I’m not visually impaired, what’s TalkBack good for?

When we first saw Android 1.6 (donut) long long ago, we heard about the accessibility features afforded by the text-to-speech engine made by SVOX.  By default, your donut device doesn’t have the speech libraries loaded, and you have to add them yourself.  Eclair-based devices such as the Motorola Droid, however, come with the speech function fully loaded and ready to rock.

To turn it on, go to Menu> settings > accessibility, click on the “accessibility” checkbox, and then click on the “TalkBack” checkbox.  A warning box pops up telling you that it will read things such as credit card numbers aloud and that it “may be able to collect the data you type, ” so be careful..

When you have TalkBack turned on, all it really does is verbally tell you where you are, such as the home screen, sub-menus or URLs.  It also reads pop-up messages and warnings, but that’s the limit of it.

But I started thinking the other day that maybe TalkBack could come in handy if I could highlight text and have it read aloud, sort of like what you can do on many Kindle books, and what you can do with Speech in OS X.   Since I have to edit other people’s documents for work, I’m always using speech.  I even have a macro set up to highlight all text in this one field and automatically launch the voice reader.  So yeah, I thought it would be cool to have TalkBack read my Google News or Techmeme headlines to me as I’m driving or walking the dog or something.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a solution that doesn’t require the installation of another application.  I try to highlight and copy text with menu-e on the Droid, which then copies my selection to the clipboard.  But then I have no access to the clipboard to read my selection.

So what the hell…I downloaded Talking RSS Reader by Google Engineer Stephanie Doyon, which integrates with Google Reader.   It doesn’t use the nice built-in Android reader voice, but the Linux text-to-speech voice which I now equate with the dumb smiley face on the OLPC “Speak” program.  I got my niece an XO-1 for Christmas last year, and she spent quite a lot of time playing with the Speak app, making it just go “fhfhahfhfhehehehehnfmsisisisioep” and such…over and over and over.

This is the guy I picture reading my RSS feeds in Talking RSS Reader. Or more accurately, I picture him reading every single bit of text in every article in my feed in order.  When you use this app, half of the time it’s going to be saying things like “image link, image link, image link,  image link, image link”  and other such useless info that I don’t want to hear. It’s the worst in blogs because it reads all the usernames, link names, comments, and stuff.   Talking RSS reader is free and alright, but it’s better for reading the full text of articles in sequential order rather than just reading headlines.  I want something that will just speak all the headlines to me in a clear voice, and have speech recognition so I can say something like “read that one!” and it will stop its listing and drill down into the article I chose.  That kind of app would be awesome for commuters, and I guess I have to continue my search.

Talking RSS reader crashed on me quite a few times when I was playing with it, but it didn’t ever throw up an error message.  The app just silently closed, which I guess is kind of less annoying, but still bad.  I won’t uninstall this yet, as I intend to use it in the car, but it’s really not quite what I had in mind.

The “Verizon” section of Android Market is a complete bust

In the main screen of the Android Market for Droid and Droid Eris users, there are three sections:  Apps, Games, and Verizon.  It is a different layout from the one peculiar to T-Mobile Android devices, where the three sections are Apps, Games, and Downloads.  Right now it’s not much, but it provides a look into what carrier-specific Android portals may look like.  When you click the Verizon tab, it opens a section titled “V Cast,” which includes a small handful of apps chosen specifically for Verizon users.

Right now there are only 15 apps up there, including free things like the Bank of America app, Myspace Mobile, and Flyscreen, and for-pay games like The Sims, Pac Man, and Call of Duty mobile.  Currently, only two apps are unique to Verizon, the free “My Verizon” app for account information, and the free Visual Voicemail app which requires a $2.99 monthly fee to use.  The latter of these comes pre-installed on the Droid and reportedly can’t be uninstalled….actually hang on, let me check and see if people aren’t just total morons….

