...however VR capability is one of standard features of the commlink (4e) and second it still requires keypad/touch screen interaction which is why I still place it in the Pocket Secretary/HH Comp (albeit a top line one) class.

Ermm, it looks like a Treo or Blackjack.

I'm not dissing the design since I've got a Treo 650 but the form factor isn't particularly innovative. I'm not going to comment on the specs until it goes into production.

i partially agree with your argument, but the innovation in this case isn't the ergonomics or the phone design, its in the Operating System itself.

the 2 demo models aren't representative of what Android would be capable of, just contemporary examples in a simple design.

as for Android being dead, all the material I've read makes it seem like its just gone more under wraps and google is avoiding confrontation about it right now.

maybe I'm just hoping, but I think a truly open platform such as this can really revolutionize the wireless phone/internet networks

Well and good but your original post consisted of "looks wicked, very modern, very ergonomical, the I-Phone has nothing on this."

The biggest thing that Android has is the Google buzz and Google money. Google bought Android Inc., a company founded by Andy Rubin. Rubin also founded Danger, the maker of the Sidekick

Linux phones have been out since 2003, though mostly in Asia. In 2004, Motorola released one to the US market that included a Java VM with 3D support. The Open Moko project has been public for around a year with a cell phone with a fully exposed Linux OS, as well as developer kits including test hardware, available. Not as far along as Android but it doesn't have Andy's Danger/sidekick money.

Android isn't high profile because it's something new but because it is google.

I appreciate what the google hype machine can do for open platforms and I won't denigrate their platform, but they are just the latest of a long series of similar projects.

Eh? That's a very curious way of saying "because it involves a radically different interface", though I guess I can kind of see it, because that's ultimately what worked for the iPod as well.

~J

You apparently aren't familiar with the MacZealot phenomena. There are a core group of people who believe that Apple can do no wrong. They are generally professional types, often with an artsy bent, that can afford the apple surcharge. They are the same demographic as hybrid early adopters.

The Mac Zealot's disposable income provides a reliable core market that keeps Apple afloat. When apple does come up with some truly elegant design (e.g. the Ipod), they generate the word of mouth buzz.

The ipod was a great design because the interface was both grandmother-friendly and full featured (for an MP3 player). I personally feel the Iphone will be a lukewarm product in the long run b/c it is grandmother-friendly but limited in functionality compared to other smart phones. It does nothing that my several years old Treo 650 cannot. Someone has probably already written a touch gestures program.

Zealotry isn't limited to Apple; linux has their own Spanish Inquisition of open source proponents. The difference is that Mac Zealots revere elegance and refinement of design while Linux Zealots are about openness and efficiency. People who like elegant and refined design are simply more acceptable to the masses and are better and evangelizing.

Google doesn't have Zealots, AFAIK, but it has impressed the bulk of the internet, which gives Android quite a bit of marketing and political capital. Plus they are stoked with real cash-type capital. Buying Android & Rubin gives them technical capital with the handset vendors, since the Sidekick is a pretty successful product.

Plus Android give the handset vendors an alternate external platform they can use to manipulate Microsoft. Palm, I hate to say, has dropped the ball too many times and is small enough MS could buy them. Nobody's buying Google anytime soon.

I hope Android turns out to be good; I'd really like to load a Palm emulator (or the Linux/Palm environment) so I can keep my Palm apps. I don't care so much about the palm phone app or browser, I want my older apps.

I'm a Big Mac addict.

Not in this country.

You're hoping to open an open system (Internet) based around a closed system (telecommunications common carriers) which is operated by a handful of corporations in concert with the governments that are supposed to be regulating them (starting with the FCC and FTC) that are seeking to do the exact opposite actually be opened further, even to the point of encroaching on the larger system? What are you high?