No, I've clearly abandoned all track pads period, because I simply cannot stand to control a mouse cursor that way. My mouse has a scroll wheel on it that works just fine.

Does anyone here have the magic mouse? It seems pretty unergonomic to me...

I'm not worried about the ergonomics as it seems fine in that department - a mouse isn't a hand rest and doesn't need to be bear-clawed to be held. What I'm worried about is the clicking and possibly having to lift a finger off the surface to click with another.

That mouse however is selling like hotcakes and was enough to move Apple into the number 3 spot of retail mouse sales believe it or not. This doesn't include mice bundled with computers, and they're behind only Logitech and Microsoft - and possibly selling only that one product at the moment.

I'll really need to check it out in person, but it did pique my curiosity when I first saw it, if for no other reason than its clean lines. I'm not generally a fan of BlueTooth for mice however as every one I've ever tested from Logitech or Microsoft has been shit to put it bluntly. When I sit at a desk with my notebook I normally like to use a mouse, but I haven't been for a few years.

I last used Microsoft's portable laser mouse 6000 and since then I've sworn off Microsoft mice permanently. They're all total and complete pieces of shit with the poorest materials selection and construction on the planet, even compared to products costing $5. Microsoft mice of the past 3 years will disintegrate even if you don't use them, I can guarantee this. The rubber deteriorates quickly from the sides and from the scroll wheel and once that goes, the mouse may still be somewhat "functional," but it's going to be a complete turd to use.

It's interesting to see Google's partners working their hardest to devalue the Google Phone and Android brands: HTC 'Smart' is a dumbphone - and to the average consumer will look just like the Nexus One

Google really needs to stop running with the knock-off crowd that release a new handset every 15 minutes. Though maybe they don't care and having a commodity OS with little to no brand value is what they're interested in.

Out of interest, what makes a phone a smartphone these days? Am I out-of-touch for still thinking that if it has email or a web browser then it's a smartphone?

Peter

I don't often find myself agreeing with you, but for once I agree completely. Microsoft used to make great mice but about 3 years ago they lost the plot.

I've tried a few MSFT mice since and they are all nasty and don't work very well. I've ended up with a Logitech one now, that is so much better than the MSFT ones I've tried recently.

To balance my agreement, I've still to find an Apple mouse or trackpad that I can get on with. Worse than that, even when I plug mice that I do like into my Macs I can't get on with the acceleration profile that the Mac uses, I never can find a setting that allows for decent movement at high speed and fine movements.

Maybe I should have added even more information about the Apple mouse. This is the first Apple mouse I'm remotely interested in. All other Apple mice have been great for longevity, but they've had terrible physical and feature design. I've never bought or used an Apple Mouse for my own personal computing. Only while at ATI did I use them on test systems, so I have experience with pretty much every model they've ever produced.

After tweaking the mouse prefs I've usually been ok with speed. Also, installing a nice tool like SteerMouse solves any further deficiencies. I usually find that Logitech mice in Mac OS need the most help. With trackpads I have always been able to set decent rates with only the built-in control panel, though I did also use a third-party tool to get two-finger scrolling on my old PowerBook. Now that I've been using the MacBook Pro (with the "glass" trackpad) I can't use the pad on the PowerBook very well - I find it too grippy.

I still have an original Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer which has seen a lot of use and still works well. However, again, because of shite material selections, the paint is rubbing off all over the place. It does have a lifetime warranty though (the first and last time MS did this?), so I should probably make Microsoft replace it for me.

Traditionally, running a multi-function and navigable OS with support for applications. Versus a feature-phone which might have a few built-in "apps" but can't generally be extended. That's likely a better name for it, though the press is calling it a "dumphone."

It features 256MB of shared RAM/ROM and some as-yet unknown processor - which is likely to be a fraction of the price and performance of one used in a smartphone. The problem with this whole thing is illustrated precisely by your question. This is not a traditional physical design for a feature-phone and it's only going to cause more confusion and dilution of the smart phone brands. HTC is using the same bloody UI skin for this phone as it is for its Android and WinMo phones. It's nice to have a consistent company UI, but pick a freaking OS already.

