Adventures in Googleville (1 of n)

25/05/11

In which your intrepid correspondent visits the land of Nexus S.

Some people talk about Android as being an iOS killer. I can only assume they are on heavy medication. Or Mars.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I got the Nexus S as a free upgrade to my work phone. (I can’t have multiple landlines in my house because when the house was last wired for telephony, Nixon was in power in the US and Britain was the land of Patrick Macnee. The giant gerbil turbines which generate electrical power for Harkaway Towers take up too much space in the cellar to allow for extra copper cables, and my internet connection is actually a special pneumatic-to-fiber-optic interface designed for me by John Percival Hackworth.) I was deeply divided about whether to bother with this, because unlike Stephen Fry, I do feel there is a physical and psychological limit to the number of gadgets I need at any one time. This limit is very high, but an additional smartphone which will communicate only fairly well with the rest of my gear is it.

However.

People talk about Android as a contender.

They speak of the Android Market in hushed tones as the free-spirited equivalent to Apple’s bowdlerised App Store. And it’s true, to a point: the App Store is somewhat shackled by Jobs’ no porn promise, with the weird result that many apps feature violence but no sex, and that downloading a 3rd party browser entails accepting a warning that there may be adult stuffz one them interweb thingies.

Yes, dude, we know.

Anyway, given that, and the forthcoming Android/Amazon tablets, I figured I should get to know Android a bit, and since it was free – except for my time – I should just go ahead and do it. (I usually use a Samsung Extreme with this account. It has an endless battery and can be mistreated in ways I have not yet thought of. It can be dropped, immersed, and will probably protect you from stabbings. It is a very, very boring, very, very solid handset. I am missing it already.)

First experience: sitting in the Vodafone store.

God, I remember this – I used to do it all the time, before Apple came along and rescued me. It’s like a nightmare. Nasty, uncomfortable chairs, slightly weird ‘deals’ regarding minutes, bloke in ill-fitting shirt trying to be helpful while behind me someone yells at his colleague because they were promised X by the guy on the phone and now they’re being told Y and blah blah blah.

40 minutes of my life on a free upgrade, and I have to walk out with not only the Nexus S itself, but a free, low end Nokia for which I have no use, which will cease to be free in two months unless I opt out, but I have to take it to get the upgrade. What? People, seriously?

40. Of. Your. Earth. Minutes. Compare and contrast with: walk into Apple Store. Ask for model & colour. Pay. Leave. Total elapsed time: 8 minutes?

Second experience: the Android Market looks like WHAT?

What’s that you say, Lassie? Old Man Harkaway has given himself a near-fatal eyestrain trying to read the words on the screen?! Oh, noes!

Is it just me, or is that a design which looks really nice on, er, a 27 inch desktop screen rather than a smartphone? Oh, wait, maybe this is the wrong Android Market? Or the wrong… I have no idea.

Third experience: “no Nexus S is associated with that account”

I was tempted to call this section “Appless in Seattle”, but not many people would get that joke any more, what with me being old and stuff, and also: I’m not in Seattle. So.

Downloading an app. From the Market. The thing which will, essentially, define whether or not the phone (which has a nice, clear speaker and decent reception, by the way) can blow the iPhone away with its massive Googleness.

Not like this, it won’t: no Nexus S is associated with that account. Dude, I am here, on a Nexus S, which has my googlemail account set up on it, and I cannot get so much as a Kindle free app…

Oh, I know: I’ll just Google the answer!

Fourth Experience: Nexus S on the go

“Download cancelled: cannot make a secure connection to the Market”.

Dude. I will tear you a new speakerhole. I really will. My old phone can be dropped onto concrete from my own headheight and it bounces back and calls me a weakling. Can you take that kind of pressure, you monstrous glossy plastic Windows-resembling snarky user-unfriendly bastard?

….

