Is there anybody out there?? CR-48 and Google TV update

Hi there,

This is my debut in blogging, so please be nice :).  I've had the curiosity to explore this, until now, unknown territory but I have never been brave enough. However, as the time has been passing the desire to write about anything has been increasing. So I started to think about what should I write about. And then I decided to write about what I feel more passionate about; and that is mobile technology.  After college I worked for Nortel Networks (now sadly been teared apart and officially bankrupted) and somehow I ended up working in a whole different industry, BI software. Anyway, I have always followed how mobile technologies and mobile operating systems have evolved. 

I brought up mobile operating systems because that is related to the first topic I would like to write about. There  has been so much fuzz about the mobile OS wars. Something like iOS vs the world. Let me get something clear. I don't think that affirmation is quite accurate. If we get the data we will see Symbian as the king of the world. Yeah I know Nokia has been losing some ground and the Symbian Foundation is not in its best shape but they still rule the world. Don't get me wrong, I don't like, at least not anymore, how they operate. In fact I currently own a Nexus One and I couldn't be more satisfied with my cellphone.

But let's start to talk about what the title was about. What is the matter with Google? Seriously, are they trying to take over the world?  This week I was lucky enough to get a CR-48 prototype in the mail. Wow, I was so excited to test this prototype. I still have some doubts about what is Google strategy for Chrome OS and Android. I think that in general they are targeting different markets; but at some point they are OS's that require being online everywhere and all the time. Would you prefer to carry a Chrome OS netbook or a new Stingray tablet? What is the future? Netbooks were really common some years ago but they never settled in and it seems that we are getting into the tablet era. Tablets have also existed for a while but it was not until the iPad arrived that everyone got interested in these devices. Apple may have a lot of defects but we have to admit that their marketing methods work.

So how good is the CR-48? It is plain good. We have to consider that this is a prototype and Google has implemented a good testing strategy by giving away a lot of devices. I know three people who received one as well. With this strategy I hope Google can get a lot of feedback and keep polishing the experience. So what is good about it and what is not that good? Well in terms of hardware it is a fairly solid device. It feels good in hand. It is very light and thin. Since we don't have any disc reader and it comes with a solid state drive, the noise keeps low most of the times. It is just when the fan comes in that it makes some noise; but really low as compared to any other notebook, netbook, laptop, etc. The keyboard is what I would point out about it. It is great that Google has simplified it a lot. Obviously there is no Windows key. The function keys are now gone and replaced with keys to control the brightness and volume. It also includes a reload button, a back and forward buttons, a full screen button and the power key. Finally, as you have read in many other sites, the caps lock key has been replaced with a 'search' key. Well, what would you expect from Google? Finally, the touchpad is one of those you would find in an Apple notebook. No buttons at all, huge in size and with two points of contact. I have never had one of this in my previous notebooks and getting used to the scrolling gesture and the RMC was no problem at all. 

The user experience can become frustrating some times. Flash performance is no good at all but at least Adobe has acknowledged it and is working on it. There are also some issues while loading some sites. In particular,  I have seen that Gmail gets stuck more often that what you would expect. The Google Talk webapp is also one of the things that crashes on a regular basis or just become unresponsive. Facebook for example crashes more often that it would display fine. Those are three things that I have seen tend not to work as well as you would like to. So if some sites work that bad, what is good about it? Well, for instance the CR-48 boots really fast. Even in cold start it takes barely 10 secs to boot up. In hot start it is almost instantaneous. Gone are the days to wait up for your notebook to get up and running. Another thing to highlight is that it synchronizes with your Google account. So if you installed one app using your CR-48 and then open your Chrome browser in your desktop machine, you will find it there installed as well. Not everything will work on your not-Chrome OS machine. For example, the Google Talk webapp is designed for the Google OS and it will not open in not-Chrome OS machines. Or for example, the IE Tab extension will not work in the CR-48 (pretty obvious right? considering it uses the IE installation which you do not have on your Google notebook). I know this synchronization is not something new but it is good to see that it works great. The other thing I really liked about the OS is one of is testing features. And that is a shortcut to report any issues that you may find. After clicking on it you will get redirected to a site asking you for feedback. You will need to specify the category where the issue belongs, give a description and you will have the option to include an email, url, system information and also a screenshot. I think this will give Google a strong feedback to help them polish the user experience. 


Moving forward, an update was pushed last week to Google TV devices. So what is included and what is still missing? Well, the thing that everyone is waiting for is still missing. No Android Market yet. What was included? Netflix got a revamped UI. If you have a PS3 you will be familiar with it. It is the same interface. The one which gives you the ability to search for movies and also add subtitles to some of the movies available in instant queue. The other thing that got updated was the PIP feature. Now you can resize and move the PIP window to the screen corner of your preference. Finally, one of the missing features got added. I know the Revue has had an Android and iPhone app for some time to control it. However, the owners of the Google TV Sony products were missing this feature. Now you can download the Android app from the market to control your device (iPhone users need to wait some time for it to be available in the Apple app store). The app works great but some people may have a hard time using the pad buttons. That is because you don't 'tap' the up arrow button to move up in the interface. Basically, you need to 'swype' the up arrow button to go up in the interface. I have read some people complaining about that but trust me, you get familiar in a couple of minutes. One other thing you get in the app is the ability to move the cursor using a 'touchpad' interface. If I can complain about one thing in the Sony remote is the 'mouse' button. It is hard just to control it. It is much easier to use the Android app so I really welcomed this feature. Another good thing about the  app is that you can paired more than one phone with your Google TV device. That means you can control Google TV with more than one device. That has some disadvantages and some advantages. Now you cannot steal the remote so that no one could change the channel. I also noticed the interface to be more responsive. What used to lag before feels more snappier. 


So that's it for today. I liked the experience of writing and I already have some thoughts on the Nook Color I am eager to share. Let's meet again in Another day in mobile tech...