Answer Guy Central

One of the beautiful things about using SmartPhones like the iPhone, or my Android-based Droid is that I can now access my computer from literally anywhere, and I don’t even need to carry a notebook computer to do it.

Of course, that’s one of the ugly things too; being connected all the time means either that you let your work take over your life or you create rules to prevent that.

There are a few things that my Droid isn’t able to do for me without some help, though, and since they’re among the most important and common things I do, like checking to-do items in Outlook and taking notes that end up in that software, I rely on remote control software to get me logged into my Exchange server.

And yesterday I ripped LogMeIn out of my server and my Droid, because it presents a security risk that just doesn’t need to be there.

Let me start by saying that this disappointed me tremendously. LogMeIn is pretty darned good at remote control, and even has a free version. It works across platforms (Mac, PC, Linux, whatever) and is without a doubt the simplest way for people who need occasional remote control abilities to get things set up.

But yesterday I discovered that when I use LogMeIn my screen and mouse come to life. Meaning that if someone happens to be in my office my previously locked-down computer becomes open and available to them because I’ve logged in using LogMeIn.

And that’s not OK. It should be the least of my security worries, of course, and it is. I’m not actually worried about anyone with access to my computer doing bad things, and I have nothing on there that I need to hide. BUT LOGMEIN OPENING UP YOUR COMPUTER THIS WAY MAKES NO SENSE.

When I have my laptop and a WiFi signal and need to get at the computers in my office, I use software built right into Windows to access them. I can even do it from an Apple Macintosh. And that software, Remote Desktop, is no more difficult to use than LogMeIn, takes only a little bit longer to get set up, and when I log into my computer remotely IT LOCKS OUT ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE AT THE COMPUTER AND IT SHUTS OFF THE SCREEN, KEYBOARD, AND MOUSE.

And yes, I have software on my Droid that works with Remote Desktop.

So Why Use LogMeIn?

This is the part of the piece where I’m supposed to present a counterargument and tell you that LogMeIn may not be much easier to set up, but that the slight advantage is worth something. And I suppose that’s true if you really don’t have the wherewithal to pull Remote Desktop together. But that’s just not good enough; if you’re going to use advanced business tools and pay for data plans on SmartPhones you also need to take a couple of other steps from time to time. And if you really can’t figure it out, call us at The Computer Answer Guy or PC-VIP and we’ll get you running.

Leaving big security holes open isn’t an option. LogMeIn may sound great, but the hole I noticed yesterday is too big to ignore.

LogMeIn reminds me of a line from Jurassic Park: Just Because Your Can Doesn’t Mean You Should.

As an Android user, one of the things that I’ve yet to figure out is why there are no Apps to capture what’s on my screen. They just don’t exist.

OK, so that’s not completely true. If I “root” my Droid SmartPhone, meaning tweak it to bypass the regular Android operating system and make it do stuff that Verizon, Motorola, and Google didn’t intend, screen grabs become a possibility. I give up my warranty and any hope for technical support if I even need it, but I gain some control and a feature I often wish I had.

Surprise! If you use a Droid Incredible, or other Sense UI – based SmartPhones from HTC, the screen grab feature is built right in. But it isn’t under your control. In fact, it’s just the opposite; it looks like Sense UI does periodic screen grabs in the background and hides the results from you.

Annoying enough that screen grabs are apparently way more easy to implement than Google’s led us all to believe. But way worse is this: there’s stuff on your phone that you don’t know about, and let’s face it; your security is compromised when there are captures of your screen being stored.

No further commentary needed, eh? If you use an HTC SmartPhone with the Sense UI, please follow the instructions you’ll find in the article linked above and clean out that stuff every now then.

Happy Friday, Friends.

I love what I do. I sure hope you feel the same way; with the ever-blurring lines between our professional and personal lives you have to, or bad things will happen.

I help businesses get more efficient, help the people who run them maintain perspective, and I play computer geek. It’s a fun and busy way to live my professional life. But in the course of tracking business change I’ve lost the chance to play with software the way I did in the days when I wrote IYM Software Review.

