Before you you rush out and and sign a contract to get your hands on that hot new Droid handset in a couple of days, consider this: If you want our of the contract, you’ll have to pony up as much as $350 to leave the dark helmeted one’s network. The ETF will decline by $10 a month. That means you’ll still pay as much as $120 to leave in the last month of a two year contract.

The carrier is raising early termination fees on Novermber 15 to $350 for “advance devices” only. Clearly VZW is targeting users who were abusing the buy one get one free BlackBerry deals and those that figured out that it was cheaper cancel their current contract and pay the $175 ETF than to pay full retail for the hot new handsets like the Droid. (Mobilecrunch)

How’ that much ballyhood “network neutrality” for mobile really working out? As long as carriers can lock devices to their networks, and keep other compatible devices out, the marketplace will never work for the consumer. While there’s been plenty talk from the almighty FCC about addressing this, no real action has been taken.

Wireless carriers, which have been among the fiercest opponents of such regulation, continue to restrict what kind of data travels over the airwaves they control. For example, earlier this year, AT&T restricted an Internet-phone service from Skype so iPhone users couldn’t place calls on AT&T’s cellular network. At the time, AT&T cited network congestion concerns.

“We believe that this kind of regulation is unnecessary in the competitive wireless space as it would prevent carriers from managing their networks — such as curtailing viruses and other harmful content — to the benefit of their consumers,” said Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA, the wireless industry’s trade group.

If the FCC does force U.S. wireless carriers to open their networks to data-heavy applications like streaming video, it could push them beyond the limited capacity they have. Already, in areas like New York and San Francisco, a high concentration of iPhones has caused many AT&T customers to complain about degrading service.

In such a scenario, wireless carriers may have to rethink how much they charge for data plans or even cap how much bandwidth individuals get, said Julie Ask, a wireless analyst at Jupiter Research.

Granted, the FCC proposals that are supposed to be released tomorrow have some far ranging effects. The Boss covered it in a prior posting from the ISP point of view. But wireless would be effected by this as well.

There has been a minor snit going on with iPhone/AT&T and the Skype folks. Skype has developed an app for iPhone to provide VoIP service on the data channel. Google has similar GoogleTalk for Android (though not available for T Mobile). Well the new rules would change all that.

The carriers would finally have to face the fact that voice as a channel is dead. If they do, we will see a major alignment in their pricing plans post haste. Which should bring a major consumer battle to the fore. I the iPhone user will make the claim that I am permitted to use Skype on the data channel as I wish at the old contracted rate for my plan. The Carriers will of course say the presence of Skype on the device voids the contract and the new rates apply. Figure a nice lawsuit will ensue.

But the bigger problem for the carriers is investment. They need to get bigger pipes out on the ether. But in this economy they are loathe to pay for the capital investment to make a go of it. Even in major urban centers like NYC there are congestion problems on the AT&T network, a problem that will probably persist for quite some time.

Tomorrow should be interesting!

Linky.

In the last two weeks there has been a lot of buzz on the RSS and Twitter feeds about the new Android Scripting Environment. If its a lot of volume, and this is, its usually one of two things — either this is a ‘Big Thing’ or its from Google. Well it is from Google. But it could also be a ‘Big Thing’ –

The Android Scripting Environment (ASE) brings scripting languages to Android by allowing you to edit and execute scripts and interactive interpreters directly on the Android device. These scripts have access to many of the APIs available to full-fledged Android applications, but with a greatly simplified interface that makes it easy to:

• Handle intents
• Start activities
• Make phone calls
• Send text messages
• Scan bar codes
• Poll location and sensor data
• Use text-to-speech (TTS)
• And more

Scripts can be run interactively in a terminal, started as a long running service, or started via Locale. Python, Lua and BeanShell are currently supported, and we’re planning to add Ruby and JavaScript support, as well.

Here’s the deal. If you wanted to do development on Android you set up a box to do the development on. Wrote your apps, did the integration, cloned it then put the result to your target platform. Not impossible stuff but involved and required more assets to do the job. With ASE you are liberated from that.

