Then they did something I did not expect to see, they slid it up and showed a full QWERTY keyboard, and demostrated how you could do gestures right on the face of the device for navigation. Navigation, you see, is built into the device and not a collection of buttons that might be in different places like they are on the iPhone. The new platform WebOS is basically a glorified javascript engine, so all applications are as easy as writting a webpage. Just like that. I was sold.

You see, the Apple iPhone opened new doors for everyone. It showed the hardware companies that good hardware with the same shitty software as five years ago, will not fly anymore. This pushed some companies like Blackberry to completely rethink their stance on software and release updates like the Blackberry Storm. The companies that are struggling a little bit more were able to just decide to use an open source platform for the same work, as HTC and Motorola pledged their support for Google’s Android platform. Other companies like Microsoft decided their Windows Mobile platform is without flaws, so they’ll do nothing. Palm decided they were going to take all their work in-house. They were going to pool their resources and do what they did a few years ago when they released the Palm Pilot. They did well.

The OS is light, and powerful. Since it just shuffles through information and not ‘applications’ it can just search through all of the information it has stored in it and when it finds nothing it automatically goes to the internet. It has Exchange support built in from day one. It is the first phone I have actually wanted since I bought my iPhone. It will force Apple to once again innovate and try and bring some of these advances to the iPhone.

A few weeks ago I made fun of Sprint for saying they did not need the Android, they obviously did… They did something better, they got WebOS.

This year just got interesting in the realm of portable devices and its week two!

Here is what Sprint has to say: Android is “not yet good enough to put the Sprint brand on”.

I’m sorry, what?

I couldn’t hear your statement over the sound of all the cash registers collecting money from G1 sales for T-Mobile. Did I mention T-Mobile is only selling the G1 in limited markets? Yea, if you go to a T-Mo store in the outskirst of a big city, they wont even sell you the damn thing.

Can we discuss what you mean by ‘Sprint brand’? The same Sprint that last year posted a 29B loss and attributed it to impairment of the company’s goodwill (read: loss of customers)? Add this to the fact that you did so well in keeping customers so far this year. I just dont know. They are basically taking a page from Microsoft and spending all their money on advertising and not on fixing the problem. Their network has fallen behind, their merger with Nextel confused and was generally not well recieved with corporate customrers, and their service is abysmal (just like the other carriers so I guess theyre up to date there).

I may not be impressed with the G1, but I will sure prefer it before I pick up any Sprint phone. I find it so ironic that the ‘Now Network’, doesn’t think the new OS is exciting enough to back it early on. If there’s something that Sprint needs is a nice new outlook. Something they can brag about. Something that shows they are ready to really compete and that they are done with the draconian network lock-ins that plagued AT&T with their MediaNet and T-Mobile with their T-Zones.

Sprint is part of the ‘Open Handset Alliance’ so they will eventually come out with an Android phone, which they will inevitably make look like a Samsung Instinct, and people will immediately hack to take away all Sprint branding. Open handsets, for all.