More news as and when we have it…

But my first reaction: this is not an iPhone Killer. It’s not even an iPhone Worrier. The prime directive of Google has been broken here: the Nexus S and its infrastructure do not make information easier to access. They do not improve the user experience. The soft aspects of the design are ghastly. I will, I suspect, get to the point of enjoying this phone’s features. But I am part author, part geek, and I love fiddling with tech at a non-scary level. Although I’ve been putting off configuring my wireless IR webcam for my daughter’s nursery because it’s clunky to set up. For the rest of the world, Android as it stands is not a serious competitor for Apple’s integrated media experience crown. It’s too much like hard work.

13 Comments to “Adventures in Googleville (1 of n)”

Gerald Clark said on May 25th, 2011:

Sorry your first experience with Android has been so poor.

I’ve just got the new Desire S which is wonderful, and a Motorola Xoom Android tablet and I’ve never had any such issues. I think they’re wonderful.

I like iphones too, but there’s a few cool things Androids can do which Apple products won’t do.

At least your experience can only get better!
Gerald Clark said on May 25th, 2011:

Sorry, I over-’wonderful’ed there.
Adventures in Googleville (1 of n) | WWW.ANDROIDWORLD.BIZ said on May 25th, 2011:

[...] original post here: Adventures in Googleville (1 of n) This entry was posted in Android Articles and tagged free-upgrade, intrepid, [...]
Ed said on May 25th, 2011:

So working from the bottom up . . . I think your third experience is due to your cell phone provider just not getting everything linked up properly (and/or not turning on the data component of your plan); however, it is strange that you were able to access the market *website* so yes, not quite clear (but my first iPhone had a similar issue, I could talk all I wanted but when I tried to use any internet-requiring app I was told there was not data plan associated with my account.

For experience 2: simple (but admittedly confusing), you were accessing the android market *website* not the app – the website IS meant to be accessed from a computer. For the phone you should have an application called “Market” that actually is designed for cell use.

For experience 1: please don’t blame this on Android, it’s all up to the providers to work this out (and I content experience 3 as well). Google actually was on to something when they launched google.com/phone but they since backtracked and went with local stores which are obviously a pain to deal with. Again, in my iPhone experience I had to buy it through my (US) AT&T store and had the same wait-talk-wait-listen to complaints-wait-walk out with phone-discover it didn’t work experience.

Don’t give up yet! It’s new and it just takes a little getting used to. Now stop playing with phones and get that next book finished (please)!
Eric Rosenfield said on May 25th, 2011:

I find this post very strange. The Android Market, at least here in the US, looks nothing like that and is very nice and works great. (There’s also the Amazon market if you don’t like it, assuming that’s available in the UK.)

I know that my Android phone I like quite a lot more than my iPod Touch and than an iPhone if I had one, though the reasons may not be applicable where you are. I have a hardware keyboard, no contract with my cell provider, tethering to other devices and no bandwidth limit, none of which can be said about the iPhone in the US.
Andy said on May 25th, 2011:

“Is it just me, or is that a design which looks really nice on, er, a 27 inch desktop screen rather than a smartphone?”

Er, yeah, that’s the website!

Nick, I’m a huge fan. But calm down or you’re just going to look silly. Android is great. Young compared with Apple and just different. Give it a fair chance. Looking forward to the next book by the way :¬]
Nick Harkaway said on May 25th, 2011:

Andy – yeah, I’ve already figured that out. But the question is: why did I have to? Answer: because the Market app isn’t prominent, and because if you do go the website the system doesn’t – to take a random example – send you to the app or tell you what the problem might be. As you see, there’s no mention of the error message on Google’s pages. I’m aware that I’m being almost deliberately obtuse, but that’s the whole point: if a piece of technology can’t be used by someone with no time and no instinct for this stuff, it’s not there yet. Google’s first commandment, from which all others proceed, is: make it all about the user. Simplicity is what they’re all about – and this isn’t there yet.

