Saturday, February 16, 2013

Nexus 4: The Top Phone In The Market

Nexus 4
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)
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Friday, February 15, 2013

How I Just Made Two Purchases

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase
Last night in Union Square I met a fellow Ingress player called Omar, Ingress name Slomar. We talked. I griped about "battery life." He suggested I get an external battery.

Today I googled around. Then I gave up. The choices were too confusing. I was gonna wait.

Then I did the near daily thing of visiting TechMeme. From there I ended up at this news story.

Google must act quickly on libellous Blogger posts, says appeal court

At the bottom of the news story was this ad.



It was a near perfect price for a perfect product, something I really needed to get. The ad did what my Google searches were not able to do.

So I proceeded to place the order.

While doing so Amazon said they would give me a free 30 day trial on Amazon Prime, if I accepted, the product would get free two day shipping. I opted in for the two day free shipping.

Then I have been browsing around their movie catalog. It is quite amazing. I think I am going to stay with Amazon Prime after the month long free trial is over. It is $79 per year. I could easily watch 50 movies in one year. And I guess you get to borrow one book a month for free. I am not a frequent Amazon shopper. But free shipping is enticing. I am now more likely to search on Amazon before elsewhere for some future purchases. I am locked in a little I guess, but I am not unhappy about it.

Here Google and Amazon did not compete. They provided me with a seamless experience. This is sound capitalism. The consumer won. I won.
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