring up the issue of pervasive internet connectivity. In Australia, though mobile data plans are becoming cheaper, and WiFi hotspots are more readily available, there is still no consumer-level way of having always-on internet connectivity. Still, this really does not make cloud services any less useful.

I really do have a dream of having any data I need available where ever I go, and initiatives like AIR promoting web-connected applications are a step in the right direction. I think that even though technology is a big stumbling block on the road to true cloud computing, a lot of it comes down to the lack of willingness of companies to use and promote open formats and data interchange. Hopefully, this will get better with time.

After a few weeks of talking about it, I took the plundge and bought a new MacBook Pro. This isn’t my first Mac, but I have been using Windows machines only for a while. This means that the house is totally Mac now, with my better half a dedicated Mac user (iMac 20″ currently).

It is the top-end 15″ model, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, and 160GB HD. It screams, and so far I have very little to complain about with it. My only issues thus far: the screen doesn’t open wide enough for how I sit it on my lap, my Logitech MX Revolution mouse doesn’t work quite right, and Firefox looks pathetic on Mac OS. Only one of those issues is Apple’s fault, though it is incredibly minor, and other than that I am completely satisfied with the machine and Leopard.

And yes, I am completely aware of the lack of originality in the title of this post.

On top of that, I came in to work on Friday to see my new workstation waiting for me on my desk. That box is a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, and twin 20″ LCDs (1600×1200 resolution each). Thanks boss, but it isn’t a Mac…

(Yes, an update. I know it’s been a while, but I will try to blog more regularly.)

While I understand Google had to do a lot behind the scenes to ensure that actions mapped into Gmail properly, it has been a long wait for long-time Gmail users like me to get IMAP support in Google’s mail product. I’ve been using Microsoft Exchange for email for a while, but with my reshuffling of jobs, I found I no longer need the advanced features that it provides. Instead, with the new addition of IMAP access (a necessity in my books), I decided to save myself the money on Exchange and switch to Google Apps, and as such, back into Gmail.

This decision left me with a conundrum – how to get my bank of email out of the clutches of the MS empire and into the supposedly less evil Gmail. While my mailbox is not the largest around, weighing in at around 2GB, this was still a daunting task. IMAP support certainly made this easier, but finding the right application to do the move proved difficult.

I tried Outlook 2007 itself, Mozilla Thunderbird, Entourage, and Eudora with varying success, from Outlook’s constant timeouts on the IMAP connection, to Thunderbird ending up with messages without subjects or senders due to Exchange mangling headers. The solution came from an unlikely source: Windows Mail.

Windows Mail is the replacement to Outlook Express in Windows Vista, and was able to import email directly from the Exchange server through Outlook, then upload it to Gmail through IMAP. While the process was slow (around 10 hours for all my email), it managed to get the job done perfectly, without any timeouts and with the complete messages intact. I did not expect much from Windows Mail, but it pulled through in the end, and if Thunderbird wasn’t so damn good, I would consider using it as my full-time email client.

I now have Thunderbird with the Lightning calendar plugin syncing to my Google Apps Gmail and Google Calender, complete with all my email and calendar entries from Exchange. I still fire up Outlook and use the wonderful RemoteCalendars to pull down my Google Calendar for syncing with my iPhone and other devices, but other than that I am totally satisfied with the free alternative to Exchange.