For an application developer that means they can write a python app in ASE. So long as they keep in mind the limitations of each of the intended target platforms (not all platforms are required to maintain the same suite of APIs) then their code can run on all of them! So the flash app you saw on the coke machine could be downloaded and be running on your ASE enabled HTC handheld or netbook of the future. That is the ‘Big Thing’ about ASE.

But it also brings the world of Legacy Python, LUA and BeanShell to the Android world. Were I Apple, this announcement (June 8 ) would make me extremely nervous. This is a platform environment with no lock-in. We know how that battle usually ends up don’t we?

Read the announcement here.

Code named Rosie, this variant of the Android platform is being developed to run on all of the HTC based products as a common baseline. What is also interesting is the fluid look of the widgets.

Android is live and kicking.

Linky.

We had alluded to the fact that third party VoIP modules on smart phones won’t last long, here. Well it looks like it is just about there. The folks at Google and Microsoft have blinked. Don’t discount the Telcos they have the best legal talent that phone call money can buy. –

surrender_itsgregIf you think Google, Microsoft and Apple are bad-ass, cutthroat, take-no-prisoner companies, you should meet the nation’s wireless carriers, who have collectively convinced those intensively competitive software giants to cripple their products.

Need any more proof that the nation’s four largest wireless carriers - AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile - have too much control over the airwaves, what phones you can use and what applications you can run on them?

Look no further than Microsoft’s release this week of its 12 commandments for developers (.pdf) working on apps for the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and for its Windows Mobile Marketplace — it’s upcoming iPhone app store competitor. Number 4 rule? Don’t make apps that let users make phone calls using the mobile phone carrier’s data connection.

That restriction joins Microsoft to Google and Apple, all of which now all block true VOIP apps in their online marketplaces where users can quickly buy trusted apps from third-party developers. That means no Skype, or at least only Skype when your iPhone has a WiFi connection, or only Skype-Lite which uses your phone’s minute plans.

This was to be expected from the commercial side of the IT industry. I hope at this point Google fully understands exactly WHY they needed that 700mhz spectrum now. You can rest assured that the smaller smartphone development houses won’t take up this cause. They don’t have the financial-legal wherewithal to go into protracted court combat.

Nope the challenge will come, if at all, from overseas. Some Indian dude will whip up an app for Android that will use the data channel for voice traffic. It will leak out and take hold for a certain segment of the population. The problem will only be resolved if such a piece of software were to come on like gangbusters. Like it started on 500 smartphones today, its on 5,000,000 by the end of a month.

So much for open competition.

Linky.

[attribution: Register Hardware]

I say thanks since the third iteration of the HTC series looks very much like a iPhone in form factor. With competition on the horizon Apple has only two ways to go — more features or lower prices. Or of course both.

One item of acknowledgment to Apple; you killed the keyboard on portables. Not that they have gone away only that the preponderance of new models coming out less and less don’t sport a physical keyboard.

As to the HTC device. Details are sketchy other than the photos. Sources say Q3, maybe.

Linky.

… Or, What is a Trademark for $6m Alex? Well that is the battle that is going down between Erich Specht and Google, plus multiple other defendants. –

To Erich Specht, a software developer and internet applications service provider in the Village of Palatine, Illinois, Android is the part of the name of his company, Android Data, for which he was granted a trademark in October of 2002 by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Google applied for a trademark for Android in October of 2007, but had that application denied in February of 2008.

The USPTO’s reasoning for the denial was simple: Since both Google and Specht were involved in the development of software and related services, “consumers are likely to conclude that the goods are related and originate from a single source.”

Google countered in August, claiming that the trademark Android Data hadn’t been used for over three years, that the company has been dissolved for over four years, and that there couldn’t be any confusion between the two names.

I’ll back Specht on the basis that he did the proper legwork in registering the mark. Fact bad Google for not doing the minimalist of preliminary name search. They have a gaggle of lawyers for that purpose. My only angst with Specht is that it appears he took hiatus with his plans. He should have released it or if he was a gentlemen he would have recognized he wasn’t going forward and just worked out a deal to recoup his costs and sell it to Google.

