Twitter Throws Subscriptions Into The Mix

Would you pay to read the minutae of your favourite celebrity or sports stars private life? I'm guessing probably not.

Some people will though (otherwise we wouldn't have trash like OK or Hello) and its just that sort of person who Twitter will be targeting when it allows users to charge a subscription to read their tweets.

It's an interesting model and one that will bring in the sort of professional woman that advertisers love to target. I guess Twitter just needs to find an acceptable advertising format to finally give itself the ability to make money from its huge user base.

Sony-Ericsson Lurched To Another Disaster

Well I guess I didn't have to wait long before getting the answer to my question. Seems like irrespective of platform SE will manage to make a proper hash of delivering any smartphone.

The latest disaster is the Symbian based Satio, which has turned out to be so bug ridden and unstable that both Carphone Warehouse and Phones4u have taken it off the market and will likely be recalling the phones already shipped to customers.

Having experienced the dubious quality of SE's smartphones firsthand I can only say I'm not surprised.

Attractive as the X2 and X10 sound on paper I'd suggest steering clear until the first reviews arrive.

Can Sony-Ericsson Build A Smartphone?

Sony-Ericsson could justifiably be called the originators of the smartphone, with the R380 being the original device to fit the description. Thing is that since then its been one dodgy, unfinished device after another from the Swedish-Japanese combine.

Changing platforms doesn't seem to be doing them much good either. The UIQ based Pxxx range was dreadful, the final P1i so bad that presumably the company were forced to evaluate alternative options. Shame then that the Windows Mobile X1 and Symbian based Satio are equally disappointing.

And now it appears that they have even managed to foul up the Android based X10, if Engadget's pre-release looks at the phone are to be believed...

That's an astonishing record of failure and one that suggests that SE get out of the smartphone business and concentrate on the Walkman and Cybershot phones that they do so well.

Fring Wins Race To VoIP On Android

First off the blocks with VoIP on Android is Fring with its versatile VoIP and IM aggregator. Supporting Skype and MSN Messenger as well as Android staples Google Talk and Twitter, this looks like a winning application.

Skype are supposed to be working on their own VoIP application, although if you're on the Three network you can use the Three Skype application to take advantage of free Skype to Skype calls - its not true VoIP as it routes calls over the Three network, but if you're on Three you can't beat free...

When Irish Eyes Aren't Smiling

So suddenly Thierry Henry is public enemy number one and the Irish have suffered a terrible wrong. Yes the crazy world of football threw up another of its frequent injustices yesterday, however once again the media have taken the opportunity to blow the incident out of all proportion.

Face facts: cheating is endemic in professional football.

Face facts: referees sometimes make mistakes.

Like everybody else I feel sorry for the Irish, however that doesn't mean that there should be a replay, otherwise it will set a precedent for every match with a contentious result to be replayed and then we'll never see the end of any tournament ever.

And to those Irish fans (and politicians) who feel cheated by the result and are demanding the French offer a replay, consider this: Robbie Keane was penalised for deliberate handball earlier in the game, if the referee had missed this and Keane had gone on to score the goal which had sent Ireland through to South Africa would they do the same? Not a chance.

Until such time as FIFA finds a way to use video evidence 'in game' this sort of incident will always happen and the only consolation is that this sort of thing evens itself out over time. Maradona's hand of God, for example, is balanced by Owen's 1998 dive...

HTC's Adverts Are Working

Seems like HTC have got something with their new TV advertising, which really seems to be making an impression for the company that no-one outside geekdom had heard of six months ago.

Twice today I was asked about my Hero by people who recognised it from the TV spots or from the bus shelter advertising blitz which is supporting it. Both were iPhone users and both were pretty much sold after a few minutes play. Looks like people only realise the benefits of multi-tasking when they experience it for themselves.

The Sense UI got them excited too, realising that the home screen should be more than just a list of applications.

Symbian To Die In 2012

And so it goes, the OS that came from Psion's line of handheld's as EPOC, powered the first recognisable smartphone (the Ericsson R380, the earlier GEOS powered Nokia Communicator not qualifying by virtue of its mammoth size) and went on to dominate the smartphone market; has had time called and Nokia will kill it as early as 2012.

