Google’s G1: First Impressions

Google’s new G1 phone announced today is the first real competitor to the iPhone. Like Apple’s product, it’s a serious handheld computer with a powerful new operating system (called Android) and a clever touch-based user interface. Like the iPhone, it’s likely to be a major new platform for third-party software. But it’s also very different, and may appeal to different buyers.

The phone, expected to be the first of many to use the Android operating system, was largely designed by Google, and was built by HTC of Taiwan. It will be sold in the U.S. starting next month by T-Mobile, for $179 with a two-year contract.

Here are some first impressions of the G1, based on some experience with a prototype. This isn’t a full review; that will come later, when I’ve had a chance to use a more finished device.

Most importantly, the G1 complements its touch screen with a physical keyboard, the lack of which has made the iPhone a non-starter for some users. The G1’s keyboard is revealed when you slide open its screen. The keys are a bit flat, and you have to reach your right thumb around a bulging portion of the phone’s body to type, but it’s a real keyboard. And there’s also a BlackBerry-like trackball that supplements the touch screen navigation. I found typing on this keyboard to be OK, but not great.

A second big feature, or limitation, of the G1 — depending on your point of view — is that it is tightly tied to Google’s web-based email, contacts and calendar programs. In fact, you must have a Google (GOOG) account to use the phone, and can only synchronize the phone’s calendar and address book with Google online services. Unlike the iPhone, it doesn’t work with Microsoft Exchange, and it can’t physically be synced with a PC-based calendar or contacts program, like Microsoft Outlook.

So, if your world already revolves around Google services, you may find that the G1 fits like a glove. If not, you may be disappointed.

Also, like the iPhone, the G1 has a download service for third-party programs, called Market. I downloaded a couple of simple Market programs and they worked fine.

The G1 won’t win any beauty contests with its Apple (AAPL) rival. It’s stubby and chunky, nearly 30% thicker and almost 20% heavier than the iPhone. It’s a bit narrower — more like a standard phone than a “smart phone” — and longer, but has a somewhat smaller screen.

Still, it feels pretty good in the hand when closed, although I found it more awkward when opened.

But the software is slick. Programs appear in a virtual drawer you slide open via a tab at the bottom of the screen, and notifications of new messages and the like can be read by sliding the top bar of the screen down. The screen and software were quick and responsive.

The web browser is based on the same open-source technology as the iPhone’s, but works differently. You can view a portion of a page, and use a zoom control and finger-dragging to see the rest, or you can view the whole page in miniature, as on the iPhone. In the latter mode, however, you can’t simply use Apple’s technique of tapping or “pinching” to zoom in on a portion of a page. You must move around a virtual lens to pick out a part of the page on which to focus.

There are two email programs: one for Google’s Gmail, another for all other email services. There’s an instant messaging program, that works with multiple services — not just Google’s. And, as on the iPhone, there are programs for using Google Maps and Google’s YouTube video service. The G1’s Google Maps program has a feature lacking in the iPhone version: photographic street views of some locations.

The G1 has a couple of other things the iPhone omits: copy and paste functionality and a so-called MMS program, which sends photos to other phones without using email. Its camera is higher-resolution than the iPhone’s, but, like Apple’s, doesn’t record video.

It also gives you far more flexibility in organizing your desktop, or home screen, than the iPhone, or almost any phone I’ve seen. In addition to placing icons for programs there, you can place everything from individual contacts, music playlists, folders, web pages, and more.

The G1’s multimedia capabilities are less polished and complete than the iPhone’s. There’s a very basic music player, and a built-in version of Amazon’s MP3 download service that works fine. But the G1 lacks a built-in video player — you have to download one from the third-party software store. Also, you cannot use standard stereo headphones with the G1. You need special ones, or an adapter.

And it lacks the iPhone’s ability to change the orientation of a web page or photo by just turning the phone. You also can’t move through groups of photos by just “flicking,” as on the iPhone.

The G1 also has much less memory than the iPhone. The base $199 iPhone comes with 8 gigabytes sealed in, but the G1 comes with just a 1 gigabyte memory card. Its maximum memory, if you buy a bigger card, is 8 gigabytes, while the iPhone can be purchased (for $299) with twice that.

T-Mobile is claiming similar talk time to that of the iPhone, but, unlike Apple’s product, the G1 has a removable battery.