As you know, I’m a Droid user. And while I still use computers way more than my SmartPhone, it’s on my Droid that I tinker, because “software”, the thing you buy for lots of money and install on your hard drive, is . . . over. The markets evolved, we all picked our software, and then the markets shook out; if you use a Windows PC you use Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and . . . except for really specialized situations little else.

And of course, even Office and Photoshop are being supplanted by on-line versions of things that do the same or similar things and cost way less or are free.

When you start using a SmartPhone, you go off in search of Apps to make it do more stuff. And while there are some expensive options out there, it’s the rare App that costs more than about $15, with many costing just two or three dollars and even more being free.

And then the questions arises: how can Apps be free? The most common answer is that free Apps often include advertising. It’s an unsustainable model unless you get paid for a tremendous volume of advertising, and there will be a shake-out.

Among the Apps that carry a cost in dollars to the user there’s a trend developing that makes sense: give away the app, and create add-on materials that people who are your customers will pay for. Qik, the video streaming software, is beginning to charge for access to certain parts of their service, which would be fine if they had any handle on the basics of “service“. Ask me sometime about the non-service I had from them when a video got stuck in an uneditable form on their server and was inaccessible on my Droid.

Actually, Qik doesn’t get it at all; their first foray into getting paid is to make people whod use 4G phone pay for video conferencing. Only 4G users. Thanks, I guess I’ll stay with 3G, then.

There are companies that are doing it right, though. WorkSmart Labs gives away an App called Cardio Trainer. There’s really very little about Cardio Trainer to recommend it over the half-dozen or so similar Apps it competes with, because design goes only so far; Cardio Trainer and Apps like it are inherently inaccurate and absent precision they’re little more than toys.

But the folks at WorkSmart Labs sure do get it from a business change perspective.

Upon installation, Cardio Trainer will track your workouts and spit back a bunch of information. It may be all you need (and you may want to keep the accuracy caveat above in mind before you move forward), and if so that’s fine. But WorkSmart really is working smart: for just $3 each they’ll sell you add-on modules to Cardio Trainer that

• let you compare your performance on a particular workout to earlier instances of it
• track your weight loss and fitness goals

In my days as software reviewer I’d have come down hard on the way the add-ons work; there are holes in the software hat just aren’t OK. But as a business model and intelligent implementation of it, Cardio Trainer is the real deal. Remember the days of getting the razor for free and paying for the blades? People respond to that!

WorkSmart Labs understands business change. Qik understands software, but little else.

What do you understand about business change?

It’s almost here. 4G cell phone networks and the way-faster data transfer speeds that come with them are about to get switched on. Now, your Smartphone will feel . . . even smarter.

And Verizon will be making you pay for that.

Presumably all carriers will be doing the same, so Verizon only deserves credit for opening the floodgates. But Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam is on record: fixed-cost all-you-can-eat data plans will be going away for 4G SmartPhone users.

Telecommunications companies have a rich history of charging more for things that actually cost them less; how else can you explain the 20-cents-per-message charge for text messages for those of us who don’t buy bundles? And Mr McAdam had acknowledged that it will actually cost Verizon less to deliver data over their new 4G network than it does on the current one.

So is the rationale that when you use a 4G phone you’ll be pulling so much more data that Verizon needs to cover their big corporate backside?

Possibly, but as a fairly heavy user of a 3G Droid SmartPhone I’m skeptical. This is all about getting more money.

That’s OK; Verizon is in business to make money. My issue with them on this is that in enacting this business change they’re treating their customers like we’re all too stupid to see through them.

And today’s lesson is this . . . Don’t Ever Do That.

Forgive me for lack of speed; I needed to let this one roll around in my head for a few days:

Motorola is enjoying a business resurgence. Owing to their decision to start making SmartPhones based on the Google Android operating system, Motorola has become profitable after many quarters of moving in the wrong direction. Palm, on the other hand, is no more, having been acquired by Hewlett Packard for reasons that HP has thus far kept close to the vest.

This article in the New York Times compares the fate of the two companies, and I wasn’t sure what the real point of the comparison was until I gave it some thought.

Palm all but created the market for Personal Digital Assistants when they released the Palm Pilot back in 1996. Sure, there were other PDAs that came earlier, but the Palm Pilot was the first one to gain any traction. Since then, Palm has floundered, being sold a couple of times and going through a couple of business change cycles when they weren’t sure if they were a hardware company or a software company . . . and even splitting the two.

