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This is my main concern as I went through the technology news today. My 6600 (yeah old) has been begging for the bullet of mercy for quite a long time now. More than a year back, the zero button stopped working twice. Every time I show unmatched laziness to buy a new phone, and my phone somehow feels sorry and resumes it’s function few weeks later. For over six months now, it’s been going damn pretty slow I can hardly open any message, and friends ask me to accept MMS and applications from them! :). Pretty embarrassing for a geek!

So what’s holding me up from changing it? Well at first, I had many other stuff that I wanted more, and every time I buy one of them I feel the guilt, or sense of responsibility to save some and buy the phone the next month. The other thing is, I’ve been waiting for the phone that grabs all my attention. iPhone could’ve been a good candidate, but I like a camera on the go, I don’t wanna use a hacked phone that might stop working any day, I was expecting new release of it in a year, and then came the SDK announcement to stop my dreams. Nokia phones are good for a year or so, then you probably can’t sell it for 10 KD. Sony Ericcson’s got some good phones as well, but I never liked the button layouts. And then there is the HTC phone I kept thinking about. I didn’t like the fact it’s Windows based, but all have spoken great deal of it so far. You can get Google Maps on it and enable the GPS. Pretty good. But some HTC don’t have 3G with them, which is a shame not to have with a modern phone, and the ones that have are costly. Android ofcourse was a candidate, but it’s taking long time to come, so I wasn’t thinking of waiting for it. Also, I am a bit hesitated about the initial release of it. But…

Today I read this. HTC is coming up with their “dream” Android phone at end of this year. This seems like the best choice of mix for me now. But the big questions is “Can my phone hold up until the end of the year!?”. I doubt it.

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Rumors have floated blogs and news sites for months about an upcoming Google Phone. Some rumors were backed up also by solid proofs and it was just that Google officials didn’t like it that way. Now, Google are announcing their intention for open phone coalition. Current Google listed partners on this are Sprint, Motorolla (must be a thin phone!), Samsung, and NTT DoCoMo from Japan. The OS for that phone is so called now G-System, which is based on Linux (remember sometime back people talked about Google version of Linux… here it is!), and is promising to give internet access at PC-type speed. The phone will also be open for developers through developer tools to integrate and implement applications on top of it. Google here is playing it real smart, utilizing the love of the public to their advantage, contrary to what Jobs did to his fans for the initial launch. It didn’t stop them though from running even World of Warcraft did it?

No solid release date is given yet, but a worldwide shipping is planned for Spring. I somehow don’t feel like buying that promise, but it still raises the question. Shall I hold on to my half-dead Nokia 6600 until the Google Phone, or will it be a beta thing that is not worth the trouble?

[CORRECTION!] Contrary to all posts, Google have clarified there is not going to be a GPhone. Instead, there is going to be  Andriod, and Open Handset Alliance that is hoped to be the foundation for many new phones to come. A completely open platform for mobile devices that includes the operating system, user interface, and applications. What’s going to be unique about this platform is that all applications are treated equally. I.e., core phone apps and 3rd party apps have the same access to the phone’s capabilities, removing any borders on what developers can do. Mobile development has been a disputed area for quite some time, specially for J2ME apps which some kept promising will pick up, and up till now it didn’t as they’ve hoped for. If such a framework can give higher and more standard integration to phone capabilities, many among my selves are gonna be interested in giving it a thorough look.

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A friend of mine wrote this open letter to the Manager of Customer Service at Wataniya, in a hope to give slight better service to the other customers as he has left this company it seems for good. Customer service is known to be lousy in Kuwait, and some companies turn it into some kind of legal or justice department rather than customer service one. The guy here writes an open heart tensionless letter explaining his case and his opinion about addressing customer problems, even when the company could be right.

The net result of his problem is, the company preferred to take their deserved 3 months payment rather than keep the customer for another full year, or perhaps more as he will be happy. Some people have short term look at the business. A very short one. If I had a problem for 3 months, and now want to set things right in a way that would make me happy, and keep paying you for another full year, why would you rather take your 3 months payment now, and terminate my contract? This reminds me of how Bill Gates used to think. When you lose a deal, you lose double the amount of the deal. The actual amount you didn’t make, and the same amount that your competitor, Zain in this case, is going to make. And rest assure, the word of mouth spreads faster and affect more than any huge street campaign you make.

It was a fair decision. It was also unwise one for sure.

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Only once I was not shocked by PIXAR product, and this was when they released the Toy Story sequel only. I have seen all their movies and every time you see one you say “This is the top!”. Next movie proves you were wrong. What I love about this company is their patience and determination to bring something totally new every time. Just like Walt Disney used to be in the old days. Their start was with 3D animated commercials for outside companies. This is one of the ads they produced for a telecom service. Not sure when or who came up with idea, but the implementation is lovely. And it’s definitely a lot better than the classical ads we see.

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GrandCentral now is officially part of Google. Another acquisition that assures Google are getting into some telecom kind of world. GrandCentral is not a phone manufacturer but builds services above it. It basically ties all your phone numbers to one number. A number that will be tied to you for the rest of your life. You will no longer need a name or ID, just your phone number :) (Well the last part is a bit visionary). The service also allows you to check your messages by phone, email or online, and it adds other services on top of that as well.

So what do you think? Google will acquire wireless spectrum and… be a telecom service provider, launch with a service that will give you one number for all, offer discounted rates in exchange of SMS delivered ads, browse for FREE in exchange of delivered ads, get infinite GMail size and get messages on your phone, email or online. But wait, there is more. How about their affiliation with Apple? The possibilities are basically endless, and there definitely is something going behind the scenes.

So what does GrandCentral think about the acquisition? They seem to just love it.

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Rumors have spread all over the net few months back about Google phone. Some comments came from inside Google in this regard, before other officials also deny it. Google have been hiring many telecom and mobile expertise. Google said there is no phone coming it’s only for research so far. Now that Google has some partnership with Apple, perhaps they won’t go for phone, but to the underlying infrastructure. The claim here is that Google have requested from the Federal Communications Commission to obtaining wireless spectrum, the backbone of mobile-phone networks.

I am thinking of the endless possibility Google will have if they acquire this. How many new Ad channels they can make. (Who can outbid them in open auction?). Subscribe to low cost calls and get one SMS ad everyday. MMS, Wireless connections. This and much much more. Ofcourse in Kuwait this doesn’t make a difference, because telecom companies sell our phone numbers for companies and we receive SMS Ads all day. No one just cares about privacy or user rights!

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One of the challenges we face in Kuwait is fast and stable internet access. It’s not easy to get, which is why I pay $55/month for 256 DSL connection. I heard the prices went a bit down now though. Now that I have moved to a new area, I still don’t have phone lines (Fiber optics is still future in Kuwait), I had no other option but to use one of the internet services provided telecom companies. For EDGE service with Excellent reported connection status and claimed 220 kbps, this is the PING reply I got last night:

Pinging google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=2152ms TTL=236
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=3176ms TTL=236
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 2152ms, Maximum = 3176ms, Average = 2664ms

When was the last time you saw such ping reply time of 4 digits, and from whom? from Google! with 50% packet loss. All I hardly could do is open light text based pages, after long wait! The cost of this service is 14 KD (~=$48) and they intend to be DSL replacements. In a new area at the middle of the night, I don’t expect there should be that much high traffic affecting the network. I also tried the same connection in different areas at various times. My brother changes his mind when he saw it. He was about to grab one him self. So sad really. I can’t wait to get a phone line and enjoy my life again. For now, I have spare time for some quite book reading at late nights, but that still doesn’t bring full satisfaction.

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