Okay, they may be right.  When I looked through “manage applications,”  the only apps I can uninstall are the ones I installed myself.  This is, of course just a cursory judgement, and I’m sure some further probing will uncover a way to fix that, and I’ll post it when I do.  If not, that’s kind of stupid.

There really isn’t much else to say about the Verizon section of the Android Market, but there is one huge question:    If this is a V Cast-related market, are the for-pay apps billed to my account?

NOPE.

They’re Google Checkout just like everything else in the market.

Complete and total bust.

But that’s hopefully only for the time being.  Once the section provides apps unique to the Verizon network, or apps that are billable to your Verizon account, then it will be useful. For now though, it’s like a bar at 3:30 in the afternoon:  ghost town with potential.

So you got a new Android phone…now what?

"Drrrrrroooooid!"

(UPDATE: I originally wrote this for new Motorola Droid owners, but since I’ve answered many of these questions for other Android devices, I’ve changed it to be more far-reaching.)

For whatever reason, you bought the Motorola Droid a new Android phone; and you’re sitting there with no experience with the platform at all, no Earthly clue what can be done with your new phone, and a new two year contract saying you’ll hang onto it. You’ve heard people say how powerful it is, and how it’s comparable to the iPhone and blah blah blah. Let me just invite you to clear your mind of any preconceived notions, and fill it with these important things about Android that no one seems to talk about:

The Long Press is your most useful command

It seems like the most overlooked fact about Android: you can’t live without the long press.  And if you’re new to the touchable OS, it’s not really an intuitive command.  I mean, flip open an old RAZR,  hold down a key and see what happens.  But press and hold your finger on nearly anything in Android, and you get super important and useful results. Try it on the home screen and you get the “add to home screen” menu, which lets you put new app shortcuts, widgets, live folders, or change the wallpaper. If you want to get rid of the icons on your homescreen when you get your new device, just long press them and drag them to the trash can that appears on the bottom of your screen. Long press an email and you can open, delete, forward, reply/all, or mark as read; Long press a link in the browser, and you can open it in a new window, bookmark it, save it, share it or copy the URL. It is the single most useful command you have.

Long.
press.
everything.

The first place you must go is the “settings” menu

Find the menu button and push it, and then push “settings.” On the first Android phones, this was one of the most important things to do, so you could optimize performance and stretch out your battery life. It’s not quite as necessary to tweak the Droid in this way, because right out of the box you’ll find it is able to sustain a great deal of use without much lag and without battery slaughter. However, you absolutely must must must (impossible to overstress) familiarize yourself with the tweakability of Android 2.0 so if something bothers you, it can be changed.

I read an awful article today on Silicon Alley Insider about “The 10 Things we Love and Hate about the Droid, ” and most of their complaints could have been negated with conscientious use of the settings menu. You can turn haptic feedback off, you can adjust media and ringer volumes, you can turn off screen re-orientation, you can turn off screen auto-dimmer, and such. Most of their other complaints stemmed from the Droid’s differences from the iPhone. They concluded that it’s “not better than the iPhone.” Which is just retarded. It’s different, and you love your iPhone. Nobody fucking decides an interface or ecosystem is better right after switching to it.

After a few days of using your new Android phone, I highly suggest going to the settings menu, and then hitting “about phone,” and then “battery use.” It’s both eye-opening and hilarious. Chances are good that more than half of your battery power is consumed by the screen being on and a tiny fraction by the Android Operating System and apps. It makes for a strong argument in favor of electrophoretic displays (e-book/kindle screens.)

You don’t need iTunes, no, wait… FUCK iTUNES!

Harsh, yes…but anyone who tells you that Android is somehow inferior to iPhone OS because it “lacks sync” has obviously spent too much time with their iPods and iPhones. It amazes me that people actually believe the need to sync their devices is A POSITIVE THING?!?! If you have to take time to hook your computer up to your phone so all the files stay fresh and up-to-date, guess what…they are fundamentally out of sync. They are working in their own little worlds and must be strung together after the fact. That is an old way of doing things, and anyone who has owned a Palm Pilot or similar PDA will tell you, it is goddamn annoying and should be abolished.

