Nexus 4: The Top Phone In The Market

Nexus 4 (Photo credit: abuakel)

In my opinion Google's Nexus 4 is the top smartphone in the market right now, the other two contenders being Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S III. Google's Android overtook Apple in quantity a long time ago. But with this phone Google has also beat Apple on quality. And the unlocked Nexus 4 selling at $299 is a steal compared to the iPhone's price tag of over $700. Couple that with a $50 per month for unlimited talk, text and data with T-Mobile and you are in for a treat.

Nexus 4 is my first smartphone. I am a Google fanboy. I love Google like some people love Apple. The iPhone was not something I ever looked at for me. And the Nexus 4 was not easy to get hold of. When it first went on sale online, it was all gone in 30 seconds. The next time it was gone in a few hours. I managed to place an order the second time. A tip I found on Twitter was to keep clicking on Order even thought the site claimed the phone had gone out of stock. After about half an hour of trying I was finally able to place my order. The phone still took over a month to show up. I went to the UPS facility to pick it up. By now the phone is fully in stock online.

My number one gripe with the phone has been the battery, the number two gripe is the storage space, but then I did opt for the cheaper 8 GB version. One car racing game I bought for five dollars alone is 2 GB. I wish the battery lasted three times longer and the storage space was also three times bigger. As for battery what would truly satisfy me is a small nuclear reactor embedded in there, but I don't see that on the horizon.

I consume a lot of news on my phone, I take a lot of pictures. I regularly check in on FourSquare. Gmail is my top app. I am frequent on Facebook. I have been playing Google's augmented reality game Ingress. I really like my Amazon Kindle app. I play chess. There are so many wonderful apps. I have one that makes me a doctor of sorts, another gives me a virtual gun, bam, bam, bam, a third gives me so many tools in one it is like a Swiss knife. I scan documents with an app on my phone. I have apps that are musical instruments. I have one app that my tech consulting firm made for a client. It is still in the works.

Because of Android's robust integration with Google services, my Google Voice contacts show up in name when they call, even when they call from Nepal. I often talk to my engineers on Skype on my phone. I also chat away on my Google Talk app. An unlimited calling plan brings peace of mind, even though I don't currently spend too much time talking on my phone. I am more of an email kind of guy.

My mobile phone is my mobile office as well as my personal assistant.

$299 is still not a globally cheap price. Android phones costing $80 are set to flood the Global South markets. If the PC hit hundreds of millions in volume, the smartphone is set to hit billions. The smartphone has become the internet access device of choice in both the rich and poor countries. People expect to be always on.

Google is not resting on its success at the operating system level. It has systematically entered the app space also on the iPhone. The iPhone's map fiasco got a lot of publicity. But Google has offered iPhone users substitutes to more than the iPhone's map app. It can be argued Google has been hollowing out the iPhone.

But 2013 is the year when bendable phones and new operating systems besides Android and Apple's iOS are supposed to arrive. Even Nexus 4 will feel like yesterday's phone in a matter of months.

(Written on 2/9/13)

Related articles

• A cheap Android phone is now a good phone. Your move, Apple...
• Apple iPad Mini to take on Google Nexus 7 tablet
• Apple iPhone 5 Features and Specifications Review and Top 2013 Deals Revealed Via Find My Price Comparison Platform
• Apple iPhone 5 Price Predictions and Rumours
• Google Nexus 4 vs Apple iPhone 5
• What's the best smartphone for the elderly?
• Ankerâ astro3 e 10000mah dual 5v 3a usb output external battery pack charger for smart phones, android
• US Consumers Sit On Over $33.8 Billion in Unused Cell Phones
• Nexus 4 problems: What users complain about most
• Android and iPhone on Over 90% of All Smartphones

Steve Jobs — 1955-2011

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI just got back from an event near Times Square. I had some roadside momo - dumplings - with a ton of hot sauce. Usually I burn the midnight oil - it is a body clock thing. But today I was hoping to go to bed early and to wake up earlier than usual to work out some - I do freehand.

I guess I decided to log into my computer just as I gulped the last dumpling, and there was a Google Talk message from a friend out in the MidWest, someone I have yet to meet, a doctor from my hometown in Nepal. A few weeks back he mailed me a book he has written - Enduring Everest - about enduring ethnic prejudice as a Madhesi in Nepal.

"Steve Jobs died," the message said. It was not a new message. His status said he was idle.

My first reaction was disbelief. I expected the guy to retire, not to die. I felt sad. No, I did not see this coming. I was expecting him to stick around for years. This guy truly, truly stands out among the tech titans of my lifetime. It is going to take me days to digest the news.

Walt Mosberg: The Steve Jobs I Knew
Larry Page
Mark Zuckerberg
Bill Gates
The White House: President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs: "He changed the way each of us sees the world."
Dick Costolo

Google Plus Has Buzz

Image via CrunchBaseObviously Google Plus is no Google Wave or Google Buzz. This thing has legs.