In truth Symbian has been dead ever since the arrival of the iPhone, its fans and makers being the only ones who hadn't realised. When Nokia made its laughable attempts to add touch to what was essentially the anti-touch OS it soon became clear that there was no hope for Symbian and it was only a matter of time before Nokia turned to its open-source stablemate, Maemo, previously restricted to the Finnish company's Internet Tablet range.

Today's announcement isn't a big surprise, it was inevitable once Nokia announced a Maemo-powered smartphone. What will be worth monitoring is the success, or otherwise, of the Maemo handsets that Nokia has planned. The company has gambled on an OS which has seen only limited support from the open source community and, given the emergence of Android as a credible open source competitor for the iPhone's crown, I wonder how much that will be improved with the release of version 5. My guess is that Symbian developers will not necessarily support Maemo, rather chasing the big markets of the iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile.

I fear that Nokia would have been better served copying Sony-Ericsson and picking the best of each platform to test the market, rather than looking to develop a new platform from scratch.

Self-control, What's That?

Remember how I said that I wouldn't consider going back to Android until version 2 was released? Yeah, that didn't last too long...

This morning I was seduced by a rather nice HTC Hero, ably assisted by a nice salesman at the Carphone Warehouse who showed me how I could get one SIM-free for around £50...

No its not some kind of disgusting pyramid selling deal, rather that the Warehouse is now doing instore trade ins. And at better prices than being offered on their website.

With such a good deal on offer it would have been rude to decline, which is why I'm back in the Android camp.

Two things strike me about the unlocked Hero, it doesn't suffer from the lag which affected the network locked units that I tried last month; and most of the problems I experienced with the Pulse appear to relate to the Pulse rather than Android, which should probably be taken into account if you're considering taking the plunge.

The learning curve on the Hero is much smaller than other Android phones because of the commonality in the Sense and Touchflo interfaces used by HTC.

As ever I'll keep you up to date on how. things progress.

T-Mobile Texting Problems

How bizarre. My T-Mobile SIM refuses to deliver text messages to other T-Mobile phones but works fine with phones on other networks. What's going on there then? Anyone?

Where Have All The Buttons Gone?

Since the arrival of the original iPhone there's been a major move towards touch interaction with smartphones at the expense of almost everything else.

I'm currently using a T-Mobile Vario 2 - a pretty old piece of kit which pre-dates the announcement of the first iPhone. It's covered in buttons, up front there is a five way d-pad controller, two softkey buttons, two application buttons, start and end call keys; and a Windows Start button and OK/Back button. On the right hand side are power, wireless and camera buttons; on the left another Ok/Back button, a voice dial button with separate functions for push and hold; and a jog dial with push to select.

That's six programmable buttons to launch my preferred applications. The d-pad is used to control any of a selection of media players as well as to move through the interface. In fact before the arrival of the iPhone Microsoft were trying to move its touchscreen and non-touchscreen interfaces closer together with the result that the Vario 2 can be navigated without ever having to touch the screen.

Returning to the Vario 2 after eighteen months of touch-only interaction I have to say that I think Microsoft were heading in the right direction before the world went iPhone-crazy. It is so much quicker and easier to interact with the Vario 2 using its buttons (and not forgetting an excellent full qwerty slide out keyboard) that I could be easily persuaded to make it my daily driver once more, despite its shortage of memory and low resolution QVGA screen.

Now if only someone would build a new model with a VGA screen and 256MB of RAM, I'd be onto that like a shot...

In a World Of Doesn't

Looks like the latest Droid advert (which stems from US mobile network Verizon) has ruffled a few feathers.

This one points out a few of the things that the iPhone can't do or won't allow its owners to do before calling Apple arrogant and pointing out that the DROID does... and it achieves this without mentioning either Apple or the iPhone by name.

Its advertising by negatives, which isn't common in the UK but seems prevalent Stateside.

Only one such advert has ever made it over here: Apple's "I'm a Mac" series. Nice to see the biter get bit isn't it?

New Phones Bring Windows Mobile Back To The Fore

Just when it looked like Windows Mobile was out for the count two new handsets have arrived which show that WM6.5 is still able to compete.