Repeat after me:

Sync is not a positive feature.
The need for sync means incongruity is programmed into the device.

So if you’ve come to Android expecting an iPod, where your desktop and your handheld are in constant communion, you will be disappointed. Though there are ways to hook up the Droid with iTunes, I hope you will look at Android as a mobile portal to the Web and Web-based services, and not an extension of your lousy desktop and your pirated mp3s. Get used to this. Without network connectivity, most of your devices are probably pretty worthless, right? Your laptop can bear some heavy computational loads, and your workstation can do the serious powerlifting, but we don’t live in the supercomputer era of homebase power computing any more. Even the burliest teraflop setup would be considered crippled if it wasn’t connected to a larger-scale network. And our wimpy sub-1GHz mobile phone processors have helped this become a reality.

Besides, if you’re looking for music, Pandora (and to a lesser extent Slacker Radio) are the great equalizers. They’re free, “cloud-based,” and on Verizon, stream like magic. The network is, again, the power.

With all that being said, I’ll give you your next point.

Hook up with any email service (how-to)

My inbox receives my work email, gmail, aim/aol mail, yahoo mail, and windows live hotmail and so can yours. Here’s how you do it, in order of increasing difficulty.

Gmail: This is part of the device setup, and Gmail gets its own app. You’re walked through it, so this doesn’t even factor in, really.
Windows Live Hotmail: This is delightfully easy. Go to the email app, push the menu button, push “add account,” then type in your Live/Hotmail address and password, and you’re done.
Yahoo Mail: This is a bit more tricky. When you get to the “add account” part, you have to enter your Yahoo email name and password, but then hit “manual setup.” From here, (Incoming Server Settings) make the IMAP server “imap.mail.yahoo.com” and the Port is 143. In Outgoing Server Settings, set the SMTP Server to “smtp.mobile.mail.yahoo.com” and the Port to 587. Then, check “Require sign-in” and press Next.
AIM Mail This is almost identical to Yahoo, but just change the IMAP and SMTP server names to “imap.aim.com,” and “smtp.aim.com.” The ports are the same.
Others I highly encourage you to poke around, and try setting up connections to any Webmail accounts you have. And because the Droid is Exchange compatible, you can set up your work-related email accounts and calendars just as easily as you set up a Windows Live account. Just enter your username and password and it’s good to go.

Next: Apps in the “Verizon” directory in the Android Market and what’s so special about them.

Let’s watch Android get backgrounded

I’m reposting part of what I wrote on Betanews today. The Xperia X10 looks very strong. 4″ screen, 8.1 megapixel camera, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, but “Android” is not the talking point of the device. That’s okay.

Meanwhile, my G1 has prevented me from doing anything exciting and testing out apps. It crashes when I switch apps. I don’t get many incoming calls, but every one crashes the phone process. Any time I open the Android Market, it refuses to go back to the home screen. I’ve uninstalled almost all my apps, I’ve cleared every cache, deleted my extraneous SMS conversations. And it’s still performing like fuck. My patience is waning.

I requested to be put on the waiting list to test the Motorola Droid, but they didn’t get back to me yet.

Here’s what I have to say about the Xperia X10. I have more at www.betanews.com, but I’m just giving you the gist here.

–Sony Ericsson took the wraps off of its first Android-based handset, the 1 GHz Snapdragon-powered Xperia X10. With a huge 4″ touchscreen, an 8.1 megapixel camera and the elegant custom user interface named “Rachael,” Sony Ericsson moves the Android platform a step further by giving it almost no mention in announcements and commercials.

Sony Ericsson mentions the Android Market, and notes in the spec sheet that the operating system is Android Donut 1.6, but otherwise it does not ride the point, and strives to make the device stand out as a distinct product.