I am giving it a fair chance – I’ve persevered, and I’m having more fun, although some of the decisions about where things should go and how they should be arranged are still arcane to me. But I’m also in the business of gauging whether Android is about to explode onto the scene and kick Apple’s backside in the ebook arena, and part of that is an intuitive operating system/seamless back end for people who do not, as a general rule, care about shiny tech stuff but want to get on with it. The tired trope is “could my mother do this without hassle?” In my case that’s a slightly insane question, because my mother was using early dedicated word processing machines which took up half a house back when IBM loaned them to you and data was stored on reel-to-reel magnetic tape. Bizarrely, though, I think this would have given her some trouble, which makes it a less likely purchase for her loving son to make on her behalf at Christmas time. (Obviously the key ereader purchasing time.)

You put it exactly right: Android is young (and fragmented right now, but that’s another discussion). The rough edges are still to come off, though no doubt Honeycomb will fix many of them. But Google is not famous for user interface design, and they’ve got a lot of ground to make up in the book market, where they were relying to a certain extent on the GBS, and where Apple has a big lead on them – hence, no doubt, the prospect of a deal with Amazon, but where that will go ultimately is anyone’s guess.

Long and short: of course I can make the damn thing work. But that I have to take a moment to think about it should tell you something.
Jim Millen said on May 25th, 2011:

I’d not disagree Android has a way to go to match Apple’s user experience. But you have been unlucky in encountering so many flaws at once.

Some of the problems lie more with the operators. Apple care enough about to twist the operator’s arms into ensuring a certain minimum level of service – Google either choose not to or don’t have the market clout to make it stick.

As a counter-example of where Apple don’t always get it right, I’ve known several people be absolutely baffled – and irritated – they have to install iTunes and activate the phone before they can use it. Will be interested to see if that changes with future iOS versions…
Jim Millen said on May 25th, 2011:

Oh, and one other comment – thought your comparison of the retail stores is a little facile. You might buy your phone from the Apple store but you still, presumably, have to choose a plan? Which will still, presumably, require you talk to somebody about minutes?

And 8 minutes? I’d believe it for just buying the hardware, but again, not for discussing & choosing a plan, running a credit check and all the other nonsense needed to get the iPhone up & running.

In other words, I’m not sure you’re comparing like for like there… :-)
Andy said on May 26th, 2011:

Nick – Apologies for what may have been a minor sense of humour failure earlier.

You’re quite right on the whole. Android may get closer to Apple in terms of user experience but it may just have to compromise on that (a bit like Windows in the PC arena). Anyway, I can’t deny that Apple has that side of things sewn up at the moment.

Android has brought the whole smart phone thing to a wider market but may not be quite “good enough” enough to compete with the iPhone just yet. I often look longingly at some i or other but have usually settled for a cheaper alternative. I did plump for an iPad, though, and I it’s a joy to use. I just get annoyed at the restrictions but I guess that’s the price of simplicity.

Anyway, on with life! Would like to say thanks for The Gone Away World – definitely one of my all-time favourite books.
Mark Fletcher said on May 26th, 2011:

It’s funny, I took to Android like a duck to water and I too had previously been living in basic-Nokia-land.

The, uh, problem with the marketplace has been raised so I’ll not repeat that. ;-)

My experience of Android is like that of, say, the transition from Word 2003 to Word 2010. That new ribbon is uncomfortable, works differently, feels weird. Things aren’t where they’re meant to be. However, give it a little bit of time and you’ll realise that it just /feels/ unfamiliar and it’s actually a far more efficient animal.
Android is the same for me. Now I’m a user, I find iOS to be the inefficient, illogical beast.

And, you know. Sometimes oversimplification (whilst it has its benefits) isn’t the best way to go, when it comes at the expense of the user experience.
Ben Babcock said on May 26th, 2011:

Google isn’t playing by your rules.