First off is the HTC HD2 which has garnered some rave reviews so far. Packing a Snapdragon processor, a WVGA screen of mammoth proportions, HTC's Sense UI which for the first time on Windows Mobile is paired with a capacitive screen. The HD2 will be available on contract from both O2 and Vodafone.

The second new handset taking Windows Mobile to new heights is the Omnia 2 from Samsung. Whilst not generating the same number of column inches as the HD2 the Omnia 2 has still managed an upbeat reception. This is a slightly more compact handset than the HTC, the trade off being a smaller (if still large) screen. Samsung's Touchwiz 2 interface isn't quite as slick as Sense but it does a remarkable job of reskinning everything that the user is required to interact with to operate the phone.

Microsoft's partners seem to have got to grips with WM6.5 very quickly and this is resulting in more and more competitive handsets arriving. Microsoft now needs to fix its end of the equation and work harder to gain mindshare for Windows Phone with TV and print advertising outside of the tech arena.

It doesn't matter how competitive the handsets and OS are if all the potential customers are buying iPhones because they have been suckered into believing Apple's "only on iPhone" commercial message.

T-Mobile Pulse Wrap-up

Well I promised to give Android a go and for two weeks I stuck to that promise. Today however the Pulse is back with T-Mobile and I'm looking around for a new phone again.

Android was more impressive than I expected in some ways, desperately disappointing in others. In the end I could have lived with the shortcomings, but repeated hardware failures meant that I couldn't commit to keeping the Pulse.

The Canvas front-end which Huawei have added to Android seems to work much more logically than HTC's Sense front end with the bonus of being expandable and relatively lightweight. The Touchpal keyboard was also an impressive part of the bundle.

Yet there were areas where Android is clearly behind the competition and Google needs to focus efforts to catch up. The quality of applications in the app store was disappointing - not helped by some of the most useless and pointless reviews ever committed to keyboard. There are plenty of solid applications in the Market but no real way of telling what works well on what hardware and which applications conflicted with each other. In the time I had it the Pulse was the least reliable device I've ever owned, suffering random slowdowns and self resetting for no apparent reason. I became close friends with the 'application has force closed' dialog box and also saw spontaneous resets and on at least three occasions had to reboot the Pulse by removing the battery because it had locked so hard.

The Pulse worked with none of the major barcode scanning apps, rendering one of Google's big selling points moot.

The built-in music player is lame, not helped by a lack of responsiveness from the Pulse's screen when on a car cradle. Failure to recognise screen taps when trying to advance through tracks was hugely frustrating and whilst I found other music players that seemed much more promising all were stymied by the screen issue, a Pulse problem I think.

The much vaunted multiple-tasking was a letdown too, running the music player in the background with Bluetooth streaming meant that whatever was trying to run in the foreground ground to a near halt. Windows Mobile devices can perform that task with capacity to spare, so ultimately, that's a real letdown for the platform as a whole.

In fact there's a definite feeling of 'work in progress' about Android. It's neither as slick and well planned as the iPhone, nor as flexible or powerful as Windows Mobile.

The end result is deeply unsatisfying, yet I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Pulse and Android. I think I'll wait until version 2 is upon us before I travel down that path again though...

The Murder Of Walter Sedlmayr And Its Impact, Two Decades On

Until today I had never heard of Walter Sedlmayr a German actor who was murdered in 1990. I'm sure you hadn't either. However legal action being taken by his murderers Manfred Lauber and Wilfred Werle pits German privacy laws against American Freedom of Speech. The two are seeking to have documents containing their names removed from Wikipedia as German law protects their identities.

Given the number of criminals passed fit to re-enter society who then go on to re-offend, it seems that the justice system has little understanding of the criminal mind and isn't fit to make that decision.

And if that's the case them communities have the right to know when these people move into their areas. Protecting the innocent means that the cloak of anonymity should be denied to these criminals for the good of society.

The German laws are morally wrong and I hope that Lauber and Werle fail in their bid for privacy. Its a luxury society cannot afford to give them.

Palm To Give App Store The Go In December

Palm's application store for WebOS customers looks like it will be finally available in December, giving independent developers the chance to launch their programs for the first time.

Given the low numbers of apps out there I'm sure that Palm's customers will welcome the news.