Finally, a word about networks. In the U.S., the G1 will initially only be available on T-Mobile, whose high-speed 3G network will be up and running in many fewer cities than those of its larger rivals, AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ). Like the iPhone, the G1 does have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

In sum, the G1 is a powerful, versatile device which will offer users a real alternative in the new handheld computing category the iPhone has occupied alone.

Bringing history online, one newspaper at a time

For more than 200 years, matters of local and national significance have been conveyed in newsprint -- from revolutions and politics to fashion to local weather or high school football scores. Around the globe, we estimate that there are billions of news pages containing every story ever written. And it's our goal to help readers find all of them, from the smallest local weekly paper up to the largest national daily.

The problem is that most of these newspapers are not available online. We want to change that.

Today, we're launching an initiative to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives. Let's say you want to learn more about the landing on the Moon. Try a search for [Americans walk on moon], and you'll be able to find and read an original article from a 1969 edition of thePittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Not only will you be able to search these newspapers, you'll also be able to browse through them exactly as they were printed -- photographs, headlines, articles, advertisements and all.

This effort expands on the contributions of others who've already begun digitizing historical newspapers. In 2006, we started working with publications like the New York Times and theWashington Post to index existing digital archives and make them searchable via the Google News Archive. Now, this effort will enable us to help you find an even greater range of material from newspapers large and small, in conjunction with partners such as ProQuest and Heritage, who've joined in this initiative. One of our partners, the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, is actually the oldest newspaper in North America—history buffs, take note: it has been publishing continuously for more than 244 years.

You’ll be able to explore this historical treasure trove by searching the Google News Archive or by using the timeline feature after searching Google News. Not every search will trigger this new content, but you can start by trying queries like [Nixon space shuttle] or [Titanic located]. Stories we've scanned under this initiative will appear alongside already-digitized material from publications like the New York Times as well as from archive aggregators, and are marked "Google News Archive." Over time, as we scan more articles and our index grows, we'll also start blending these archives into our main search results so that when you search Google.com, you'll be searching the full text of these newspapers as well.

This effort is just the beginning. As we work with more and more publishers, we'll move closer towards our goal of making those billions of pages of newsprint from around the world searchable, discoverable, and accessible online.

Chrome Strong Against Firefox And Safari, IE Untouched

Even though Google's Chrome has been publically available for less than a week, its Web browser market share has already reached over 1 percent.

According to reports from Market Share and Stat Counter, the new Web browser from Google is making inroads into relatively well established browser turf. As of 2 p.m. EDT, Market Share reports that Chrome usage was at 1.03 percent, down from its high watermark of 1.57 percent set at 4 a.m. EDT on Thursday morning. Stat Counter notes that the global market share for Chrome is at 1.15 percent on September 4.

Interestingly, Stat Counter takes the analysis a step further and reports that Chrome is grabbing worldwide Web browser market shares from Safari and Firefox.

On September 3, the day Chrome was announced and launched to the public, Firefox's market share dipped 0.82 percent, while Safari dropped 0.21 percent, giving Chrome a 1.11 percent share on the day. A day later, Chrome was up 0.04 percent while Firefox fell another 2.28 percent. Safari remained consistent with the day before, losing 0.22 percent.

Interestingly enough, the only browser that grew in the Web browser market was Internet Explorer, according to Stat Counter.

Internet Explorer, which recently launched IE8 beta 2, grew 0.23 percent on September 3 and posted even bigger gains on the fourth, ballooning an additional 3.06 percent.

Open source enthusiasts and Firefox advocates might be worried that Google's Chrome seems to be taking the biggest bite out of Firefox's market share, especially considering how long and hard Mozilla has fought for its browser to be more widely accepted.

But it's important to note that Chrome, less than a week old, has just over 1 percent of the browser market and is still a beta. While the might Google brings to table may eventually begin to shift what people use to browse, it will likely be a slow process.

More to the point, Mozilla's CEO John Lilly isn't worried about Chrome entering the landscape. In fact, he welcomes it.

Writing in a blog post earlier this week, Lilly characterized Google's move as "inevitable." Lilly went on to write that "even in a more competitive environment than ever, I'm very optimistic about the future of Mozilla and the future of the open Web."

Microsoft's Web browsing program remains the overall leader in the market with 72.15 percent of all browsers using a form of Internet Explorer; Firefox comes in second at 19.73 percent; while Safari has 6.34 percent, according to Market Share.