Nobody says “PDA” any more. The things that PDAs did are now done by SmartPhones.

Motorola was at one time a phone manufacturer. Of course, Motorola makes many other things, too, but they created some of the most important cell phone technologies and were the runaway leader in that market for years. And cell phones need software, which Motorola wrote themselves. And the software was . . . well, who cares? It was phone software.

Now, Motorola has hitched its wagon to the Google Android star. In short, Motorola has enacted business change by acknowledging that they’re better off concentrating on the hardware and using someone else’s (free!) software. The Verizon (Motorola / Google) Droid sold many millions of units. Motorola is back, baby!

Or are they?

I’m not a stock prognosticator, but if I was I wouldn’t be so excited about Motorola’s future chances based on their recent success in the SmartPhone market using Android. Verizon released a second Droid model last November; the HTC (Verizon / Google ) Droid Eris came out at the same time, but Verizon didn’t give it the marketing boost that Motorola’s Droid received. And now, Verizon’s Droid Incredible is on the street. It also uses  Google Android. It’s also made by HTC. And Verizon has moved on; it’s the HTC Droid Incredible that’s now Verizon’s Droid Baby.

Wither, Motorola?

Motorola has all but remade themselves as a software company, but Google Android software is available to anyone who wants it. Companies like Verizon are marketing Android-based hardware from other companies. And Google has already shown that they have no intention of being part of this fight; their foray into the hardware and phone businesses with Nexus One was nothing more than a giant smoke screen to get companies like Motorola and Verizon to adopt Android.

And Verizon, by the way, is at is again; they’re about to release a tablet computer based on Google Android.

Don’t get too excited about the business change at Motorola; it’s going to be a short-lived success. And you do better: when planning your business change, make sure you look long-term.

Forget the iPad.

Apple’s hold on the SmartPhone market is finally slipping, as in March more traffic ran over the airwaves through SmartPhones based on the Google Android operating system than to iPhone devices.

I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel about the iPhone, and I’ve been a loud supporter of Android since I started using a Droid last November. But there’s only the slightest tinge of “I told you so” in me telling you about this.

Keyboard issues are purely subjective; I need the physical keypad that iPhone lacks, and I find it easy to use the Droid’s on-screen keyboard but impossible to use iPhone’s. But I speak for no one else on that issue and I’ve been clear that the iPhone is beautiful, well engineered, and even better in those regards when you move up to an iPad. But the iPhone isn’t a serious business tool. Android is, and when you combine that with Google’s brilliant bait-and-switch marketing it’s easy to see why the tide is turning.

No, I don’t think Google’s recent business practices are OK. But then again I’m no fan of Apple’s, particularly as it relates to making developers’ live even more difficult with the advent of iPhone OS 4.0 . For me, a SmartPhone is a tool, and the business change you sign up for when you pick one needs to reflect the way you approach business.

Android is just better than iPhone when you compare how they work to how people operate in the real world. The SmartPhone business is changing, and Android is at the center of that change.

Remember back when Google launched the Nexus One SmartPhone and told us we should expect to see “their” phone on every major phone network? I commented at the time that the Google Phone looked like way less business change than Google wanted us to believe they were creating, and later told you that Google’s fragmentation of the Android Operating System might kill phones they were less attached to, like the Verizon Droid.

Now it looks like the entire Google Phone movement and creating the Nexus One was nothing more than a red herring to get carriers to develop Android devices.

Last week, Google basically abandoned the Nexus One. This morning, Google told Verizon customers to buy the upcoming Droid Incredible instead of waiting for the Nexus One.

Let’s examine:

Any phone running Android is a “Google Phone”. Google launched the Nexus One amidst much anticipation and with great fanfare, showed us a road map for a time when we’d be able to buy phones and take them to any carrier, telling us they were changing the entire phone business, selling the Nexus One using a business model that made no sense and charging incredibly high Early Termination Fees.

And three months later they want people to buy a non-Google-branded-or-distributed phone that is very much like the Nexus One from the one US carrier that could never use the Nexus One.