Dell Confirms First Android Phone

Once the Windows Mobile frontrunner Dell today became the latest partner to abandon Microsoft for Google's open source alternative.

The Dell Mini 3 packs a 3.5" screen running at a high resolution (presumably WVGA) and will launch in China and Brazil this month.

Dell also pointed out they have existing relationships with a number of mobile networks around Europe, presumably as an indication that they are open to the Mini 3 making the same journey to market.

Google Going Acquisition Crazy

Looks like Google has decided to start leveraging its massive cash pile to strengthen its business and has made two major purchases already this week.

First off was AdMob, a mini-Google for the mobile space. The company is particularly strong in the iPhone market where it places advertising on both mobile sites and within applications.

As a result of this purchase I'm expecting to see a greater number of ads targeting the iPhone and presumably Android applications.

The second purchase puts it into direct competition with Skype and other VoIP systems. Gizmo5 has been quietly growing its user base and I suspect Google has seen something which can be used to push Google Talk up a level.

Expect to see Google releasing its Google-fied version of Gizmo5 sometime in the second half of next 2010 and with it a massive uptake in internet calling that will have huge implications for traditional voice carriers who rely on the lucrative international calling market to make their money.

Vodafone Says: Wanna Grab A Free HD2

So HTC have started shipping the high end Windows Mobile 6.5 HD2, packing a 4.3" WVGA screen and a Snapdragon processor its going to be Microsoft's best advocate for WinMo.

So its very good news for Microsoft that Vodafone has picked up the handset and is offering it for free on contract. Of course at £35 per month on a two year deal you're going to be paying well over the odds for what is a £500 phone.

Nonetheless if you can justify the contract price and you like the look of what HTC has done with the HD2 a trip to your Vodafone store might pay dividends.

O2 iPhone Unlock Legally Available

With the first iPhone 3G customers coming to the end of their 18 month contracts I was wondering how O2 were going to handle the thorny issue of unlocking handsets from O2 SIMs. Well all credit to O2 they've taken the bull by the horns and dealt with the issue in an exemplary manner.

This website contains a form that can be completed and submitted to O2 who will remove your SIM lock within 14 days (for free for contract customers, under £15 for PAYG customers who have been on the network for a year or more).

Now, shall I un-jailbreak mine so that I can unlock it officially, but lose even the rudimentary multi-tasking the jailbreak allows?

Maclaren Buggies Not Really At Fault

There's been something of a rumpus about Maclaren's decision to recall folding pushchairs in the US (after several children lost the tips of their fingers in accidents) and not to do the same in the UK.

Now these incidents only happen when the pushchair is being folded and lets be honest if you can't keep your children's hands out of the mechanism when you're in process of folding your pushchair you're probably going to struggle to keep them out of harm in pretty much any situation that life throws up.

Either way its not really Maclaren's responsibility...

Murdoch Slams Google, Doesn't Understood Internet

Rupert Murdoch's News International group of media companies encompasses everything from The Sun to the Wall Street Journal. Rupert Murdoch would very much like to find some way of charging people to read that content online.

His route to achieving this looks somewhat self-defeating, as first he rages against search engines and then promises to cut them off from his sites. So no News International links in web searches on Google? I'm not expecting that to go well.

I wonder if there's somewhere on Google that we can suggest removing News International from their results and help things along a little...

HD2 Shipping In The UK

The immense (in more ways than one) HTC HD2 has started shipping from Clove marking a new turn for Windows Mobile.

With its capacitive touchscreen the HD2 is the first Windows Mobile device to ship without a stylus or transcriber. This rather contradicts the advice given earlier this year from Microsoft which suggested that the Windows Mobile Logo program would require devices to retain both.

The HD2 looks to be on the point of making Windows Mobile sexy again. Although that seems to be as much to do with the way that HTC's Sense over-rides the standard Microsoft interface. What impact that will have on performance remains to be seen, as does HTC's long term commitment to the platform. Especially as its seeing its early lead in the Android space eroded by Motorola and Samsung with Acer and Sony-Ericsson waiting on the wings too.

Things I Do Like About Android

Having given Android a decent kicking last week for some of its failings I thought perhaps I should point out some of the things that Google (and Huawei it some instances) have got right.