This is where Android is headed, and it’s a good thing.

As anyone with a zealous interest in technology is sure to tell you, most people don’t give a damn what version of which operating system their phone is running. They only care if it works and their signals are strong. So rather than try to start an “I’m an Android / I’m an iPhone” battle like Verizon did with its Motorola Droid “iDon’t” advertising campaign, Sony Ericsson avoids even mentioning Android and the X10 in the same breath.

Instead, it gives its custom Android build its own name (UX Platform “built on top of the Open OS”) and talks about the uniquely Sony Ericsson experience it can provide with it.

It’s owning the Android experience, and in doing so, it’s giving the user less to think about and more to drool over.

A thought-provoking view of Android from Symbian

GigaOM struck gold with a video of Symbian’s Lee Williams criticizing Google for poisoning the well with its Android business model. It’s an absolute must-watch.
Here’s the meat of it, taken as a direct quote:

“First and foremost, the goal of a Google system would be to create a situation where you have information about the user and the use of…those cloud apps that are proprietary to Google. Secondarily, it would be to cookie them, so you get that unique identifier association with the data you’ve collected on the individual’s habits and routines, etc, so you can target apps toward them, so you can build more intelligent cloud-based apps for them and so forth. At the end of the day, what is the motivation for any other company in an Android ecosystem when in fact the consumers are being taken right away from them just in some of these simple concepts?”

“Android is building almost the perfect storm of fragmentation in a large marketplace, I don’t know how many different UIs are shipping and how many people claim to own them across the 18 devices in development. More than that, they continue to do the revenue share deals with the operators and leverage the benefit of these cookied consumers…how many different UIs and closed APIs you’re gonna end up with in that scenario becomes a very big question on how do you sustain and return on investments in that type of environment?”

“I don’t hate Android at all, I think it’s a great initiative. But what I think Google should do is come be a member of the Symbian Foundation and join a truly open ecosystem where anybody can come and sit on a council seat and determine the future of that system, instead of advertising that they have one and going in their own direction.”

…I stripped out the part where he calls Apple greedy and Google evil. That was a bit of a “sweeps week” comment, but Williams’ comment is nonetheless very interesting because he’s cutting Google down for building an open ecosystem that has a closed monetization scheme.

Then, talking about his relationship with handset makers like Samsung, HTC and Motorola, Williams said companies have come to him and said “…One of the issues I’ve got is that Google is taking my interface with my consumers away.”

Let’s see if I have this right…Google gives you the open source framework and shares the revenue and all it costs you is the user’s behavioral data? And in exchange, users get high-quality services for free?

What’s the problem, exactly?

I’m sure my view is oversimplifying it, and my knowledge of Symbian’s inner workings is poor. However, I do know that it’s very easy for a nonprofit organization to vilify a group that is working for profit as “greedy” or “evil,” especially when their customers are the exact same companies.

I guess that’s why he extended the invitation to join the foundation instead of a big old fuck off.

This rumor blows my mind!

Gizmodo got quite a scoop/rumor that the Barnes and Noble e-book reader will run Android?!!

Like that 90′s X Files T-shirt used to say…I want to believe.

But I’m not the type of person to say that something is going to happen because it’s extremely plausible. And believe me, it IS plausible. The Barnes and Noble e-reader made by Plastic Logic, hooked up to the AT&T wireless network, equipped with the B&N e-book store is debuting in just a couple of weeks and it looks like it’s going to be the Kindle’s best competition so far. You throw Android in that mess and give it the ability to install third party apps, you break down the device’s insular functionality that has kept many customers from jumping on board the e-reader train (i.e. “why would I buy a device that only does one thing?”)

I talked to Ericsson a couple of weeks ago, and they see a ton of potential in the e-reader market. They released their always-on wireless SoC for embedded systems and really emphasized its utility in the form factor. It seems like everybody in the industry has got e-book fever. Hell, I have been praying to the almighty Gods of capitalism for E Ink Co. to go IPO, but it’s still not a publicly traded company. (Those guys make the Vizplex imaging film used in literally EVERY e-reader product and I want in!)