But Android is now huge.

Looks like Google never really meant to be in or change the phone business, other than to promote Android.

Google lied. It’s the kind of thing that happens every day in business, and as “don’t be evil” is no longer an official Google slogan there’s not even a joke to append here; Google has become the evil empire.

I’m off to use my Google Docs account now . . .

FOLLOWUP May 14 2010:

It’s official. The Nexus One is dead, and Google is shutting down their phone store

Wondering what ever happened to the Android 2.1 upgrade for Droid that Verizon promised on January 6 when Google’s Nexus One was released? Remember when they said they’d start rolling it out on March 18, only to change their minds at the last minute?

It’s Here. I’ve installed it. It’s very fast in places that Android 2.01 on the Droid was slow. And maybe, just maybe, it’s broken again.

Actually, I’ve seen only one report of Android 2.1 for Droid being broken, and it might well be an April Fools joke.  I pay attention mostly because that report suggests that Wi-Fi is the problem. Again. But I’ll say that Android 2.1 is running on my Droid, my Wi-Fi works a little better than it did before, and lots of people seem to be installing Android 2.1 on their Droids with no issues.

If there’s a problem with this latest release of the Google SmartPhone operating system do we blame Google, Verizon, or Motorola? Probably a little bit of all three.

Carry on . . .

Last week I made some noise about how ridiculous Facebook’s US Patent 7,669,123 is, and asked you to make noise too. Now, Our friends at Apple are showing us a real-world here-and-now example of why software shouldn’t be patentable under most circumstances.

Let me be clear, once again: software isn’t “unique” unless it does something that can’t be done some other way. By definition, then, the only time software should therefore “infringe” is when it uses exactly the same code to do exactly the same thing as what the Patents and Trademarks people call “prior art”. Apple, in suing HTC (manufacturer of the Google Nexus One Smartphone), isn’t so much defending its work or intellectual property as an “idea”.

Palm will be next. Motorola (they make the Droid) will get sued too, as will anyone who uses the idea of pinch/spread to zoom/widen. Again . . . Apple’s patent on exactly how to implement “multi-touch” might be unique, but the idea isn’t. The idea can’t be patented. Software patents are ridiculous.

Software patents are a business change that benefits no one except the attorneys who get paid to sue or defend against suits. Don’t fall into this trap. Make your next business change a real change.

Ahh, Droid. We barely knew ye . . .

This week, Google introduced a version of Google Earth for Android SmartPhones. In large part, I don’t care; Google Earth is very cool, but compared to Google Maps it has limited real-world use.

And Google Earth requires version 2.1 of the Android operating system. Which means that it won’t run on the Droid, which has been available for just over three months.

Aside from being a Droid user and being in sour-grapes mode, maybe you think I shouldn’t care. You’d be wrong. Android is the fastest-growing operating system for SmartPhones, and Google is splintering the market for that operating system, which like Google Earth and the Nexus One is also a Google product.

Operating Systems don’t do very well when they get splintered this way. Just the introduction of viruses that act differently on one version than on another is all the proof you need of that. In fact, be cynical if you like about the Microsofts of the world being after your money, but the real reason you have to eventually upgrade to a new version of Windows  even if you think you don’t need it is because unless you do you’re open to all kinds of security threats.

I sometimes pick on Apple for the heavy-handed way they control the Macintosh OS and iPhone OS, but users of both sure do get consistent behavior, don’t they?

Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” slogan is feeling more and more like a line of . . . nothing. And as a business consultant I understand that they need to make (lots of) money. But to be as involved in the marketing of the Droid as Google was and after such a short period of time leave its users behind as they try to sell more Google-branded phones (the Droid is supported by Motorola, not Google) is just . . . bad. Evil. Wrong.

By the way: while Google Earth officially requires Android 2.1, People who use Android 2.01 can get it to work by going here.

You know . . . assuming there’s no virus.

This week in Barcelona, Spain a conference called Mobile World Congress is happening. The attendees are employees of some of the world’s biggest and most influential companies: AT&T, Apple Computer, Motorola, Google, Microsoft.

Their goal? To consolidate the market for the software that runs on SmartPhones. Summing it up if you’re from Apple, you might say: “there’s an app for that, but only if you use an iPhone”.