This is a problem RIM and Apple don't have and it's one of the reasons they're going to continue building their lead in this space. While RIM does have multiple models, they're all firmly (and successfully) wrapped in the BlackBerry brand. Apple has "iPhone" and "iPod" but most people just see it as the same thing, due in part to Apple's designs and their steadfast policy of calling the platform "iPhone" and forcing everyone to always use iPhone imagery in advertising and products. Palm by comparison, also now has a unified OS position, but is not going this route as far as model branding - it's another thing that will only continue to make them suffer. They're still holding on, but doing horribly in the market.

This reminds me of a discussion we had once or twice at Rio. We found, or possibly even did, some market research that said that people choose gadgets more often on their industrial design than on their software features. (This was for MP3 players, of course, but I can believe it's similar for phones.) So why, the devil's advocate in me said, do we have ten times as many people working on new software features as we do on new industrial designs, and not the other way round? If you look at Nokia, who before the Iphone came along were the "default" phone maker in the UK, their current range is literally dozens of phones, with probably only four or five different software builds (not platforms) among the lot of them, and in the past probably as few as one or two builds.

Peter

I'd go a step farther. Google appears to want to be the OS of choice for the knock-off crowd. Google is served when every cheap phone, everywhere, is running Android. That means that Google can ensure they have a non-stupid web browser, they play nicely with Gmail, they work with Google's App Store, and so forth.

The "market" seems to be starting to get better educated these days, at least when it comes to smartphones.

I doubt too many people are choosing the Droid based on its looks.

That sounds nice at first glance, but who is the not-knock-off crowd these days? Apple and RIM, obviously, but, equally obviously, they aren't going to get any traction there.

What are the other big-name brands? Motorola? They seem to be well on board; their CEO has said that Android is their future. Nokia? Yeah, they're definitely not. I figure Samsung is on the bubble between knock-off and not. They have a bunch of Android devices.

Beyond that, Dell and Lenovo are entering the phone game with Android devices. Huawei has at least one. (Not sure where they fall on the spectrum, either.)

But, as Dan points out, having every would-be crappy phone running a decent OS can only have positive effects. And it seems there's little reason for the crappy phone makers to develop their own OSes anymore.

With smartphones, yes, because they haven't yet all matured to feature parity. For non-smartphones, there's nothing "uneducated" about choosing among phones, all of which have all the features one wants, by looks alone. If my Nokia 8890 had broken down, and I didn't have an Iphone, I for one would have chosen the nicest-looking phone then available (probably Nokia 8600, though that too is a smartphone by the older definition).

Peter

Google's brand is stronger than Motorola's. Stronger than Dell's. HTC? Who is HTC? Google should be addressing their own brand and its image in the mobile space. We should see a real Google Phone. Not an HTC phone sold on Google.com. Damn, many of the hack Photoshop jobs of fake Google Phones looked better than what HTC just announced.

Android is quickly turning into a completely undefined non-brand which will not have any value except as an easy implementation to the myriad of handset makers that choose to compile and distribute it.

Google will of course continue to pull value from its investment in the form of advertising and other revenue streams, some of which probably have yet to be conceived or at least implemented. However, I don't think "Android" as it stands has any type of "pull" factor at all when it comes to the marketplace. People are going to buy the current crop of Andoird phones because of the way they look, the companies producing them if they know them and based on how strongly the service provider pushes them into their plans and advertising. Those sales however will not aid in building Google's own brand nor will they create significant mind-share for Android the same way Google could on their own. At least as the face, obviously delegating actual manufacturing to an OEM like Apple and RIM do.