I have no doubt that, in its long term plan, Google would like to see Android eclipse iOS. But it’s not going to do this by marketing directly to the user–as you’ve pointed out, they tried that with the first Nexus, and it didn’t work so well. Google is waging its war through the phone manufacturers and the carriers themselves, and it’s using openness to combat Apple’s closed system. By making Android open source and free to use, Google encourages manufacturers to use Android rather than any other proprietary system. Each device that runs Android is a win for Google, because that is another device that can send data back to Google about its users’ habits and show Google ads to its user. Google doesn’t really care about your user experience, except as a means to an end of keeping you around. Google cares about your data.

You’re correct in that Android phones tend to have more rough edges than the iPhone. You point out the fragmentation as part of the issue, and I assume you mean the fragmentation between Android 2.x and Android 3.0. But Android is also fragmented in terms of devices. Manufacturers put their own stamps on the device in terms of its user interface (e.g., HTC has its “HTC Sense” interface) that affect the user experience. I’m not sure if Samsung has altered the default interface that much in the Nexus S (but I don’t think they have). As others have pointed out, they have taken to their Android phones like airborne illnesses to a shopping mall ventilation system, so it could be that the Nexus S’ interface, in particular, is just epic fail.

This has the advantage, for both Google and the user, of providing greater variety and greater exposure. If a user doesn’t like HTC’s interface, that doesn’t mean he or she has to abandon Android altogether–next time, he or she can try an Android phone from another manufacturer. In contrast, if someone tries the iPhone and doesn’t like the interface … well, that’s game over. There are no alternative iPhones on the market. There are alternative Android phones. And there are just so many devices running Android these days. I would be interested to see a comparison of the number of subscribers with iPhones compared to the number of subscribers with any phone that runs some version of Android.

When it comes to “kicking Apple’s backside in the ebook arena,” what about the Nook Color from Barnes & Noble? It runs Android 2.2. (There are a few others as well, according to Wikipedia, even some with E ink screens.) It remains to be seen whether eReaders themselves continue to exist as a separate device or slowly merge into the general-purpose tablet. If the former case proves true, then you could very well receive an Android eReader in the future with a seamless user experience. If the latter case proves true, then once again we will be back in the situation of a plethora of Android devices versus a single Apple device.

Apple and Google are both vying for market domination, but their strategies are very different. Apple is very careful not to dilute its brand, which is why it is so controlling about iOS. It markets the iPhone (somewhat tautologically) as a product: “If you don’t have an iPhone … well, you don’t have an iPhone.” Every iOS product will be Apple-manufactured, with the Apple stamp of approval and Apple’s promise of usability. Google is doing the opposite: it wants to dilute the “Android brand” beyond the point of recognition. It wants you to pick up a device, use the device, and not realize you’re running Android. So it doesn’t mind if other manufacturers take Android, run with it, and create a new user experience that is for better or for worse. Google is doing what it has always done: give away something for free and hope to recoup the costs in the data and ad revenue it gets back.
Nick Harkaway said on May 26th, 2011:

Ben – interesting points.

Actually, I was talking about device fragmentation, which I think is the more serious problem for Google – there have been some grumblings from developers about that recently.

The Nook fascinates me, but I can’t get my hands on one and use it because I live here in the UK. I might see what I can manage the next time I’m in New York.

I take your point that Google’s agenda is not a straight shot at the iPhone, but sooner or later (at the moment) any smartphone with a touchscreen interface and apps will be measured against it. It does Google no good to dilute their brand with stuff which doesn’t work easily. That ‘make things easier for people’ credo has served them, and they’re allowing it to get watered here.

As to their revenue model… I’m very interested in that at the moment. It looks so solid, but they’re also desperate (according to Schmidt in “Googled”) to keep some of the traditional content-producing industries whose models they’ve crippled running. They want the newspapers to exist, to do investigative work. They want the movie studios to make movies – not just because they want to aggregate, but because it would be a crappier world without those things. But their problem is the same as everyone else’s – they can’t find ways to funnel money into those industries fast enough to make up for the bleed.

Interesting times.