CES 2011 Android Wishes and Predictions

Tomorrow is Christmas and all I can think about is all the new stuff I’m going to have to keep track of at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in the first week of January. It’s going to be my fifth year in attendance as a professional journalist, and the previous years I’ve gone are starting to blend together in my mind. Fortunately, I can gauge the year in history by the amount of Android stuff I see there. Two years ago, there was only the smallest bit of Android-based stuff because the first open source version of the OS was only just released. Last year, the presence had increased significantly, and I saw a lot of new smartphones, a couple of e-reader/tablets and a couple of strange and unique contributions like desktop video phones and Android-powered Microwaves.

This year, aside from the Verizon LTE Android phone that we’re expecting, everyone thinks CES 2011 is going to be all about tablets.

I have my reservations about that prediction.

Yes, Motorola is undoubtedly revealing an Android tablet of some sort, and LG, NEC and Dell have all said they will be showing something off too…but other than that the field is pretty wide open.

Speaking of LG though, there’s a company who’s in the Android space way less than it should be. Last year I saw two Android phones from LG, and earlier this year the company pledged more presence in the area, but frankly I was highly unimpressed with its smartphone attempts. Many of the phones LG showed off last year were solidly based in the pre-iPhone, post BlackBerry design ethic. The company’s got a lot of clout in consumer electronics, but last year it looked to be focused solidly on its TV sector, maybe a tablet would kickstart interest in their smartphones.

A ton of Android-based tablets pour out of China every day. I mean, just check out dealextreme and you’ll be treated to a new piece of shit $99 plastic tablet running Android 2.2 every day of the week. I really hope predictions for CES 2011 will be proven wrong and that there will be something to take my breath away, because I want to see how far companies have taken Android out of its comfortable niche of portable/pocketable touchscreen devices.

Specifically, I want to see OTHER devices running it, like point and shoot cameras, pocket camcorders, media players, clocks and watches, game systems, in-car systems, DVD players and TVs, set top boxes, digital toys, and home automation gadgets.

Frankly, after hearing that Samsung is on track to sell 10 million Galaxy S smartphones before this year is even out, I’ve accepted that Android is now the mainstream smartphone OS. It has reached the average user who upgrades his phone only when his contract runs out, and my efforts will be best invested in tracking the smartphone market overall, and the specific unique applications of Android’s open source branch.

iPhone Bashing

Tim Bray has joined the Android team at Google, so get used to him speaking for the platform.

The 55 year old co-creator of the XML standard left Sun and picked up at Google this week, and explained in his blog some of the reasons why he chose Google over a company like Apple.

In short, he thinks Android is the place to be, and had this to say about the iPhone:

“The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.

Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.

I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.

The tragedy is that Apple builds some great open platforms; I’ve been a happy buyer of their computing systems for some years now and, despite my current irritation, will probably go on using them.”

I don’t think I’m alone in giving this a big round of applause.

“Sterile” …what a good word to describe iPhone.

I too am a daily Mac user who has absolutely no interest in the iPhone. It’s simply not exciting (the goddamn iPad just serves to remind me how boring the platform is) despite the elegant hardware and snappy interface. It’s so uniform and uninspiring and STERILE. Nobody goes “Wow, is that an iPhone?” anymore. Nobody. Because once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and they’ve been the same for three years now.

My peer group is increasingly being overtaken by Android devices, and any time someone pulls out their phone, there’s a conversation between them about different facets of the platform, UIs, apps, and future developments. It’s a more inclusive environment not only to OEMs and developers, but also to users.

It’s funny that ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn said “This beat is about to get a lot more fun” now that Tim Bray is involved, because I always thought it was the most exciting area in all of mobile technology.

Maybe it just takes someone of his stature to make people believe it.