What I have more heartburn with is the use of the word Android. That term has been around since the 50’s in science fiction literature. What would happen to the English language is every time an author defined a new term he/she immediately trademarked it? Bottom line is it would die. We have reached the point that commercial forces are shrinking the public square of free expression.

Linky.

Steve Ballmer, slapping a Windows Home Server sticker on his forehead is not going to solve the problem with Windows Mobile. It needs to decide what it wants to be but Microsoft really wants it to be everything to everyone. Problem is the smartphone OS’s are creeping into its niche at an alarming rate and there seems to be no plans to stop the onslaught –

Chris Kemp, chief information officer of NASA’s Ames Research Center, broke it down for Ballmer when he asked how he could realistically stand behind Windows Mobile when his employees are bringing iPhones and Androids in to work. Kemp pinned Ballmer down at Microsoft’s Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond, Washington, after the MVP event on Wednesday.

“In your presentation you put Windows Mobile right in the center there, but it was a phone that doesn’t work in America and an operating system that you haven’t released. I’m wondering what your commitment is to continuing to get newer versions of the operating system in our hands so that we don’t have to fight this battle on the ground,” Kemp reportedly asked.

Ballmer was forced to concede the up-coming version of Windows Mobile, version 6.5, will fall short of what the company should be delivering in the face of the iPhone and Android.

“We have a significant release coming this year. Not the full release we wanted to have this year, but we have a significant release coming this year with Windows Mobile 6.5,” Ballmer replied.

Ballmer was forced into a fallback position, talking of problems as “opportunities”.

“opportunities”? Android and iPhone are cleaning MS mobile space clock. At some point Microsoft has to make a decision like most major companies. If you are not number 1 or 2 in a market segement you have a painful decision as to when you get out. Give it a year, two max and MS will have to make that decision.

Linky

Man it is getting better all the time! We had suggested about 7 months ago that the killer netbook would be both a compute and comm device rolled into one. What better way to achieve that than to roll Android into the mother, add the 3G chips and have at it! –

Asus is believed to be planning to run Google’s Android on its notebooks. This shows the reach of Google Android and how it can affect Microsoft operating system in the future.

Details are dang sketchy at this point. But if true this lays the groundwork for quite a machine. It also poses a threat to Microsoft. If Android can spread the breath of smart phone - PDA/MID - netbook then Microsoft’s small device strategy is tatters. As a development house why spend time and manpower having to know three different OS platform choices when I could interoprate on all three using nearly the same tool set. Worse yet, offer the same software product to the user across all those platforms for one price.

Linky.

HTC did a joint announcement with Vodafone at MWC in Spain on the pending G2 handset. Unlike G1 it will be sans a keyboard but Android based. –

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HTC, Vodafone Show World’s Second Googlephone
By Charlie Sorrel EmailFebruary 17, 2009 | 11:15:08 AMCategories: Googlephone

Htc_android1

BARCELONA — The only Googlephone to appear at the Mobile World Congress couldn’t even be bothered to turn up in person. HTC and Vodafone made a joint announcement Tuesday of their forthcoming Android-based Magic, formerly known as the G2, but all they provided were tantalizing specs and a few images.

The handset is notable for a few reasons. First, it looks a lot nicer than the G1 from T-Mobile. Second, the Magic will be almost completely exclusive to Vodafone (the Magic will be on Vodafone in the UK, Spain, Germany and France; and non-exclusively on Vodafone in Italy). And third, it’s the first Android phone without a keyboard.

The Magic will be touchscreen-only. There is still a little navi-nipple like the G1, but the hard QWERTY keyboard on the T-Mobile G1 is gone, leaving only a 3.2-inch, 320×240-pixel screen. The phone also has a 3.2 MP camera, Wi-Fi and GPS.

Like the G1, it will support a wide range of Google applications, including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk and YouTube videos.

The Magic will also support video recording and playback.

At the phone’s launch, Vodafone’s Patrick Chomet called it the “the thinnest, nicest Android-powered device on the market.” This is a somewhat empty claim, seeing as there is only one other Android handset out there. Still, if Vodafone doesn’t pump the tariffs here in Spain like Telefónica did with the iPhone, I might just be buying it. If it ever turns up.

No particulars as to when then might show up on the American market.

Linky.