So let’s see: Apple, the undisputed leader in the SmartPhone market (but losing share quickly to Android), would like everyone’s software to run on everyone else’s phones? And Microsoft, who have released yet another version of their phone software, is looking to be cooperative with their competitors?

Yeah. This ought to work.

Yesterday, this article in The New York Times explained, correctly, that the market for SmartPhone Apps is fracturing in much the same way that the personal computer fractured. Apple Macintosh sucked off a small portion of the market from Microsoft Windows, Windows became “the standard” in businesses, and it took decades before Macintosh became a worthy competitor, market-wise. Mobile World Congress’ goal is nothing less than to stop that kind of thing from happening again.

Now if only a group of large companies with more to lose from coopetition that they have to gain would cooperate and create  . . . what? A single operating system?

Mobile World Congress has an admirable goal. But it’s unattainable. Large companies don’t make changes of that sort easily. And they sure don’t make them proactively. Verizon and AT&T have just started allowing data-based voice software like Skype to run on their phone networks, after years of fighting to keep them out. They enacted that business change only when they realized they had no choice and were better off doing business with their previous “competitors” than pushing the proverbial rock of refusal up the proverbial hill of “good luck stopping them”.

What’s Apple’s incentive for playing nice with Google and Android, or Microsoft and Windows Phone? Theoretically, being the leader of the pack will look appealing, but not for these guys.

Mobile World Congress is a big waste of time. Which is too bad, because I sure do wish I could run the Answer Guy Central iPhone App on my Droid.

Business Change takes many forms. For too many of us one of the forms that’s long overdue is putting a data backup and protection plan in place. Tell the truth: you know someone who’d have a very big problem if their hard drive crashed, right?

As we get more and more of the stuff we do and use into computers and need to get it back out, the issue becomes exponentially more important. This morning I noted a question at Droid Forums that got me thinking: what do you do to protect all that information on your SmartPhone?

As you know, I’m a Droid user. The device truly makes my life easier, 0rganization-wise, or I would have stuck with my old regular-phone-and-PDA way of doing things. And when there’s a problem, like the one the SplashID password manager creates on Android phones, I tell you so.

So I started thinking: what does backup software really do for you, and is it any different on a SmartPhone than on a computer?

To start, there’s a methaphorical difference: backup on your computer means (minimally) grabbing safe copies of all your work files and (ideally) a copy of the way your entire hard drive is arranged including software and its setting, the operating system, and anything else you’ll need to get back up and running quickly after a crash. On a SmartPhone like the Droid, there’s no such bit-for-bit backup, but also no need for one, since the operating system is built in and restores automatically if you ever need to reset your device.

I use a piece of software called MyBackup Pro to keep my Droid safe. It does two things: MyBackup Pro copies my data, and it copies the applications I have installed on my Droid. The concerns I addressed in that forum?: is MyBackup Pro getting ALL my data? The answer is no, and on an Android-based Smartphone, that answer is fine.

Remember that most of what you do on a SmartPhone is interact with programs stored elsewhere; out in “the cloud” you have many accounts with companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and if your Droid crashed, all that data would still be there. So the issue is much smaller: let’s protect your contact data (hmmm . . . also likely to be stored elsewhere . . .), call and texting history, and . . . . that’s about all!

The biggest problem if your SmartPhone needs to be reset is restoring your programs. That can be time-consuming, and who knows what you’ll remember to do when the time comes?

With Google and Android,  the Android store remembers what you’ve downloaded (including the programs you’ve paid for) and allows you to restore for free any time. All you need to do is re-download MyBackup Pro and then restore everything else. It takes literally under five minutes, and the software costs a whopping $5. Total no-brainer.

The larger question is this: what’s it going to take to get you to enact the kinds of business change that your business needs to make a difference? If you are the person I mentioned above who isn’t doing backups, please don’t wait another moment to start doing something about it. The Computer Answer Guy can even help, if you aren’t sure how to go about solving the problem.

But for goodness’ sake: if you use a Droid or other SmartPhone, please start using a program like MyBackup Pro, right now.