Has Google Finally Cracked Social?
Larry Page At The Helm
I Will Not Miss Eric

Google's Social Search

Image via CrunchBaseThat was rather fast. Tighten your seat belts. This drama is just getting started.

Watch Out For Steve Ballmer

Mashable: Unfazed by Facebook, Google Rolls Out Social Search Globally: Launched in October 2009, Social Search is a feature that combines regular search results with publicly available data created by your friends’ social media activities. ...... Your “friends” are quite loosely defined and include people in your Google Talk friends list, your Google Contacts, people you’re following on Buzz and Google Reader and other networks you’ve linked from your Google profile or Google Account. Google can also find your friends on public networks such as Twitter and Facebook and gather the data from their public connections as well.

Google probably wants more people to use Facebook like I do. My privacy settings on Facebook are for "Everyone." Anyone can drop by and see all my pictures. I have uploaded more than 10,000 pictures of New York City on Facebook.

Five Blind Men And Google Wave

Telecom's Tsunami Blog: Google Wave is a virtual desktop what the future Google PC desktop will look and function like. ....... In sports, coaches tell players that when the umpires negative attention is focused on the other team, do not do anything to draw attention to back to your team. This is the strategy Google has chosen for Google Wave. The EU and SEC are focused on fining Microsoft for every infraction that they can find. Don't draw attention away from Microsoft. ......... If most of the PC applications that you are using today can be utilized from within a web service (GMail), then do you really need a dedicated PC desktop from Microsoft, no! Do you need a PC running an OS from Microsoft, no! What you can use is a netbook PC running Google Android OS and only supports one application, Google Wave which is your Internet based PC Desktop. ..... VoIP services is probably already built into the internal Wave API ...... Google Voice product which is 100% web based ..... a real time speech to text engine ..... Google's stock has only begun to catch that next Wave
Google's Wave an online 'Swiss Army knife' > Personal and Office ...
Google's Wave Consolidates Core Online Features in One Tool Wave has the potential to drive people away from popular Google products like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, Picasa, Blogger and Sites, as well as from similar products from competitors like Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. ....... Google Maps, a service credited with igniting the mashup frenzy. ...... Wave lets people create a document to which multiple users can add rich text, multimedia, gadget applications and feeds, and do so concurrently in the way in which people interact ....... remains to be seen whether Wave will cannibalize Gmail and other popular Google products, but the culture of innovation at the company trumps those types of concerns. ....... Rasmussen warns that the Wave code will appear rough even to developers, so those interested should be of the adventurous type ...... developers will build integration links for it with social-networking sites
Google Wave: Taking the Enterprise from Microsoft?

It is too early to tell what Google Wave is. Right now what we have is the equivalent of a basic operating system. The programs for it have not been written yet. Once the most ambitious programs have been written, the most dashing gadgets have been put on top of it, many enterprise applications have been put in motion, the Google Wave that we know today will start to look basic, barebones. The promise is immense and unrealized.

I think one big thing about Google Wave is going to be that it will show the thinking that the consumer space and the enterprise space are separate just is not true. There is only one space, the collaboration space. The division always was artificial.

And there is always the money part. How will money be made? I think Google is resigned to making big bucks by simply expanding the web space. The Google search box will be ubiquitous in Wave just like it has been ubiquitous on the web. The AdSense space will expand. Kaching. And there will be money for developers. The top developers will make money like successful startup founders. They could follow the ad model, or the pay per download model, or they could go enterprise with some features. There are several ways, all of them public and not secret at all.

I have no idea what Google Wave will look like in a year. I have some idea, but no specific idea.

A Little Trouble At The Google Wave API Google Group
Google Wave Developer Community: Asking For A Culture?
The Google Corporate Culture
Google Wave: Organizations Will Go Topsy Turvy
Google Wave: Enormous Buzz
Possible Google Wave Applications And Innovations
Google Wave Architecture: Designed For Mass, Massive, Global Innovation
The Google Wave Architecture
Google Wave Ripples
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Of Waves And Tsunamis
Google Wave: Wave Of The Future?
Google Wave: If Email Were Invented Today

From The Google Wave Developer Blog

1 Wave Sandbox, 5 Hours, 17 Awesome Demos
The Making of the Sudoku Gadget
Google Wave API Office Hours
Google Wave team heads to Google Developer Days in Asia
Introducing the Google Wave APIs: what can you build?

