With Web at the Core, Chromebook Options are Strong, Plentiful

This looks like an ad. But it's just a few recent Chromebooks.

In 2011, on my first day at Google, I was asked to pick out a laptop. The choices were slim - a thin Apple MacBook Air or the larger MacBook Pro, a forgettable Windows equivalent, or a Linux device more suitable for engineers. While I had the company's first foray into Chromebooks, the CR-48, at home, in addition to my own personal Mac, picking a Chromebook wasn't even an option. The Web-centric OS, which focused on keeping all data in the cloud, and leveraging Web apps, wasn't ready for my every day use.

A few months later, I ran into then SVP of Chrome Sundar Pichai, in the office stairwell as we were on to our respective meetings. Pointing to my MacBook Air, I told him I couldn't wait to turn it in and go completely ChromeOS at home and at the office. In his usual humble and understated way, he said the team was working on it, and to stay tuned. Not too long afterward, in another unplanned hallway conversation, he introduced me to a VP on his team developing hardware, and offered me up as a willing beta candidate.

The 2013 Chromebook Pixel (version 1)

I didn't think much of the choice encounter until early 2013, when I saw Sundar take the stage and unveil the Chromebook Pixel, a high-end Chromebook with a touchscreen, and promised faster speeds and memory.

As I recounted a few years ago on Google+, I saw Sundar as available on IM shortly after the event and congratulated him on the exciting launch. His IM came moments later... "Do you have one yet?" Surprised, I said I didn't, and it was no big deal. I had no such illusions of self-importance. But he answered directly, "I'm so sorry. You were supposed to be on the list." Fast forward, less than an hour later, I had a brand-new Pixel - and I haven't seen a need to use a Mac since.

That a Googler is using a Chromebook isn't newsworthy, obviously. Water is wet. But I remember a time when betting on a Web-centric device like a Chromebook was a real leap of faith. There were always excuses not to make the switch, be it a specific piece of software, some concern about printing, or general distrust of the unknown. Maybe we were worried about moving local storage to the cloud, or editing photos, or losing access to some premium software on Mac or Windows we'd already paid for - often at a cost even higher than a new machine.

Chromebooks have proven exceptionally popular in schools, thanks to their versatility and low cost. And as people become more mobile-centric, their data also becomes more portable and Web centric. Just as you expect to have your data follow you from phone to phone, moving from device to device should be seamless. Like I'd said in 2012, the future of local storage is practically none at all.

This summer, I got my wife a touchscreen convertible Chromebook for less than $100.

Watching the many different options for Chromebook hit the markets feels a lot like the same momentum we saw when Android's many partners took imaginative approaches to new handsets. While we essentially knew the rigid details coming from Cupertino for both computers and phones, Google partners built big and small and with any number of differences to set each apart, from brands as diverse as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba.

Now the decision process is one of plenty, not scarcity. So many options, pretty much all of them good. You can get small screens or big screens. You can get touchscreens and convertibles that act like a tablet. You can run Android apps, or even mark up the screen with a digital pen. All very cool.

This summer, while on a family vacation in Chicago, after seeing so many positive reviews for Samsung's Chromebook Pro, I figured it was time for an upgrade from my two year old Acer 710. I quickly bought one on Amazon, had it delivered to an Amazon Locker down the street the next day, and after entering my Google credentials, I had made an incredible upgrade, with no data migration needed. It was almost too easy. (And yes, that's the laptop I'm on now)

Having seen the Pixelbook, the successor to that 2013 Pixel and its 2015 follow-on, and even more good reviews, I'm already getting that itchy feeling and have added the newest device to my shopping cart more than half a dozen times, desperately wanting it, but knowing the Chromebook Pro has a long life left.

Meanwhile, my wife's slim Asus Chromebook I picked up this July gets constant use, and my 9 year old twins bang away on inexpensive Acers to do work in Google Docs. They do the work of machines that cost 10 times as much, without coming bundled with the worry that you lose your data in the event of a disk failure. And the gaps that may once have been there in 2010, 2011 or 2012... they're gone.