I love the homescreen and its widgets. In particular I like the toggle switches which can be easily used to change system settings and radio states. The A2DP bluetooth always manages to reconnect the service when you get into the car and when playing music through a bluetooth source event notifications are rerouted through the Pulse's speaker, saving your hearing.

The pulldown windowshade style notification window is excellent and unobtrusive, whilst the rotation of the OS is quick and works with the great TouchPal keyboard to make data entry relatively painless.

There are some other failures worth mentioning too. No real Skype client and some fairly inconsistent IM and Twitter apps. None of the Market barcode scanning programs work with the Pulse - hopefully something that will be rectified soon.

Windows Mobile App Store Missing Almost Everything

If you were presented with a new Windows Mobile phone tomorrow and hunted through the available applications in the Windows Marketplace you'd probably guess that Windows Mobile was a new kid on the block and incredibly short of available applications.

In fact there are less than 150 listed - which seems an unfeasibly low number given the 20-30,000 that are available for the platform.

Which proves that Microsoft have either badly misjudged the entry requirements for the Marketplace or nobody cares enough about Windows Mobile to bother submitting the apps...

The iPhone Gets Rick-rolled

It's only a risk if you have a jail-broken iPhone, but it is certainly very funny. The first iPhone worm changes your desktop wallpaper to an image of his royal Astley-ness and then replicates onto other phones...

Could only be funnier if it set your ringtone to full volume, 'Never Gonna Give You Up' and disabled the send and end keys...

Google Following Wrong Upgrade Model For Android

If there's one area where Apple have unequivocally raised the bar in the smartphone arena then that has to be in the way that updates are handled.

The iPhone has a unique position in that all models get system updates irrespective of carrier, country or version. Its been relatively easier for Apple to achieve this as it doesn't licence its platform to other manufacturers, nonetheless this should surely be the goal for Google to achieve with Android. Its some way off that target if the truth be known.

With the first units of Motorola's DROID now shipping stateside there are four different revisions of Android on the market today, availability depending on what OEM, carrier and country your handset originates from.

Two of the major shortcomings which have affected Windows Mobile have been a lack of a cohesive interface and paucity of system upgrades. Two paths that Google seem to be wandering down almost blindly.

Whilst its good to learn from your mistakes, Google needs to realise its much better to learn from those of others...

Will Self: Condescending Arse

Just saying, that's all...

Microsoft Outsources Windows Mobile

This doesn't sound like especially good news for Windows Mobile as a platform, given that licensees are jumping ship to Android end masse. bSquare who were responsible for some of the early Windows Mobile reference platforms, have been given the license for the distribution and support of Windows Mobile by Microsoft.

Some commentators are seeing this as a sign that Microsoft's Zune will form the core of its handset strategy in the future, with Windows Mobile 7 becoming Zune Phone.

Android? More Like Metal Mickey

One week into the Android experiment and l have to report that the disappointments are coming thick and fast. How much is down to the Android version running on the Pulse and how much is inherently poor design choice on the part of the Android team is open to debate.

The Pulse hardware has not been the source of any problems - which is a surprise as a week ago that was my main concern.

Android Cupcake is a proper mess though. Take the Steel web browser. It renders pages well enough but lacks such niceties as bookmark folders and an integrated search bar. And it doesn't really run in the background. That's right, the big claim of multitasking is nonsense. Fire up a web page and then switch to another application, return to the browser and the page hasn't been loaded.

The Music player is not a patch on the iPhone's iPod application. It Force Closes on a regular basis and if you return to it from another application doesn't always return to the now playing screen. The two or three Last.fm scrobblers on offer in the market aren't brilliant either - causing force closes and on one occasion locking the Pulse so that I had to remove the battery to reboot it.

Google Maps on Android Cupcake lags behind both the Windows Mobile and iPhone versions and doesn't match up to Bing Mobile either.

The areas where the Pulse excels are mostly down to Huawei's add-on software - especially the Touch Pal keyboard which is just brilliant. I like the extended Canvas and Widcards too, but its the vanilla Android bits where the phone doesn't match up.