Bottom line is that Android is heavily segmented and no one product or even product line is going to come close to matching RIM and Apple. We might even see the full sum of Android products showing lower numbers. Product segmentation helped put WinMo into the position it's in now. It was easy for RIM and Apple to come in and eat MS' lunch.

We got one with a new iMac at work, realising this was going to get stolen pretty quickly. I swapped it with an old wired Mighty mouse I had hanging around.

First impressions, nicer to hold and scroll with than the previous incarnation, but will I be using any of the gesture stuff? Unlikely, it seems to require a degree of hand dexterity I just don't seem to have.

However, I 'love' the new Mac keyboards now. When they first came out I panic bought new wired and bluetooth keyboards in case my existing Apple keyboards failed. But recently, I was given a new Bluetooth model by our Apple Business rep and I love using it, for some reason I think I actually type quicker on it!

I'll partly agree and partly disagree. Google is positioning Android in much the same way that Microsoft originally wanted to position Windows Mobile: a solution for hardware vendors who need a smartphone software platform on their device. So, just like with Windows on "real" computers, there is no one canonical hardware product that represents any sort of platonic ideal. However, just like with Windows, you'll have all the hardware vendors falling all over themselves to one-up each other on the aspects they can control (e.g., size, weight, battery life, screen quality, etc.).

What's notably different from Windows, in either the desktop or mobile space, is the open-source nature of Android. This means that users can ostensibly build their own image and install it on their phones. It also means that manufacturers can customize the software to the point that it's not really even Android any more, forking the codebase or whatever else.

To some extent, Android is fulfilling the wishes of the desktop Linux crowd: an open-source platform, widely available, with real support from tier-1 hardware vendors. It's going to be fascinating to see how it plays out.

Considerably aided by the fact that WinMo is total tripe.

Oh goodness, I'm the last person to defend bluetooth keyboards and mice. I can't stand them. Is it too bold a statement to claim that bluetooth, on the whole, has been a failure? Is that incorrect? A rough count in my head tells me that I've used about 15 different bluetooth devices over the years (phones, headsets, headphones, cars, and miscellaneous other products). I'd estimate that a total of 3 pairings have been reliable and usable. That's a failure in my opinion.

As RF keyboards and mice fell out of favor, I constantly defended RF as a technology.

Sorry to take this so far off topic again

On topic: I have no problems with Google's strategy, I like the Nexus

It sounds like your hunches were correct.

Yes. Bluetooth works fine for me and everybody else I know. I've never had any issues with my Bluetooth headset and I use it regularly. I used to have a Bluetooth mouse for my old laptop because I wanted wireless but didn't want a USB dongle. That also worked fine.


I guess you're just unlucky with Bluetooth.

Oh well, you know what they say, "unlucky in Bluetooh, lucky in love"

So you're telling me you never, ever, have to re-pair your bluetooth devices? They never flake out on you randomly? And I'm not talking like every time you use it, but say every 10 to 30 times you need it.

Sure, I can take two bluetooth devices, pair them, and use them on a call. Great. But it's the 8th time I need it, I'm in the car, I try answering a call on my bluetooth headset, and it just won't connect. Grr!

Fortunately I've had nothing but success with my G1 and my car. I'm not messing with that connection!

Oh well, I don't think I'm alone on this bluetooth thing

Nope. Works fine assuming the batteries aren't low in the various devices. The first generation Bluetooth devices I had were a bit flakey but since then I've never had any trouble.

I used to sync my phone every couple days using Bluetooth. My old old phone used to connect to my Mac mini to use Clicker. At one point I ran presence detection based on whether the Bluetooth adapter could see my phone. The mouse for my old laptop was a Microsoft Bluetooth one. The PCMCIA slot mouse for my current laptop is Bluetooth. I've got a Sony Ericsson headset and car kit. None of them I've had any problems with.


I could say exactly the reverse. I don't think I'm alone on this Bluetooth thing (working). I know plenty of people who use Bluetooth daily and they don't have any problems with it. Sure, you may get some hardware/firmware which is flakey but that isn't any fault of Bluetooth itself.

