Blackberry just released their best phone ever (The Blackberry Bold) and some half-thought out device that kind of does everything but doesnt (The Blackberry Storm). Where is the wi-fi. No, seriously. Where? This is fine however because I believe that Blackberry can get their house in order and make the Storm a way better device through software updates. At the end of the day, it is a Blackberry, It will still have that following and RIM will do whatever it takes for it to succeed.

The T-Mobile G1 however… is a disaster of epic proportions.

The first thing I talked about was how I really thought it was a bad idea that the phone did not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Not only that but it apparently did not even ship with the adapter until recently, it just shipped with headphones that used the proprietary jack. Which is fine, unless you have $100 headphones you want to use, in which case, you’d have to purchase the adapter separately. This seemed to be a bad decision, and then the first reviews started coming out and it was shown that the G1 has no native video support. Yes. The T-Mobile G1, has no native video player.

The phone’s hardware can handle multi-touch but it was apparently disabled. The phone has an on-screen keyboard but was also, apparently disabled. Then there’s the abysmal battery life, typing anything anywhere getting executed, and the fact that turning off data roaming, seems to be a vestigial switch, since applications can turn it on by themselves. (Links to these are after the post)

It just makes me want to stop talking about the T-Mobile G1.

It’s true, all the rumors. All of the reports that claimed that Android was not ready for the prime-time. All true. What’s worse, Android is buggy because they tried to do too much. Instead of limiting the functions to a specific set of them and polishing them to no end like Apple did.

Apple’s phone is missing a lot of features. When they add them you’ll be thankful they did. The T-Mobile G1 can do pretty much anything, and you pay for it. The most interesting application I have seen for the G1 was one where it would know where you are, and if  you were close to your house it would respond in a way and differently if you were away. It was so inventive. It was such a great idea. They then said ‘This can ONLY be done on Android’. They were half-right. They were talking to Mobile OS X not being able to do it, because you cant have background applications running on it. But then they didn’t explain that the application pings the GPS servers every few seconds. Making it a huge resource hog.

Let’s stop talking about the T-Mobile G1.

Let’s stop talking about Android.

Let’s give Google some time to get their act together on what seems to be a great idea that somehow did not translate to a great device. They can take their findings from their phone which has sold a lot of units, and make some updates that can really matter, make the G2 or whatever the next device will be called, what the G1 should have been.

If we keep mentioning the G1 and Android, people will get curious, and they will see a product that is honestly flawed. Google needs to get Android more resources and try and get the handset manufacturers to understand the spirit of openness that’s inherent in the OS.

Let’s reboot Android and for those of you with G1s, thanks for beta testing.

Battery Life? What Battery Life?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/cell-phones/?p=208

Type Reboot, I dare you!

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49299782,00.htm

All your data are belong to us

http://gizmodo.com/5100952/t+mobile-g1-net-access-cant-be-turned-off-results-in-huge-roaming-costs

and it’s follow up:

http://gizmodo.com/5106844/t+mobile-g1-apps-turn-on-data-roaming-by-themselves

HTC and Research In Motion have been hard at work creating devices that will compete head to head with it. RIM even deciding that ‘html email’ is something that should come standard, and HTC jumping on the open handset run before anyone else and being the first one with an actual product to show for it, the T-Mobile G1. Too bad Blackberries are still mainly business devices and the G1 is not as open as it should be. They actually had a chance otherwise.

For all I talk about the iPhone I want to really point out that the second a better device comes out, I will most likely upgrade to it. Maybe next year, maybe in two years. I am not biased towards the iPhone, Apple is just doing it better than anybody else. I want a device that frees me from my laptop and allows me to do whatever it is that I want to do on the road.

If I have to log onto my work server and run a job to check the output when I get home I can SSH in no problem. If I have to check the status of my fantasy team (no matter what fantasy sports service I am using), or if I want to buy tickets to the baseball game on my way there. I can do that all from my iPhone. I can stream music from Pandora or Last.fm. I can twitter with people around me with Twinkle. I can leave notes for myself that sync with all my computers and the internet through Evernote. I don’t need to worry about not having 3G because it defaults to EDGE, and it has Wi-Fi for faster transfers and network recognition through Air Sharing. The connectivity possibilities are endless because it uses bluetooth, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the incredibly common iPod universal connector jack.

The touch screen is nice, but as I’ve said before. Its all about connectivity and the applications. I really can’t say I feel too confident right now about where the T-Mobile G1 is going. The application store for the G1 is still not ready and whenever it is ready it will not be as robust as the iTunes App Store is now. Plus it seems like Google has dropped the ball when it comes to advertising the thing. What they’ve shown in the tech demos is amazing. Why are people not talking about this phone?

Why is the device ‘expandable to 8GB’ ?. If there is something Apple learned early, the more storage you put in the device, the more people will want. I think I’m the only one of my friends who has a 8GB iPhone 3G, and thats just because I know I’ll be right out that line next year for the third gen iPhone if nothing changes. With a pricetag of $180 for the phone with 1GB, if I wanted to get a 8GB microSD card for it to be comparable to the bottom end iPhone I’d have to spend $23.03 more, just charge me $199 and include the 8GB card? jeez.

Why does it not use a normal 3.5mm headphone jack? So if I break my headphones, I have to go to a T-Mobile store to find their special headphones or I need to get a little adapter that I have to carry around. Why?! There is no need for this.

I am however, excited that Android finally has a hardware incarnation. Apple desperately needs some competition, maybe they’ll stop banning apps because of their “don’t compete against Apple” clause in their T&Cs. The full keyboard on the device is also very interesting and I love that it features a 3.1mp camera, the iPhone’s camera sucks.

I am watching this develop quite rapidly and I am really interested, but somehow, underwhelmed. Somebody at Google has dropped a ball and T-Mobile seems to be tripping on it. God I hope I’m wrong…

Here’s Wired’s comparison of the two devices.