I remember about a decade ago reading about NTT DoCoMo and all the sweet things their customers could do with their phones.
Around the same time, a newish wireless protocol called Bluetooth was on the rise, and aside from enabling printing over the air (squee!), it promised to empower these magical phones with mobile wallet and virtual purchasing capabilities.
I looked at my StarTac and thought, at least it fits in my pocket. And who in America needed all that jazz anyway? We were just getting super-fast DSL (800 kbps!) and had laptops that weighed under 20 pounds. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
So. very. jealous.
Fast forward to now, and the future has finally arrived.
Mobile moves so fast now, that the phone you got for Christmas, just over a month ago, might not even on sale anymore. Unless it’s an iPhone 4. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Mobile hardware and software are leaping ahead, and the competition between carriers, hardware and software companies benefits consumers immensely. Now is a great time to be agnostic because a) you’ll save money and b) you never know who will come to market with the next killer app or feature.
And now, mobile includes phones and tablets, and today’s Honeycomb event showed off Android entry into that fray.
And it was pretty awesome. The video should be up soon on the Android YouTube channel.
Update: The event recording is live now.
In addition to the Honeycomb demo, Google showed Android Market enhancements that are long-overdue, specifically in-app purchases (a revenue mainstay for iOS developers), currency tweaks and the Android Web Store for browsing, buying and OTA installing of Android apps.
As of now, I’m able to do everything but buy an app, which is currently creating an infinite loop of authentication. That will be fixed soon.
But wait, there’s more. Yesterday, a demo of the BlackBerry Playbook surfaced. Looks fine, but you need a BlackBerry to sync to it. All the time. Seems like a feature built for IT, not for users.
I could go on, but why. As I write this, more is getting leaked and announced every minute, like today’s announcement of The Daily, the first tablet, erm iPad, magazine.
It’s like a never-ending stream of awesome, if you love this stuff like I do.
The future is now. No, sorry, it’s now.
Find the comments.
Oh thanks, i appriciate that!