From The Official Google Blog

Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google to reveal Apps enhancements (macworld.com)
• Google Waves Goodbye to E-Mail, Welcomes Real-Time Communication (downes.ca)
• Microsoft architecture chief: Google Wave 'anti-web' (theregister.co.uk)
• Is Google Wave the Future of Email? (q-ontech.blogspot.com)
• Google Wave: Why it's so good and enterprise software is so bad (news.cnet.com)
• Google Wave: Tsunami or Wipe Out? (cmswatch.com)
• Have We Become Too Dependant on Google? (sitepoint.com)
• Google's Wave consolidates core online features in one tool (macworld.com)
• AOL-Yahoo? "Not Any Time In The Forever Future," Says Bartz (CLIP) (financegeek.com)
• Launch On TechCrunch, Get Bought By Google (techcrunch.com)
• At Yahoo Is Bartz Topedoing Search or Search Torpedoing Bartz (arnoldit.com)
• Debating the power of Google's Wave (news.cnet.com)
• Google's Wave drowns out Microsoft's Bing hype (thenextweb.com)

Define Social Media

Image by luc legay via Flickr

My childhood best friend - the only person I have "tagged" as such - is on Facebook, but we don't do Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, we do very little Gmail. He only comes alive on the phone: I wish we talked more often. And I'd love to get him to move to New York. He is in Georgia, the state. He is an engineer who went to engineering school in India, and came to America after winning the diversity lottery. He has a green card, a wife, a daughter. We grew up in Nepal.

The most prolific litterers of my Facebook stream are not people I know best in person. One I have met only once, or maybe twice, but I doubt he will recognize if he were to meet me again: Baratunde Thurston. I tried to get his attention a few days back. Your profile photo is scary, I said. He did not notice, he did not respond. He is one of those for whom Facebook is a broadcast medium. He updates his status every other minute. He is speaking, he is not listening.

8 - yes, that is her middle name - is also very prolific. I met her on Plenty Of Fish, we have never met. But she was not one of my Plenty Of Fish horror stories. (Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King) She was impressed I had managed to track down her Gmail address. We exchanged a few emails, became Facebook friends. She said she was dating Craig Silverstein. Which Einstein? Is he googleable like you? I asked. I ended up exchanging one email with Craig: Craig Silverstein. Recently 8 made me do this: http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1643658620



I decided to use Twitter as a broadcast medium myself. (Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter) But on Facebook I have opted for something else. After all, this is my second Facebook account. The first one Facebook deleted afer I had acquired about 1500 Facebook "friends." I have about 50 pending friend requests. I am open to online only friendships. But some of these who send friend requests are not up for exchanging even emails.

Define Social Media

In trying to figure out social media I think a lot of us start at the wrong end. Instead of starting with people, we start with old media. And so new media looks fancy and intimidating. All new media is saying is anyone who can come online can broadcast. All new media is saying is people now have the option to talk to each other in a big way. It is weird that was never possible before. Because the concept is so very simple.

Meeting new people, finding new information, establishing new connections, enriching existing ones, social media makes all that possible. People are all the rage on the web.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Researchers Mine Your Web Data for Profits and the Public Good (gigaom.com)
• AOL Pimps Twitter and Pushes Bebo Aside (centernetworks.com)
• Microsoft keeps tabs in a crisis (news.bbc.co.uk)
• BuddyFuse, Connecting The Social (liveside.net)
• Facebook Announces Users Will Soon Be Able to Login to Facebook Via OpenID (insidefacebook.com)
• Facebook's latest assault on Twitter (seattlepi.com)
• Microsoft Vine is Twitter for Emergencies (mashable.com)
• 3 Gadgets To Help You Get Social In Gmail (makeuseof.com)
• Salesforce.com Integrates Twitter (readwriteweb.com)
• Why Email Clients Need to Change (gigaom.com)
• Pls Hndle Thx: World Wide Web of Addiction (abovethelaw.com)
• A Walled Garden for Singles-Only Named Eteract (socialmediatoday.com)
• Match Making through the Internet-Becker (becker-posner-blog.com)
• Facebook's Privacy Settings Present Intrinsic Limitations To The Platform (allfacebook.com)
• How much of your life is too much to share online? (seattlepi.com)
• New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg Makes 1st Blog Post on Newly Revamped www.MikeBloomberg.com (shawndrewry.com)
• On the Google Talk Phishing Attack (readwriteweb.com)
• Meet the 'Anarcho-Transexual Afro-Chicano' Everyone's Blaming for the IM Worm (gawker.com)
• Fring Launches a Better Twitter Mobile Experience for non-iPhone Users (mashable.com)
• Can Social Networking sites increase search engine rankings? (ceoworld.biz)
• Tuition Help for the Unemployed Gains Traction (time.com)
• Defining Twitter Using Your Goals (kylelacy.com)
• How the Media Frames "Open Access" (quod.lib.umich.edu)
• A definition of social media (martinspalette.blogspot.com)
• 25 Myths about Open Access (scienceblogs.com)
• The Scientist special topic: Sleep (scienceblogs.com)