Suprablog HQ

With my BlackBerry on at last legs, or the battery at least (I hope), I figured I would use a blog post as an excuse to do some research on possible new phones.

Since I’m a technologist, I try to choose devices that will inform me somehow on the market. Since I don’t own an iPhone, for example, it’s hard to know much about the experience and what everyone’s all talking about.

However, I’m still not sold on the iPhone despite having played around with it a bunch, and I have a lot of interest in the Google Android platform. I first learned about the technical underpinnings of Android from this presentation (warning, long and technical):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6Ju0xhUW8

So, I’d like to own an Android phone to use it as an excuse to hack on it. As much as I love my BlackBerry, I’m willing to give another device a shot where I think it has a chance at creating a large ecosystem and market around it. For example, I don’t think the Palm Pre has enough momentum yet despite its being a very innovative and sophisticated product.

Unfortunately, the only carrier in the US that currently sells Android phones is T Mobile, and I will not use them. They screwed me out of a lot of money and I don’t like them at all.

However, if this rumor is true:

http://www.androidcentral.com/motorola-sholes-runs-android-launch-verizon

It means that Verizon might be having an Android device coming to their network. I’d happily switch to Verizon from AT&T even though I’ve had a fairly good experience with AT&T and my BlackBerry Curve. It seems like the Motorola Sholes will also be available for AT&T as well, but one thing I couldn’t figure out in my research is if it would record video, something I would like.

As I ran across this site researching:

http://www.mobilewhack.com/2009/07/index.html?page=2

it occurred to me that there’s such an incredible amount of activity and excitement in the mobile space in general. It would be cool if there were a retail store that only carried the coolest phones on the market from around the world, with instructions on how to run them on local networks if possible. At least it might put some market pressure on the companies to open up their networks a bit.

One such device I’d love to see in such a store is Nokia’s N900:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/08/28/an-early-peek-at-the-nokia-n900/

I really liked the Nokia phone’s I’ve owned in the past, but they haven’t had a mainstream smartphone in a while, or at least it seems that way to me. The device seems rather powerful, but it’s hard to imagine their creating a developer ecosystem around their software stack, even if it’s based on Maemo Linux.

Here’s an example of the type of applications that developers are creating around Android (although I’m sure there are some for the iPhone as well):

http://www.talkandroid.com/1264-layar-mobile-augmented-reality-app/

It’s an “Augmented Reality” mobile browser. More evidence of the innovation going on in the mobile space.

Finally, here’s an excellent article about creating new highways and parking lots with intelligent solar panels instead of asphalt:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/solar_roadways.php

Let’s hope they figure out a way to include some type of WIFI GRID as well! :)