If I had a Hammer…

Google is quickly catching up to Apple’s iOS in terms of professional developer mindshare, so with the introduction of the App Inventor for Android they may have opened up the market to the hobbyist-developer.  It’ll be interesting to see if this tool has the support and flexibility to make this a success, while keeping bloated apps and potential security issues down to a minimum. Regardless, it has to be more capable than the RSS-to-App alternatives.

Good job Google! Here’s hoping for a few heart-warming, garage-entrepreneur stories coming from this announcement…

We Love to Talk

There’s more to be done with voice.

That was said by Nokia’s former CEO, Jorma Ollila. In 2006.

Apple and HTC+Android are getting steady reminders lately about why they are still called phones, and an even bigger reminder that Americans still love to talk more than anything.

But seriously, did anyone else scratch their heads when Jobs explained the new iPhone antenna? While not an antenna engineer, I still know enough of this black magic to wonder, “What happens when you touch the metal?” Sadly, it appears as though I might have a future in the dark arts. Considering the amount of testing that ATT requires, this must have been a known issue prior to market launch. So what happened?  Was this design taking priority over performance at Apple? Was ATT seeing market pressure from Verizon-Android offerings that pushed them to rush this through? Did Apple just succumb to hitting a date expected by the market?

I’m curious. If anyone has some insider info here, please let me know…