Google launches Microsoft’s big fear

They do things differently in Mountain View.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

In depth: Browser battles - Sep-03

Google sees new browser as defensive move - Sep-03

Chrome outshines rivals to become fastest browser - Sep-03

Google’s latest move keeps techies guessing - Sep-02

Tech blog: Top Ten thoughts on Google Chrome - Sep-03

Lex: Google/Microsoft - Sep-02

After years spent denying that it was working on its own internet browser, Google this weekunveiled, ahem, its own internet browser. “It just happened to migrate from being false to being true,” Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, said airily.

Mr Brin, who had the dishevelled look of the true software engineer, spoke at a press conference at Google’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley town to unveil Chrome.

Chrome is free so I downloaded it and took a look. I concluded that it lacks some basic browser features and is not obviously better than the alternatives, notably Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox.

“I think it is a web browser. I don’t think it is the first or the best browser,” says Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, which is now in its eighth iteration.

If one accepts the first part of that statement, it is hard to quarrel with the second. Without Google’s name on Chrome, I doubt whether many people would bother to switch.

The problem is that the first part is not the whole truth. In fact, Chrome’s ambiguity is what makes it so threatening for Microsoft, perhaps not today or tomorrow but in the next few years.

For Chrome is not only a browser: it is also a web platform. Chrome is, in fact, what Bill Gates feared in 1995 when he wrote a memo to Microsoft executives about Netscape Navigator, then the leading web browser. Mr Gates warned that Netscape could “commoditise the underlying operating system” – in other words, render Windows irrelevant.

Mr Gates’ paranoia about his biggest franchise, and Netscape’s exaggerated claims that it might do this, led to the “browser wars” of the 1990s. Microsoft pushed Internet Explorer so hard that it got into trouble with the competition authorities in the US and Europe.

At the time, Microsoft’s claim that its web browser was part of its operating system was self-serving baloney. With the arrival of Chrome, however, it has migrated from being false to being true.

Google’s engineers made the most this week of how well and fast Chrome displays web pages, especially those with Javascript, the software used most for video. That may be true but Firefox, with which Chrome has elements in common, already runs pretty snappily.

In my view, what makes Chrome stand out is the way that it deals with web services, such as online mail, word processing and spreadsheet packages.

Most people still use desktop-based software such as Microsoft Word, Outlook and Excel for these tasks but some are migrating. If you use different computers – in the office or at home, for example – web-based applications are more convenient because your documents are stored remotely on servers run by Google, Yahoo or others. Provided you have an internet connection, you can work anywhere.

Web applications such as Google Docs or Mail, or Yahoo’s Zimbra, have other advantages. They are upgraded constantly without your having to worry about buying the next version, and they are free. They are less sophisticated than traditional software but good enough for many tasks.

As a result, I am a convert to web applications: this column was written on Google Docs. But they have, until now, faced the problem that they span the divide between web pages and software applications – they are a little bit of both – so computers do not display them well.

Chrome solves that problem by treating web applications differently: it lets you open them in their own application-like windows while internet sites are displayed in browser tabs.

It is hard to imagine this without trying it out – which I encourage you to do – but the effect of Chrome is like having a substitute desktop on your screen. If you use a browser and web applications for most things, then your work can be arrayed entirely within Chrome.

Chrome jostles up against Windows on the screen, with Chrome’s line of browser tabs at the top rivalling Windows’ task bar at the bottom. You need not be Bill Gates to grasp the significance of this – or, more accurately, the potential significance.

Chrome’s biggest flaw is that it is built for the world as it could be rather than the world as it is. Sundar Pichai, the head of the Chrome programme, says he does “pretty much everything inside a browser” already, but he is hardly the average consumer.

Still, I would not take much comfort from that if I were Microsoft. Mr Gates turned his company upside down 15 years ago because he grasped what the internet might do to his business. He may have been right too early, and have overreacted, but his instincts were good.

Chrome is not going to replace Windows. A computer requires an operating system such as Windows, Apple’s OS X or Linux to make the machine work. It does, however, have the potential to do what Mr Gates feared: make the choice of operating system less important.

It is perfectly plausible that, in a few years’ time, a lot of people will have switched to using web applications rather than relying on software on their hard drives. If so, a computer running Linux and an improved version of Chrome could be all they will need.

Like many Google initiatives, Chrome is as much a philosophy as a product. And the philosophy is: never mind the computer, the action is on the internet. That is getting truer by the day.