I had the pleasure of having a sneak peak aka demo - and play around - on the Google phone, courtesy of a friend who happens to work for Google. Now I may not be the most technical person in the world but one thing is for sure; I love my gadgets. This at times - 90% of the time - causes pain to my bank account and well satisfaction with a new toy I've just purchased. Less then 4 months ago, I got gatvol over my Blackberry and the boring experience it provided me and trotted along to Vodafone and upgraded to my HTC Magic which uses the Google Android OS.
I. do. not. leave. my. phone. alone - which probably irritates my friends to no end but I'm continually using the apps whether it be creating calendar appointments, Gtalk, Foursquare, Places Directory, Facebook, Twitroid, Maps, News24, Meebo IM to my new found fun for the time being, Google Goggles. I love it. Aside from the basic everyday usage of email, internet, messaging and phone calls, these apps keep me happy and well connected with my world; online and offline.
So when I heard every Google employee received the rumoured 'Google phone' as a Christmas present, I had to get a look at this smartphone. Luckily, friends had organised dinner on Saturday night and the dude came along. I pre-warned him on FB chat an hour earlier that I wanted to have a looksie and play around to which he said cool after a few conversation pieces of 'it's sikkkkkkk' and oh wait... "it's absolutely a sikkkkk phone" etc.
"A sexy beast. Like the iPhone on beautifying steriods"
I remember having read an article online a few weeks ago about HTC's new handset products coming out next year and they are looking pretty awesome. Hence when I saw the leaked pics of the 'Google phone' online, I remembered that one looked very similar to the HTC Passion. Now according to the dude, Google went to HTC with designs of what they wanted (clearly the experience they wanted to give users), which is the end result and a beautiful, sleek and stylish result it is. It has a much larger screen and has done away with the 'buttons' other then the trackball, it's pretty flat, fits in the palm of your hand and I want to say has that chrome feeling - for the lack of a better word as I've forgotten the name of the texture. Like the pics; it has the Android design on the back with a much larger 'lens' for the camera feature.
What I love about the phone - in Robyn's language:
- Literally 99% touch screens aka getting rid of those blimmen buttons which on my Magic has lots of chocolate bits finding it's way in
- A larger display aka a bigger screen which makes for a much better viewing experience IMO.
- A 5MP camera with flash - finally! Do you know how kak my images come out when trying to take pictures in dark places - not cause I'm shady - and at night. After taking random snaps on Saturday night and having seen the quality; it's made of awesomeness. From what the dude said, it uploads the pictures straight away to your Picasa album which is pretty nifty
- There is quite a cool text recognizer tool which my old HTC Tytn had and I've forgotten the name. Basically, draw any letter, shape or symbol on the screen and it searches your phone for what the best possible match may be. Made of awesomeness no. 2
- With a larger screen means there is more space for shortcuts and widgets on your home screen. I have been rearranging my phone's layout and majority of the time I receive a message saying "not enough space on the home screen" rubbish especially when I added my calendar, accuweather, power tool bar, taskiller - you get the point.
- The menu section is completely made of awesomeness. Why you may ask? Well, when running through all your apps through your menu, it looks like a wheel moving forward and you can see the apps you've been through in the background as you keep going past. Wait. That doesn't make as much sense as I would have liked. Okay. Think about those movies where they run the text/short story in the beginning and the stuff you've read fades off at the top of your screen. You can still see it but as more comes along it disappears as you go through the rest of the story/text. Well, it's like that. I want to say the Star Wars movies and I'm hoping to the dude above that I've got the right movie. Anyway, it's absolutely awesome.
- It runs on Android 2.1 if I remember correctly.
- The overall user experience - well me trying to be one with the phone - is easy, enjoyable and all I really wanted to do was play around even more on it but I think the dude was quite worried I was going to try play around on a test product - which is awesome by the by - they are working on.
- I'm still learning about wireframes, IA etc but I really think Google and their genius employees have really thought about the experience, layout, design, yadda yadda yadda that they want the users to have. Really, it is a pretty sleek and superb phone providing a superb functional tool - well definitely for me - and one that is definitely going to succeed
There is probably a reason I would happily give my left arm to work for Google and the reasons are all over the world wide web. From the everyday products I use; Chrome, Gmail, Gtalk, Reader, Calendar, Maps, Alerts, Picasa, Wave, YouTube, Docs, iGoogle to the OS that runs my mobile phone, there really is no stopping the creativity, innovation and forward thinking that comes with Google. And to think that their 'mission statment' is: "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Dudes, going back to the 'Google phone'... I would be slightly worried if I was Apple - there is only one iPhone?!. This phone is made of awesomeness even on my most basic level of understanding and passion around the industry. As I grow and learn about the technical aspect of web and mobile, I'm sure I'll be blown away at how the whole wheel really works. But right now, in my little mind if Google were to create a competing product to the iPod (totally going off topic here but hey), I would probably be the happiest girl in the world.
Google phone, Google muso, pump (for pumping my tunes - lame? I know) and most likely in the future; Google OS on my laptop. As an article in The Next Web said... Google is taking over my life.
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