Saturday, June 30, 2012

How Do You Feel After Google I/O?

After seeing Google I/O keynotes, how do you feel as Google user? There is a reason why I ask this question. A lot of negative rumors could be heard recently: Samsung is investing in their own mobile OS; Kindle stole Android's market, which was anyway small because of iPad; Android platform is fragmented; nobody uses Google+; and gremlins were found in most products. And then I/O happened.

After seeing all product announcements, I'm reassured that people who know what they are doing run the company. They didn't just answered most of those issues, but also provided bunch of surprises up their sleeves. I'm not talking about presentation where nobody could touch anything; they handed over working devices and software to the audience.

If I have to single out one thing: Project Glass demo was fantastic. In case you missed it, there is recording on YouTube, but here is the short version: it was insane relay race started by sky divers, continued by bicyclists jumping from one part of the roof to another, taken over by free climber to lower level of the conference center and finished by cyclists doing high-speed evasive maneuvers through crowd inside, all the way to the stage. All this was transmitted from glasses they wore to Google+ hangout. Technology is not so far in the future anymore: developer release will be available at the beginning of the next year. Commercial availability is planned for 2014.

But every happy event contains a pinch of the opposite, and this one was no exception. Nexus Galaxy sales is stopped in US; Chrome browser crashes MacBook Air.

Apple managed to ban sales of Google Galaxy Nexus due to patent infringement. Here is their statement:

It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and
even the packaging. This kind of
blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.
While older Samsung phones indeed liked like iPhone ripoff, they are here talking about Google Nexus, which had completely different design. Combining this with stock Android vs iOS, I find aforementioned statement ridiculous. Devices and their operating systems couldn't be confused even by blind person. I don't dispute their right to protect their patents, just their laughable statement.

Second incident reminded me of scuba diving training: if you make single mistake, nothing bad will happen. If you make two, you can get killed. Two companies made mistake this time: Google had resource leak in Chrome and Apple had bug in OS part that should shield kernel from buggy applications. There was similar situation recently, when Google intentionally used security hole in Safari to set cookies. Another warning to Apple users not to take security lightly and rely too much on their vendor to shield them from everything. Software gets more and more complex; mistakes will happen.

I will now enjoy ice cream sandwich while it lasts.

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