I'd say the RF link used for keyboards/mice has more inherent flaws/problems than Bluetooth.

RF keyboards and mice have horrendous non existant security even with the models which claim to have encryption and security features. Anybody nearby can see exactly what you're typing. If they put a little more effort into it, they can inject keystrokes and move the cursor.

There are very limited numbers of channels available for most keyboard/mouse RF links. If you have more than a handful of people using it in an office then you'll interfere with each other.

Most keyboard/mouse RF links don't have any form of error checking or recovery. You'll lose keystrokes or have erratic cursor movement because packets are being dropped.

802.11b/g/n doesn't have any coexistance mechanisms to reduce interference with the keyboard/mouse RF links. It does have some for Bluetooth.

Well, I "rooted" my Droid today. Browser is next as soon as I'm fairly confident they've got the bugs worked out.

I have virtually no problems with my Bluetooth devices. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for the Mac Mini, a speakerphone for my phone in the car, and various things, including the controllers, for my PS3. The only trouble I ever have is with the speakerphone, and it is clearly a problem with my damned Blackberry, as every time it fails, there's a spinning hourglass on the Blackberry that will basically spin forever and I have to end up pulling the battery.

Apparently there's a browser called Dolphin that's got multi-touch zoom and has been out for a few weeks.

What benefits do you get from 'rooting' the Droid?

For me as well Bluetooth has only ever been an unmitigated disaster.

I have had three prolonged encounters with Bluetooth:

- pairing a BT GPS with my Dell PocketPC
- pairing a Sony phone with a Sony laptop running Sony's own BT stack on WinXP
- pairing a selection of Windows Mobile phones with MSFT's stack on WinXP

In all cases the experience was just awful. The PocketPC would regularly require a reboot to get it to see the GPS, after the two had been turned off for a couple of minutes.

The Sony laptop required over 50 mouse clicks (I counted them) to pair and setup the modem. That wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't then regularly (every day or so) lose its pairing and force you to start again from scratch.

The vanilla XP + WinMo was the most successful, but even then it would fail often enough that I gave up and went back to IRDA to connect to my phone's modem.

I haven't touched BT since, it cost me too many days of pain. My RF Logitech mouse in comparison works flawlessly.

I can't even really blame it on MSFT, as in the Sony-Sony case it wasn't even their BT stack involved.

I can't speak to the Droid, but on other Android phones the primary benefit is speed increases from offloading the apps to the SD card, leaving more memory for application multitasking. The Cyanogen mod also includes some RAM and CPU tweaks to get a little more out of the phone that might not be there otherwise.

So with the decent speed of the Droid, I'd imagine that the biggest advantage is the apps2sd feature. It's definitely annoying how little space is devoted to apps on these phones, and it's easy to run out. After rooting, I don't run out any more.

Oh, and I forgot about the other nice feature of rooting (though I don't think it's possible on the Droid yet): wireless tethering! Basically I can turn my G1 into a MiFi wireless hotspot. Very handy when I'm on the road and want to use my netbook instead and there's no WiFi around. Too bad I can't get it to work with my ZuneHD

This restricted app storage on the Android phones really puzzles me. I have 800MB of apps on my iPhone and I'm not even a big games user.

I don't understand how Google didn't see that this was going to be a problem.

And before someone jumps and and infers that iPhone apps must therefore be bloated...



...my largest installed app is 58MB and all but 8 of my apps weigh in at under 10MB, it is just that I have a lot of them

Sony have their own stack? All the VAIOs I've used which have had Bluetooth came with a third party one like Widcomm or Toshiba. None of them used the built in Windows one for some reason. When I installed W7 on my VAIO, I changed it to use the built in Windows one and its been fine.

Personally, I really don't care for any wireless keyboard/remote technology, but I can say this: I have never had a problem with the PS3 controllers (or remote) which are the only devices I own.