But the non-early adopting, average run-of-the-mill consumer still hasn’t taken note of the technology, and they probably won’t for a couple of years.

This is another one of those reasons why this rumor clicks…it’s taking two tech industry hot topics and mashing them together into something that makes a lot of sense.

But the thing is, the Android experience would be nonexistent in the current generation of e-readers. I mean, shit….I have my doubts about the Archos PMP that debuted running Android today. But on an E Ink screen? Come on, those screens take like 2 seconds to refresh…there’s really no way yet to have animation on them. The “Android Experience” would consist of the framework for a menu screen and little else. Yes, it’s an open source platform suitable for embedded systems, but I have serious doubts about Android making an upfront appearance on an e-reader, even though the interoperability with the myriad Google services is a hugely tantalizing and exciting proposition (think about geotagged e-books…holy fuck.)

I’d also hate to have to ditch my Kindle 2 after only 6 months.

It’s all gravy from here on out

It’s only Wednesday but it’s already been a huge week for Android.

Verizon’s on board with its first Android device in the next couple of weeks, and Eric Schmidt slathered praise all over Verizon like barbecue sauce on a chicken wing. I quote: “It’s absolutely a fact that Verizon’s data network is the best in the US by far, and I’m not talking ten percent here, I’m talking about many multiples.”

Now the rumors are flying that AT&T is coming out with its first Android device, and not just any device, but the Dell Dork Phone I (aka the Mini 3i) that I talked about a few weeks ago. To be honest, my interest in that was only half-hearted and if I don’t get my hands on one, it’s going to lose out to something much more concrete like the freakin’ 800 MHz Samsung Moment.

What are we looking at, then?

Pretty much what we all expected, right? It’s not world domination or anything, but Android this week stepped onto the threshold of being a viable, multi-handset option on all carriers.

Meanwhile, Gartner is predicting that Android will have a market share only exceeded by Symbian by 2012. 14.5% or roughly 72 million phones per year. That would cut Symbian down to 39% and iPhone down to 13%, Blackberry would stay at 12.8% and Windows Mobile to 12.5%.

From inception to the number 2 in the world in four years.

Let’s see how long it took Symbian…well, its roots go back pretty damn far. Let’s start at the Psion Series 5 EPOC 32 days in 1997, which turned into Symbian in 1998. It wasn’t until 2004 that it began moving like crazy. So roughly six years from birth to the top?

So maybe 2014 for Android to take the #1 spot? Heh…maybe, but it’s late and I have a headache.

140 characters about every Android handset thus far.

More Android Phones keep comin’, so here’s a rundown of what we’ve got in the immortal language of Twitter. I’m going to keep updating this post as more devices come out, so #havenofear. After updating this a number of times, I’ve decided to organize this list by phones that have been released or announced first, then followed by rumored devices.

RELEASED/CONFIRMED:

@HTCDream, @TmobileG1 This is the phone that started it all one year ago: Keyboard, Chin, Trackball, Slider, and Android 1.0

@SamsungGalaxy, @I7500, typical Samsung quality display, all-touch AMOLED with light sensor, not a “Google phone,” avail in Germany, Austria, Poland

@HTCMagic, @Mytouch3G, @Dopod, It’s still got the chin, but no keyboard. Shellable, skinnable, endorsed by Whoopi.

@HTCHero (World) Slim and sexy, this is the first ‘droid with a custom UI #HTCSense The CDMA version is Sprint’s first Android device.

@HTCTattoo yet another all-touch device with #HTCSense bound for Europe. Mysteriously ditched the “chin” but went with custom shells.

@HTCDroidEris, @HTCDesire Launch partner of Verizon Droid, standard 528MHz CPU, very similar to the Hero

@HTCNexusOne  Sold directly through Google, all-touch, snapdragon, very controversial.

