Now that we have all had a detailed look at the features and specifications of the new Nexus One phone from Google, all the hype has settled down. The Nexus one is the new android mobile OS based phone which was built by HTC in collaboration with Google. Nexus one boasts of many technical advancements both with respect to hardware and software when compared to its predecessors. The phone was also dubbed as the iphone killer but lets us see why it is not.

The Mobile OS

Nexus one runs on the Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair) operating system which is undoubtedly one of the feature rich ones in the current market but the iPhone OS is way better in several different ways. The most primitive of all is that the usability factor of the iPhone OS. The reason why most of the iPhone users find it really hard to switch to other phones is the really awesome iPhone OS.

User Interface/Multitouch

One big selling point for most of the Apple products is the rich user interface and the iPhone is no doubt a forerunner in that arena. Multitouch on the iPhone allows the user to do wonders with fingers but this is one of the main features which is missing in the first release of the Nexus one. This is surprising since the Android OS 2.0 provides support for multitouch and guess we can expect this feature to be included in the next release of Nexus one.

The Cost

One other comparison metric which many are using to prove the superiority of Nexus One over iPhone is the cost of ownership. The comparison chart from BillShrink made its way to a good number of technology blogs. With the unlimited minutes + data+texting, the iphone does look a lot costlier but i wonder how many people go for that plan. For instance, i pay $66/month for my iPhone 3GS and it comes with unlimited data and 400 day time minutes a month. I have hell lot of rolled over day minutes which i am sure i am not going to use since most of the people who i call are on AT&T and the calls are free. I pay $780 an year or $1560 for the 24 month contract period. I assume most of the Iphone users pay around the same amount, may be a couple of hundreds more.

The App Store

In my opinion the best part of owning an iPhone is the appstore but many will disagree and give brownie points for the other important features. With over a 100,000 apps on the app store, you can find innumerable apps both free and paid. Be it productivity apps or motion sensor games or fun apps which have no particular utility, the app store is one huge repository. The Android market has also got a sizable number of apps but it is way behind the app store in this aspect.

The Music

The iPhone also doubles up as a 32 GB/16GB iPod which can be synced with your computer and also your itunes account. Finding podcasts, videos and other multimedia is really easy with itunes in comparison with any other phone.

Final Verdict

There is no doubt that the Nexus One is one wonderful and innovative piece of hardware and kicks the iPhone’s ass in several areas with better hardware, better battery life, bigger screen size, better camera etc but there is very little for it to be an iPhone killer. The next generation of iPhone is expected by the middle of this year and there will definitely be many enhancements on the hardware front. It is totally agreeable that the iPhone has its own flaws and restrictions but we should also remember that there are several other smart phones which boast of better hardware than the iPhone but they are no where in the picture. The Nexus One is definitely one of the best phones right now but there is a good chance that it might fade away in a few months like all the other HTC phones.

Like Lord Alfred Tennyson says

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Likewise

For droids may come and phones may go,
But the Iphone will go on for ever(at least for sometime!)

The real power of Google Wave can be witnessed only when more members of your contact list start waving! I know i am way behind in this race and most of you would have got a chance to try Google Wave. For those who are still looking for a Google Wave invite here is a chance.

Just do ONE of the things listed below.

1. Leave a comment in this post with your Gmail ID and i will send one at the earliest.

(Important: For privacy reasons it is better not to disclose your Email address in a public medium like the comments section. You can enter your Name and Email in the comment form instead and it will not be visible to anyone except the site admin. I will make sure that the email ID will be used only for sending you a Google Wave invite and not for any other purpose )

2. Retweet the message below and let me know via Twitter.

If you are still looking for a Google Wave Invite, SocialCouch.com has a few invites to give away! http://tr.im/FO4u

3. Just ask! If you follow me on Twitter or if you are Facebook friend, leave an @reply or a comment and i will get back at the earliest.

What is Google Wave?

If you don’t know what Google Wave is, take a look at this short video and it will help you to know more. Alternatively you can also head over to Google.com/Wave for detailed information.

Points to note

1. The invites will not reach your inbox instantly. You will receive the activation link in a day or two. So kindly be patient.
2. Invites will be sent on a First Come First Served basis.

UPDATE: Invites have been sent to all those who left a comment. I have got 15 more invites. So if you are looking to get one just leave a comment. I will post an update if i run short of invites.

If there is one thing which annoys every web developer and designer it has got to be Internet Explorer and more importantly IE6. The sad fact is that a good percentage of internet users still use the age old browser either out of ignorance or force. There are many companies which use IE6 for the Intranet and installing another browser would be prohibited or the installation would involve huge deployment costs and with no alternative, the employees will be forced to use this age old browser which doesn’t confirm to any of the latest web standards.

Building web applications which use the recent HTML 5 canvas tag, java script performance features etc is not supported on IE and it is also not feasible to ignore the IE users because they still form a good percentage of the lot. Most of the developers spend a lot of time doing work around for IE users like writing different style sheets or the worst part is they ignore some of the features.

Enter “Google Chrome Frame” which is a plugin for IE and it brings in all the open web technologies in Google Chrome to the Internet Explorer. To simply put it, we can get a chrome browser inside IE by using this plugin.

If you are a developer:

All you have to do is just enter this single tag at the top of your code

<meta-http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”chrome=1″>

When this code is detected by Chrome Frame it switches over to use the web kit rendering engine and makes things awesome.

Why is Google doing it?
1. Google wants to make the web better. Understood!
2. Increase the penetration of Chrome. Most of the companies which have used IE for eons will never switch over to Chrome. This may serve as a nice incentive to try Chrome without making major changes.
3. Making Google Wave run on IE 6 will be a herculean task and the Chrome frame will ease out a lot of pain to the developers.
4. A nice way to tell Microsoft to stop IE6 support?! May be!

The big question is how many of the IE6 users are going to install the Chrome frame plugin. If they have been on IE6 for so long without having the urge to upgrade they will continue to be and the developers will keep figuring out workarounds as new technologies emerge.

Image Credit: oneBlog