The Man Behind the Google Phone

Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times is running a story about Andy Rubin, Google's resident gadget guru, and one of the primary architects of the gPhone. You won't find any new technical details about the gPhone in the story, (Google is planning an announcement on Monday about its future mobile plans.) but the story about Rubin gives some clues that indicate that Google plans to do more than merely develop an operating system for cellular phones. One clue to the gPhone is that after Rubin left Apple he joined General Magic, the company co-founded with Mac pioneers Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld that developed Magic Cap in the 1990s, a PDA precursor years ahead of its time that included a cell phone and email. The Times speculates that Google may also be planning to replay the strategy that Microsoft used to bulldoze Netscape in the mid-1990s by 'cutting off' Microsoft's air supply by giving the gPhone away to handset makers and to put Microsoft Windows Mobile out of business. If the strategy works, it will be because Rubin and his team have successfully developed a vision of the smartphone of the future and a strategy for getting it accepted by the public and by the carriers."

Comments

UI?

[Virtual_Raider]

I sincerely hope they don't confuse "clean interface" with "bare bones". Google's interface is good for what we use it for, but I kinda like the bling on modern cellphones. Cue the "I just want a cell phone that..."-people in 3, 2, 1...

Re:UI?

[PhantomHarlock]

All I ask is full support for third party development...I was given a free iPhone as part of an awards ceremony thing, and it's currently stitting in my glove box unused. I haven't had much of a desire to pay the extra $20 to put in on my account once the pre-paid account that came with it ran out. I played with it, installed the third party package installer, but quickly realized after they released the new firmware upgrade that Apple is doing it's typical control freak thing. The iPhone is screaming for awesome third party development. I want an IRC client that doesn't disconnect when you switch to another application, and Trillian (which they are trying to release for the iPhone in spite of Apple)

It's brilliant, but it's a toy. Please Andy, release something awesome that will actually make me want to buy a smartphone. The iPhone is amazing as far as the ergonomics and touch screen, but it's no good when you can't do anything with it.

--Mike

Re:UI?

[absoluteflatness]

Well, current swooning over the iPhone aside, I don't think people ever factor in the interface too much into a phone's "cool factor", certainly not as much as the physical materials and "case".

Thing is, a clean interface that allows access to any large number of the phone's capabilities would be astounding, and if it got to a level anyone could call "bare bones" without just ripping features out, I'd strongly consider buying it. The current idea of every screen only having two main functions and then hiding everything else in a menu is ridiculously annoying. There are a whole bunch of screens on a phone where number or text input doesn't make sense, why not make menu choices in a grid corresponding with 1-9 in those cases? It should be relatively intuitive.

The standard cell phone interface is crying out for change. Touch screens like the iPhone are one path, but the standard phone with buttons is going to survive quite a while, and could do with some positive innovations that Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, and the rest of the industry don't really feel like making.

P.S. I happen to think Google's bare-bones website is a triumph in user interface design. There's really only one thing someone coming to google.com wants to do, and Google doesn't get in your way with a bunch of interface cruft. You said it yourself: it's good for what we use it for. What else should an interface aspire to?

Exactly!

[plasmacutter]

I'm a techie just like anyone else, but phones have gotten out of control.

Specially coming from the pre-tiger platform philosophy, I believe objects and apps should be designed to perform one function and perform it well.

Most phone designers have become so preoccupied with trying to turn good phones into crappy laptops they forgot to actually make them usable as phones

I held onto an old brick from 2001 until it broke in late 2006 because it did only two things: it called people, and it stored numbers in a list which could be both accessed and browsed using a single button. This allowed me to get things done instantly even when heavily preoccupied or even in places where the screen could not be accessed.

The contrast can't be any greater between that trusty old brick and your modern bloated phone. The simplest means to access that same contact list now requires delicately tiptoeing around unusably small buttons (built for form over function) and digging through 3 menus ostensibly designed the same way banners and popup ads are, to trick you into unintentionally selecting "extras" which will show up on your bill.

Whereas it was feasible to use the old brick to, say, safely check up on or get corrections for driving directions in transit, the requirement on new phones to dedicate constant attention to the screen to make sure you're making the proper selection from their cluttered menus means the phone is no longer "mobile", it's a "roadside" or "parking lot" phone.

Heck even the color screen is arguably form over function. Black and white lcd's can be accessed in full sun without any required input for basic information such as time and date, while color screens can at times be unreadable and often require you to remove the key guard to view relevant information.

I carry a macbook with me, I don't need a portable tv, or a portable wifi browser, or a portable aim client, or a pack of dancing girls to fly out, or my own personal butler-in-a-box. I want an utterly bare bones phone that's small enough to be unintrusive but large enough to be usable. Nobody, not even apple, produces this.