If you’ve not been living under a rock these last few days (or weeks, even), you’ll know that Google has just announced (and released) its first ever mobile phone. Called the Nexus One, it represents Google’s vision of what an Android phone should be. And I’m pretty sure the sotfware is OK. It’s just that I find myself not liking the phone exterior design. I know I’ve dismissed Apple products as ’style over substance’ in the past, but this thing looks like the HTC Touch from 2007. It might look a little better in real life, but the official stills look decidedly unexciting to me.

At the same time, HTC, who make the Nexus One, have a phone in their portfolio that looks a lot more like what I’d expect from a Google Phone. Its HD2 is a very sexy device that coincidentally has pretty much identical specs compared to the Nexus. It looks nothing like HTC’s other phones, yet runs boring old Windows Mobile. I’m telling you, these two devices were switched a birth. Somewhere deep inside HTC’s Taiwan development labs, a very sexy, top secret new Google Phone was designed, but delivered to the wrong software department. Meanwhile, the next boring Windows device was handed to the Android people.

Despite its bland looks, I’ll probably still get a Nexus One. I’ve been putting off getting an Android phone for way too long, and this is the new king of hill. But I’ll probably regret the terrible mixup for as long as I have it…

There are three corporate giants that dominate tech news. All of them have recently made headlines with innovative new products, and all of them have a dedicated following among tech fans, and are hated intensely by just as many. Time to gather pros and cons for Google, Microsoft and Apple and decide who truly deserves your devotion. Please feel free to add yours in the comments.
More So, are you an Apple, Microsoft or Google fan?

Google launched Chrome Frame yesterday. It’s a browser plugin for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser that, if the website you’re visiting prefers so, turns it into Chrome. At first glance, this looked to me like a great solution and a well-deserved slap in the face for Microsoft, but then it hit me. Nobody will use this.
More Does Chrome Frame have a target audience?

I love Google’s general tone of voice in things like this. They’re not saying Chrome is better than other browsers (which it is in many ways), nor do they list any benefits. You should just try it. And they’re telling you with a wonderfully quirky commercial that is nothing like what their competitors are doing. In fact it wasn’t originally intended for TV. Completely down to earth. Well done.

Not many people remember this, and Microsoft probably isn’t very proud of it either, but when it was introduced, MSN wasn’t about the internet at all. Instead, Microsoft had hopes of creating a ‘walled garden’ network with similar content, but ultimately controlled by them. They may have had usability in mind (the web was just as chaotic then as it is today), but chances are it was plain arrogance. With Windows’ enormous market dominance they thought they could control this whole ‘online’ phenomenon.
More What if MSN’s original approach had succeeded?

In a move that’s somewhat unusual for Google, they released version 1.0 of their Chrome browser today. This probably eliminates the last reason not to try this new browser for people who are hesitant to try beta software. Versions 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 were already pretty stable, and judging from the announcement blog post they’ve managed to make it even faster.
More Chrome out of beta

Google Chrome’s default tab length works really well with Google’s web analytics system…

We used to have a similar problem over on Choking on Popcorn, where Bringing Down the House became Bringing Down the Ho. We felt really sorry for Queen Latifah…

I’ve been using the Google Talk application for years. It’s a lightweight Instant Messaging client that was built upon open standards and doubles as a pretty good Gmail notifier. My reason for not using another Yabber client like Miranda was that that wouldn’t allow voice chat, which I often use professionally.

Things turned a little ugly when Google decided to add a web-based gtalk ‘gadget’ to Gmail. All of a sudden I found myself being logged into the same account twice, with messages popping up in either the web or the desktop client without any sort of logic. I was quick to disable the Gmail gadget, but yesterday’s announcement of ‘Google Talk voice and video chat‘ had a big surprise in store for me. It’s a web-client-only feature.
More Has the Google Talk desktop client been abandoned?

For the last couple of years, people have mostly used a Microsoft browser to use Google websites. I know this is a rather crude statement, but what I mean is that of the two Google has been most successful online while MS continues dominate the desktop and browser market.

Today, Microsoft announced they will be launching a web version of their Office suite. This made me chuckle, as it could lead to a strangely reversed situation where many users use a Google desktop application (Chrome) to use a Microsoft web application.

Chrome isn’t currently on the list of supported browsers, but the whole idea behind it is to create a browser that is ideally suited for online applications (as opposed to traditional, page-based websites). its lightning fast javascript engine could make those spreadsheets fly (by comparison that is).

My guess is that the Office brand name will help to quickly popularize its online exponent, and Chrome might turn out to be the best desktop application to go visit it. Go figure.

I’ve been using Google’s new browser for little over a week now. I need to have Firefox and IE running when I’m doing web design stuff, but for actually browsing the web, I’ve been using Chrome. And you know what? I just made it my default browser.
More One week of Chrome