Overall then, I'm more than a little surprised at Android's issues. Its not as good at multitasking as Windows Mobile or WebOS. Its not as user friendly as the iPhone and its got issues all of its own.

Yet I can't help but feel that the platform has a huge amount of potential, potential that will get tapped as the phone makers start to get comfortable with the software and its foibles. I'd like to see how the Pulse measures up to Android 1.6 - if T-Mobile ever releases an update.

In the meantime I'll continue to tinker and see if those issues can't be worked around.

F1: Toyota Pulls Out, Sauber Back In

Its not entirely unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless, to see that Toyota has pulled out of F1 after what has to be considered a unsuccessful eight season run in the sport. Its estimated that Toyota's spend in that time was over $1bn and the best results gained in that time amount to a handful of second places, mostly scored by Jarno Trulli.

What's bad for Toyota's team in Germany is good news for Peter Sauber's boys at Hinwil who will now take their place on the grid after all, having initially been allocated 14th slot as first reserve. The team has a fine history in F1 and it would have been sad to see them lose their place on the grid so this can be considered something of a silver lining for F1 enthusiasts.

New HTC Ad Campaign Targets You

HTC's new marketing campaign has kicked off in the UK and, like the aforementioned DROID campaign that Verizon are running Stateside, its very much about bursting the iPhone bubble. Most notable is the way that the ads don't really focus on the phones, features or software but deliver a strong message about doing things your way, which I think works very well. With HTC moving away from operator branding of phones (Hero, Tattoo and Touch Pro 2 are all available from operators who would previously have rebadged them rather than leave the HTC logo in place) its important to position themselves as a brand - something both these ads achieve very well.

iDon't, Droid Does

Motorola's got Apple firmly in its sights for the new Droid. Apple fans will probably complain about taking digs at the competition, but then they lost the high ground on that one with the I'm A Mac ads.

F1: 2009 Top Ten Drivers

So the dullfest in Abu Dhabi brought the curtain down on a remarkable season with Brawn-Mercedes completing a fairytale debut season with a final podium courtesy of new champion Button's aggressive drive to third. So who were the real stars of 2009? Here's my top ten drivers who starred this year.

10. Vitantonio Liuzzi - Only two drivers jumped into a car partway through the season and impressed, Liuzzi's pace was good although its clear his luck hasn't changed for the better.

9. Nico Rosberg - A year that promised so much, Williams failed to capitalise on its double diffuser advantage but Rosberg always looked a class act. Will give Button some sleepless nights next season.

8. Kamui Kobayashi - About average in GP2, Kobayashi was stunning right from the get-go in F1. Chop on Nakajima in Brazil was amateurish but got away with it to score impressively in the season-closing twilight race.

7. Rubens Barrichello - Given the best car on the grid Rubens failed to shine and was blown away by his team-mate. Sound familiar? In truth he put in a some good races in the middle third of the season, but even so was lucky to find a drive at Williams for 2010.

6. Jarno Trulli - Four podiums and three front row starts, Trulli had a good season for Toyota, yet you feel that the team blamed him for their failure to win a race. Unfortunate Brazilian incident with Sutil soured the season, his fifth with the Japanese team. A link-up with Mike Gascoigne at Lotus next year is on the cards, which should suit both well.

5. Mark Webber - A win at last! Two in fact. Webber was shaded by Vettel for most of the season and but for his teammate's numerous errors the gap between them would have been wider. This was the Aussie's best season by some measure though and next year I'm expecting him to make another big leap forward.

4. Sebastian Vettel - A sublime season interspersed with some mistakes which probably cost him the title. Melbourne's collision with Kubica for example was avoidable and cost him podiums at both the first two races. Needs to remove the mistakes next year if he wants to take the title.

3. Kimi Raikkonen - The Finn blew his team-mates away all season, and the efforts of the luckless Badoer and Fisichella proved how bad a car the Ferrari was. The team's decision to pay him off makes no sense at all and if he does fetch up at Mclaren next year he'll no doubt make them regret that decision.

2. Jensen Button - World Champion, six victories, nine podium finishes and in the points in all bar one race. Button dominated his team-mate and made the most of his opportunities even mid-season when the weight of expectations started to weigh on his mind. A worthy champion and next season will tell if he can transcend the accusations of being a 'lucky' champion by virtue of his early season car advantage.