If a sentence falls on your computer screen and you don’t read it, did it make a sound?

In order to do my job, I listen a lot. I talk a lot, too, but if I don’t pay attention to what’s going on around me I really can’t be the kind of coach and mentor my clients need.

So I read. All the time. That’s great, because I really enjoy keeping up on what’s happening in the business and technology communities. Having it be a big part of my job makes everything even better!

It isn’t always easy, and the way I approach the task of keeping up on all that reading varies (as it should). Some things get mailed to me. Some show up in my e-mail or browser. And others come to me through an RSS feed (you can receive this feed by subscribing here) and land in my Droid SmartPhone.

Lately, there’s too much.

I don’t mean there’s too much for me to keep up with. What I’m saying is that there’s too much repetitive noise. On my Droid, I receive 300-400 articles each day, and a similar number of tweets from the people I follow on Twitter. It sounds like a lot, but I drink my own Kool-Aid and just as I put business management systems in place for others I have an information management system in place for myself that lets me get through that without missing much.

But I’m noticing that the 800 or so items each day are actually about twenty items worth reading re-issued over and over again, plus another dozen or so pithy remarks that catch my attention. I like the pithy remarks. But seeing the same story come across my plain of vision thirty times just tells me that there are too many people whose job it is TO TRY AND GET MY ATTENTION, instead of actually having something to say.

Yesterday, The New York Times announced that sometime next year they will start charging for access to their web site. They aren’t talking about what that will look like, other than to say that it will probably involve giving everyone a limited amount of free access, after which they will have to pay if they want to read any more that day/week/month.  They also aren’t saying how much it will cost.

The question now is this: will The Times and the rest of the “serious journalism world”  get us to pay, and will that spell the end of the amateur or underpaid blogging world, or will the opposite occur and we’ll be thrust into a world where more and more repetitive but mostly useless information is what we look at?

I hope paid content wins. You know that old line about “you get what you pay for?”. The words of bloggers are feeling more and more like they’re worth what we pay for them. And while I’m sad saying it, that’s a business change we all need to root for.

Yesterday, someone in my Facebook stream asked about SmartPhones. And it occurred to me that even with all the press coverage and expert opinions being tossed around in the aftermath of Google ‘s Nexus One release just last week, real people are tied in knots over their choice of SmartPhone.

I’m not talking about bleeding-edge, geeky gadget types, by the way; when real people decide to take the jump they agonize over the decision. It’s like business change; sooner or later you have to jump, but getting there . . . painful!

By now, there’s very little question about one thing: I don’t like the Apple iPhone. Let me be clear that I think iPhone is an absolutely amazing piece of technology, and that in the iPhone Apple has demonstrated yet again how terrific they are at making things that look great and act in a way that people understand without a lot of training. But my personal view is that always having to back out to “the top” when I want to do something different is not OK, and that I can’t use the iPhone on-screen keyboard.

In other words: Apple’s typical approach that “they know what’s best” is all over the iPhone, and if you don’t fit their vision, you’re better off elsewhere. And that’s fine; lots of people like being led around that way.

So along comes Google with Android. It’s infinitely customizable, and Google convinces phone manufacturers to use it as the software in the devices they sell to phone companies. They have only minor success until they get Verizon and Motorola to do Droid and market it heavily enough that the phrase “iPhone killer” starts getting tossed around. Droids fly off the shelf, Android gets instant credibility, Google becomes a serious player in the phone business, and . . . out comes the Nexus One. Yes, it’s manufactured by HTC, but nobody is saying that; this is the Google Nexus One, and it’s going to change the world.

I, of course, disagreed.

But there’s new momentum now. Real people are trying to decide which Kool-Aid to drink. And the question, in simple terms, was this:

one of my resolutions is to stop giving my kids all the good stuff and start getting some for myself so….a Nexus One or an iPhone? I need some input here…the Nexus one is the new Google phone. My son is pushing it over the iPhone for me to buy so I’m perplexed.

Most of the input that came back was from iPhone lovers. No surprise; there are a lot of you out there! But my answer was this:

Nexus One. Or better yet . . . Droid

As was my intent, it opened up the box of real questions that this real person had on her mind. Stuff like this:

I did look at the Droid today. And I am w/ Verizon now. Trying to make a good decision here.

