Samsung's new Galaxy Tabs

Looks like Samsung will out do Apple's iPad 2 when it comes to size, weight and price of their new Galaxy Tab tablets. It didn't take long. Assuming the pace of improvement keeps up, the iPad 2 will be severely out spec'd come Christmas. Not really surprising given this was already happening in the phone space.

I have played a bit with the Zoom and I can tell that, despite the bulky hardware, the UI simply flies and it's a real joy to use. But I will reserve judgment until I have used both Honeycomb and the iPad 2 more extensively (my iPad 2 is in the mail).

So, assuming the OS lives up to its full potential, it will be up to the apps available for each platform. In that regards, I have to agree with Scobble and give it to the iOS. It's a blood bath at the moment (that was, in fact, the reason why I bought myself an iPad 2).

Hopefully the maturing of the platform and its increasing reach will convince enough high quality developers to write for Android.

Amazon's Appstore

Lots of interesting stuff going on at the Android front at the moment.

The Amazon Appstore is a significant milestone, in my opinion. I installed it yesterday and it's a beautiful piece of software.

They have a lot of room to improve upon and differentiate themselves from the Android Market. Contrary to some analysts' view of how it will compete against Google, I think it will complement the Market quite nicely and become a mandatory app on every Android device.

The argument that multiple markets is confusing underestimates the intelligence of users and highlights the difference between Google's and Apple's approach to design (distributed vs. centralized).

Things will get even more interesting if Amazon decides to go with Android on future iterations of the Kindle. With their amazing cloud platform and retail reach, Amazon could become a real Android powerhouse. If this was ever to happen, it would catapult the platform to new levels.

Microsoft's Copying Habits

As a Googler I've been following the copygate debacle with interest. Even though I am biased towards Google and tend to side with them, I do think there are good reasons to do so in this case. From all the coverage I've been reading, I feel there are a few claims being made by Microsoft and their supporters that are not being scrutinized properly.

One of Microsoft's main defense is that the data it uses is voluntarily disclosed by Internet Explorer and Bing Toolbar users performing searches on Google. The Mountain View Search Company, it says, has no ownership rights over that data.

This argument is as credible as a college candidate's claim that his application essay can't be called a copy because it was derived from the voluntary, and detailed, account provided by the girlfriend of the original's author, who have read the source piece. Using indirect sources, instead of the original material, doesn't make the derivative work any less of a copy. I don't think that argument would fly in front of the application assessment committee.

Another defense Microsoft brings up is the fact that link mining is a general solution they apply to searches performed by users across all kinds of websites, not just Google. Amazon and eBay are their premier examples. The flaw with this argument is that neither Amazon nor eBay are in the business of monetizing search results. Amazon executives probably cheer Bing's search signal technology, since it likely means more of Amazon's books sold to Bing users.

But Google is in the business of monetizing search results. In fact, I argue that, if Bing's technology doesn't special case Google, it should. It should add specific logic to either exclude links harvested from google.com (and other web-search engines) or offer links to the original results page when competing search algorithms are the strongest signals it has (like for the infamous torsoraphy query).

To help illustrating how potentially damaging this practice is, allow me to provide a straightforward extrapolation of the consequences of Bing's copying technology to the web search ecosystem.

Imagine that a search start-up begins making gradual advancements towards semantic understanding of the web, being able to answer natural language queries with increasing accuracy. If using the competition's results as input to one's search algorithms is regarded as acceptable practice, the start-up's differentiated results would, in no time, begin showing up in the results of the big search companies, neutralizing all of its competitive advantage and squashing the incentive for innovation in the process.

Yes, I know that Google is not a start-up and that spelling correction is not semantic understanding, but the practical and moral implications are the same, nonetheless.

WP7's Lack-Of-Fragmentation Problem.

I am writing this as I hear Leo Laporte talk about how Windows Phone 7 differs from Android in regards to platform fragmentation.

As it turns out, Microsoft is very strict about what qualifies as a WP7 device. It must have, for instance, a certain fixed display resolution and a minimum amount of memory, amongst other attributes. They even define the minimum CPU clock speed allowed (1GHz). Leo and others point to the competitive advantage this represents compared to the fragmented Android ecosystem.

In my opinion, while I concede this does give WP7 users a level of certainty about their experience that rivals that offered by the iPhone (e.g., Microsoft will be able to push OTA updates to all devices, no matter what carrier or handset maker), it also seals the fate of Microsoft's product in the mobile OS war. WP7 is looking like a viable alternative to the iPhone, Blackberry and Android in the high-end arena, at least as far as capabilities go. The flip side is that Microsoft is leaving all other tiers of the market entirely open for Android to conquer unopposed. The thing is, as I've mentioned many times before, that's where all the action will really happen.

Apple, RIM, Microsoft and Google are all competing for the minds and wallets of sophisticated smart-phone users. Meanwhile, 80% of worldwide mobile phone sales today still goes to feature phones.

Apple can only marginally competes in this space, by lowering the price of past generation iPhones. When it decided to limit the range of hardware specs of what can be sold as a WP7 device, Microsoft also priced itself out of it.

In the upcoming quarters, don't be surprised to read about the continued steep growth of Android's market share, while Apple, RIM and Microsoft fight for the high ground. Don't get me wrong, Android is doing very well in the high end too, but that is chump change when you realize the size of budget constrained emerging markets like China, India, Indonesia and Brazil. Increasingly, these countries are going online through mobile devices.

Also, let's not forget Android's Cambrian Explosion as it becomes the preferred OS for all kinds of consumer electronics, from digital cameras to TVs and toasters to on-board navigation systems. We can thank Android's "fragmentation problem" for that.

It is a perfect storm. The kind that only happens once a decade in the industry.

PS: After writing this, I went back to finish listening to the show. To be fair, towards the end of its first half, Gizmodo's Joel Johnson made some really good comments about the opportunities Android have in replacing feature phones in emerging markets.

My first 3d Model in Google Earth

I've just realised a model of the Darling Park Towers that I've published a couple of months ago is active in the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth (see picture). It's a bit lame, but I've put it together in less than one hour during a not-so-interesting session at Wherecamp 2008.

You can check it out by running Google Earth Client and searching for "Darling Park" or "-33.872194,151.20314". Both should take you to Sydney's Darling Harbour (don't forget to enable the 3D Buildings Layer). Those three triangular-prismatic buildings are the Darling Park Towers, home to Google's Sydney offices.

By the way, anyone can upload building models to Google's 3D Warehouse. Learn how to do it here.