@MotorolaCliq, @MotorolaDext first Android phone from Moto, features #MotoBLUR, second big UI for droid. Surefire Sidekick replacement.

@MotorolaDroid aka @sholes aka @tao aka @touchstone. QWERTY slider as thin as an iPhone. #VZW’s first Android and first Android 2.0 (eclair) device. A killer.

@MotorolaBackflip, aka @Enzo, a weird form factor with keyboard on back of chassis and trackpad behind the screen, also rocks #motoBLUR

@TmobilePulse, #Huawei makes this, the first prepaid all-touch Android device “perfect entry level smartphone”

@LG GW620, @LGEtna this QWERTY slider was launched in EU, turned up unlocked in France €450. lacks d-pad/trackball but has arrow keys.

@LG GT540, don’t know the name of this one, but is all-touch, runs 2.0, and comes in various colours. Launched at CES, coming to EU/Asia

@AcerA1, @AcerLiquid, like #Moto, #Acer said it’s focusing on Android now. Launched UK 10/14, runs Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

@Dellmini3i, one of #ChinaMobile’s first Ophones, rumored to be AT&T’s first Android phone, we’ll have more. Dell is good with staying in touch.

@LenovoO1, another TD-SCDMA Ophone for China. Pretty, but not likely to come to the U.S.

@SamsungBehold2, shown with #TouchWiz #Cube UI, will be first Samsung droid phone in US on T-Mobile

@SamsungMoment, thought to be the #InstinctQ, this 800Mhz QWERTY monster is headed for Sprint in Nov.

@SamsungGalaxySpica @I5700, 800MHz CPU, 3.2-inch HVGA, a 3mpix cam, 180MB internal memory. Actually quite dull. Announced on Nov 16.

@GeeksPhoneONE QWERTY slider available in EU (Spain) in December “extremadamente ágil y eficiente!”

@SaygusV1 Their V1 has 2-way video calling and is a huge, heavy monster of a phone

@SonyEricsson Xperia X10, comes with slick UI and new “UX Platform,” powered by Snapdragon. SE is forgoing the Android praise and just sticking with making phones.

UNCONFIRMED:

@MotorolaDevour aka @Calgary…the name has shown up for 2 years, and only recently has any actual evidence shown up.  We’ll see at CES!

@MotorolaHeron or @IronMan This Windows Mobile phone was pulled from AT&T, listed as “specifications subject to change due to move to Android.” Whereabouts unknown.

@MotorolaZeppelin Spotted in China in a regulatory filing, with not much known besides 5Mpx camera, and HDMI output

@MotorolaOpusOne – Supposed to be the first iDen Android Device, to ship with 1.5, 3.1″ screen, 3 megapixel cam—looking cheap

@TMobile “Tap” shown on the Samsung Behold II launch paper…possibly a #ZTE device?

@INQ committed to an Android device, but we haven’t seen anything yet.

Android/Google backlash? Calm down.

I’m coming from a casual/moderate open source user’s perspective with a question:

Are all serious FOSS advocates high strung ninnies?

In my career as a journalist, I’ve encountered more haywire open source reactionaries than I’d like to deal with, and I’ve really begun to regard the whole group as a bunch of paranoid freaks.

There’s this ideology that turns into a stouthearted set of beliefs that gets in the way of logical discourse. I liken it to political radicals who call everyone who isn’t throwing molotov cocktails at the police a “fascist sympathizer.”

What am I talking about here? If you’re an Android fan, you know Cyanogen. It’s a modded Android ROM which has basically been feeding the public all of Google’s software updates before Google has had a chance to officially release them to the public. Google has finally issued a cease and desist warning to Cyanogen’s developer –also going by the moniker Cyanogen– that he has to cut it out because he’s distributing stuff not included in the open source licensing. As Google said yesterday in its blog, “Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it’s done with the best of intentions.”