1. Lewis Hamilton - Having fallen into the best car with the best team and the best engine had tempered many people's opinion of Hamilton's skills, so the realisation that this year's silver arrow was more of a chrome plated bath-tap gave him the chance to prove his mettle. And boy did he deliver. Australian lying scandal aside he drove the wheels off the Mclaren in a manner that reminded of the late Gilles Villeneuve, natural ability transcending second rate machinery. In the second half of the season he top-scored and achieved two wins and five podiums against the odds. Yet it was the races he didn't win that made the point. At Monza, knowing that he had to beat Button to keep slim hopes of the title alive he was awesome and that he ended the race buried in the wall was further evidence of the spirit of Villeneuve. In Abu Dhabi a faulty brake disk robbed him of what would have been a simple victory, having qualified on pole by 0.7s - the sort of gap that has typically covered three quarters of the grid this year. Cemented his position as the new benchmark and the prospect of a Mclaren-Ferrari, Hamilton-Alonso battle in 2010 suggests a landmark season of racing coming up.

New Android Xperia Looks Slick

Sony-Ericsson are going through mobile OS's like they're going out of fashion. From UIQ to Windows Mobile, with a Touch of Symbian and now with the official announcement of the Xperia X10 running Android, they've completed the full set.

The X10 UI looks pretty slick and the phone is well-endowed in the processor (1GHz Snapdragon) and screen (4" FWVGA 852x480) departments. The camera is an 8.1 megapixel unit with all of S-E's Cybershot enhancements, which promises to push smartphone photography up to a whole new level.

There's been a lot of talk over the last few days of Android stealing mind-share from the iPhone. I think some of the new Android phones are certainly making a splash, but there's not really much Google or Android branding in evidence on marketing material for the DEXT, DROID and X10 for example. Google needs to address this if they aren't to see Android's branding diluted in the same way as Windows Mobile.

Here's the rather nice X10 promotional video, which Sony-Ericsson say will be a flagship for a whole range of Android phones...

Orange iPhone Deals Look... The Same As O2

Well looks like Orange didn't get the iPhone so that they could undercut O2 on price - in fact except on the lowest tariff (where you get double the minutes and texts) the two are less than £1 apart for an eighteen month contract. On Pay As You Go the prices are identical.

I wonder how many of the 250,000+ people who registered an interest in the iPhone on the Orange website will actually be converted to customers and how many were expecting to make a saving against O2's tariffs? I suspect more of the former than the latter.

I guess that when Vodafone get the iPhone early next year the story will be the same...

First Day With Android - Not All Good, Not All Bad

So I've survived 24 hours with Android and so far I've been half impressed, half appalled though its easy to see why people are flocking to the platform as a sort of anti-iPhone.

The Pulse's hardware has been surprisingly impressive - I think if I was being picky I might prefer the power and headphone sockets mounted flush at the top of the device, but I can see why some would go for the cover, its no deal breaker that's for sure. The screen is big and bright and quite responsive when you get used to it.

Some software 'features' have left me scratching my head though. For example, when you first set up your Gmail account email synchronisation is setup but you don't even get asked if you want to sync calendar and contacts - you have to set that up yourself. Not a big thing but not something that Apple would have missed I suspect.

I'm also a bit stunned to find that the browser doesn't support bookmark folders - or if it does I can't find them. Now I tend to have a fair few bookmarks and I wouldn't fancy scrolling through a single list to find them all, imagine if you stored hundreds of the things!

The browser defaults to a zoomed in view - the opposite of what happens with Safari or Opera and less intuitive I think - the top right hand corner of most web pages isn't generally where you'll find the content and a zoomed out initial view seems a better choice.

Better than the iPhone? Certainly in many ways, but there's an element of polish missing if its going to compete against that juggernaut. Better than Windows Mobile? Tough one that. They share many of the same virtues, but Microsoft has had longer to iron out the idiosyncasies. (Some more effectively than others)

On the whole though I think its fair to say I like what I've seen so far and can see plenty of potential in Android as a platform. Next stop, the Market and the choice of Android applications. I'll discuss those in another post...