I’m NOT concerned w/ storage AT all. I want a good phone and agree Verizon has best network especially where I live. But really like the sleekness of the nexus/iphone. (us women and our irrational decisions.)

Are you saying there is zero difference between Droid and Nexus for the most part and if I’m already with Verizon then go Droid?

And my favorite:

Maybe I’ll just master T-9 and stay w/ my old piece of crap!

So how Do I feel? Really?

Droid and Nexus One run the same software. Nexus One is lighter, but has no keyboard. It has a screen that will look better in bright sunlight, but Droid comes w/ 4 times the storage (16 GB vs. 4 GB). To me, I look at those stats, think “I don’t care”, realize the price is the same-ish regardless, and choose by picking the network. Verizon’s is superior, so if you’re jumping today, go Droid—The Nexus One will be on Verizon “soon”, if that already-done-deal doesn’t get undone before launch. <<update 26-April 2010 . . . it did get undone.

Assuming you don’t let the iPhone Army coerce you to the dark side <grin>, then it comes down mostly to weight, since the other Droid vs. Nexus One comparison point is the “better screen in extremely bright light vs. more memory” thing.

So with that said: the Droid feels substantial. Personally I like that, but it’s winter. When summer comes, I have no coat pockets, and being a dude I’ll be left no choice but hold it all the time because my pants pockets won’t do.  I could change my mind about liking the Droid’s weight when that happens.

The extra weight brings you a keyboard. I thought I would care about that, but the truth is I rarely do, except when typing something long. But with THAT said, I found the iPhone on-screen keyboard difficult and the Droid on-screen keyboard not difficult . . . and they’re very similarly-sized, as is Nexus One’s.

And as for T9 . . . listen, I know people who are really good at that, and while I’m not one of them I won’t argue.

Change is difficult. In the real world, for real people and real businesses, extraordinarily so. Ask real questions, demand real answers, and . . . the rest will work itself out.

A few weeks ago I had some harsh words for David Pogue. Dave, The New York Times’ lead technology columnist—among other things—had expressed an opinion about copy protection that I felt was so out of touch with reality he needed to be called on it.

Pogue didn’t like my opinion. He told me so. Well, David . . . this time I’m with you: today, Pogue comments on Google and their new Nexus One cell phone. And I’m happy to report that he’s back in the fold as “the voice of reason”.

Over the last few months, and especially the last couple of weeks, the hype for Nexus One has been in full overdrive. Without every saying so officially, Google had let us know that they were about to release a new, super-feature-rich phone that you can buy without a contract. And they’ve done exactly that. The Nexus One is very, very cool, leap-frogging even my beloved Droid in a few areas (while falling short in a few others).

And that’s it. Business Change from the Nexus One? Very close to zero.

My disappointment with what Google has done stems not from my feelings about the device itself; I’ll repeat that the Nexus One is a great SmartPhone. But let’s be clear: while it’s theoretically true that you could just buy the phone and then 1) get service from the carrier of your choice and 2) get that service at a lower cost , the reality is that differences in the way cell carriers move calls and data around means that the only place you can get service for the Nexus One is T-Mobile. Yes, you could use AT&T instead, but then your data would be too slow.

Oh, and by the way: if you buy your Nexus One from T-Mobile, on contract, you’ll pay about the same thing that AT&T gets for an iPhone and Verizon gets for a Droid. And if you buy a Nexus One without a contract it costs . . . you guessed it . . . pretty much what AT&T and Verizon’s flagship phones cost without a contract.

Overall, this makes the Nexus One announcement a non-event in my book. So why write about it?

Because this is the very first time that Google has hyped/announced/released something that qualified as nothing more than a me-too. Love them or hate them, Google pushes the envelope on everything they do, and the Nexus One is not business change, phone change, power-to-the-people, or anything else, other than Google wanting very much to usurp Microsoft and Apple in the phone operating system wars.

I concede, Google; Android is spectacular. The Nexus One is a great Android phone; I almost want to replace my Droid. But . . . really, when you tell the world you’re going to change business, you need to actually bring some business change to the table. The Nexus One is no such thing.