Suddenly the open source reactionaries cry foul and mobilize a boycott of Android. To quote Phandroid’s article yesterday: “Google is basically moving the modding community from doing their work in the light to doing their work in the dark. Forget about getting ROMs on XDA-DEVS… Android builds are about to become torrents and warez.”

*sigh*

Can we please be civilized? I mean, you shouldn’t be surprised, Android has never been purely open source. Since it was first released last October, it has been a kind of hybrid licensing structure. There is the public development branch under the Apache 2.0 license and then stuff which is considered Google’s intellectual property which must be licensed out… I don’t know how minute the stuff that must be licensed is, and judging by the confusion of the community, the two may be too closely interwoven for many to discern where one ends and the other begins.

One commenter wrote: “The phones that are running Cyanogen’s ROMs ALREADY HAD THE GOOGLE APPS.”

However true this may have been in the past, in this case it is abundantly clear what the problem is. Cyanogen included the updated Android Market in his mod, which is fundamentally different from the app already on everybody’s phones, clearly crossing the line. In other words, the C&D is about Cyanogen distributing a closed-source app and not modding the Android platform.

What the community is getting upset over is that just because Google releases a free Android app, it does not mean it’s Free and Open Source. I’ve seen this throughout the message board commentary over the last few days. People assume that because YouTube, Gmail, Google Sync are not FOSS, that Android is now completely ruined.

The modding community is pissed because they now think this means they have access to basically none of Google’s awesome services, and HTC Sense and Motorola’s MOTOBLUR are illegal, and now they’re all abandoning the platform as tainted by corporate greed.

Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of the licensing structure, but it’s obvious that this reaction was way out of hand. I suggest we all sit down, pull the black bandannas off our faces and turn the talk about boycotts and protests into talk about what can and cannot be done with Android.

We don’t need Cyanogen to be a martyr for an insurrection.

10+ new Android phones from Motorola in 2010? FALSE.

Being a tech industry analyst has got to be a hell of a job. If you make it to the point where people look forward to hearing what you have to say (the point of punditry, maybe?) you really don’t have to make any huge, Earthshaking predictions. You just use what you know about market trends, developing technologies, and company/leadership personalities, and you won’t sound like a fool…even if you’re not exactly right.

But some analysts aren’t that conservative.

There are also the big game hunters, who go for the big predictions and the big payoff. Unfortunately, the more big predictions you miss, the more you need to make to get your reputation back up.

Last week, Trip Chowdry of Global Equities Research predicted that Motorola will release at least 10 new Android phones in 2010, priced between $39 and $399.

I saw this prediction, and I instantly got the “do you believe this guy?” look on my face, with palms upflipped and a half smile against a scowling brow…the Andrew Dice Clay look.

No disrespect meant, but Chowdry doesn’t exactly have the best record for big predictions. In May, he predicted that the Palm Foleo would make a comeback. In January, He predicted that Costco would sell $149 iPhones. In 2007, he even predicted that Google would “lose its technological edge” to a semantic search startup called Powerset (which was bought by Microsoft in 2008.)

Track record aside, a lineup with “at least” 10 Android phones is an insane prediction, and here’s my reason, using some simple reasoning instead of what appears to be bombastic inference.

Premise A.) Motorola averages between 26-30 handsets a year.

Premise B.) Android is a smartphone OS.

Premise C.) Motorola’s best-selling handsets are not smartphones.

Conclusion– Motorola is not going to have a lineup made up of more than 30% smartphones, especially when 72% of all phones sold are feature phones.

Yes, Motorola has said it will be shifting its focus from feature phones onto smartphones, and it has said it will put Android at the heart of that, but a launch of more than ten devices on Android in one year would not only be an unprecedented shift, but totally bonkers. I’m not saying I don’t think it will happen eventually, but Motorola has gone through literally dozens of different OSes in its history, and this is another instance of past behavior shaping our preception of future behavior.