If you're an elite creative software wizard who has a custom setup, then keep it up, but for the rest of us who use our devices to create, engage, consume and share, the Web is the most powerful device there is, and Chromebooks were designed for it. They've come a long way.

Disclosures: I work at Google. You knew that. But I still pay for my Chromebooks, except for those provided for me to use at work, obviously.

Ingress: The Incredible & Addictive Covert Game Being Played All Around You

A little over two years ago, a small team within Google called Niantic Labs introduced Ingress, a game that adds a virtual reality layer on top of the entire world, which you can claim, defend or destroy for your cause - depending on which side you've chosen. And while I tested early versions of the game while it was developing at Google, and dabbled with it just after launch, I put it aside before jumping back in with both feet two months ago, when a pair of colleagues on my new team couldn't stop talking about it. And now I won't stop talking about it either.

Simply put, in my view, it's the most well-designed, intelligently deployed concept I've ever seen for an immersive experience on mobile, which encourages you to get off your butt, explore the world around you, and find new people to help you achieve goals together. Every facet of the application, even while it seems mysterious, is designed to help you get out of house, to explore new crannies of your neighborhood (and beyond) and discover people on your faction who need your help to achieve what would be impossible alone. I've never seen anything like it.

Some shots of Ingress badges and live portals.

As you know, I've been an avid wearables and personal fitness tracking nut for the better part of more than two years. Fitbit has been counting my steps and Moves has been showing where I go. But while Fitbit only counts my activity, it doesn't provide direction or give me a specific mission. Ingress does - making my steps matter, as they are pulled toward each new destination, and seemingly every turn provides yet another opportunity to take down an opponent, power up or build on my own space, or hack away and get new equipment to make me stronger. This combination has accelerated my near-constant walking and movement into personal record highs, consistent leaderboard domination, and I've fallen way behind in any regular TV watching.

There are many other sites dedicated to the gameplay of Ingress, so I won't go too deep, but at its heart, Ingress is a battle for the hearts and minds of humanity. In the storyline, the Earth has been seeded with exotic matter (XM), and you either believe this XM will enlighten us all, or you will resist it. So from the very begining, you choose a side: The Resistance (blue) or The Enlightened (green).

The Two Factions of Ingress: Enlightened and Resistance

Once you pick a side, you then have three primary functions, much like other multi-player games. You can build sites for your faction, you can destroy the opposition, or you can continually farm for new equipment to make you stronger. This is done by visiting sites, known as portals, which consist largely of landmarks across the world, from water fountains to murals, sculptures, churches and standing structures. If it is something that can shape your mind and appears exotic, there's a good chance it's a portal.

Ingress is played globally as teams battle for position.

As one friend of mine tastefully said, you can't play Ingress "from the comfort of your own toilet." You have to move. And in especially dense places with plenty of landmarks, the next portal can be just another block or less away. So if you find yourself out to build, farm, destroy or explore, the only limit to how much you participate is your own time, and how long your phone can hold a charge. That's led to something of a cottage industry for Ingress players lugging around external phone battery charges so playing doesn't stop short at the worst time.

Now that Ingress has you out of your house, and walking with specific destinations, with the next stop just a little bit further away, you're being stretched. Stretched to find new places in your community you hadn't previously seen, new spots in other cities you've never visited, and it sets you up to be territorial, knowing that particular portals are valuable to you or your side.

The Denver, Colorado Ingress Scene: A Mess of Blue and Green

But if you really want to have an impact, you can't just go it alone. Even the most experienced Ingress player can't build a portal up much more than halfway to full strength, thanks to features in the game that limit your ability to power up portals. It takes two players to take a portal to 75%, three can take it to just over 80%, and in order for a portal to reach 100% strength, it take contributions from eight individual players. So you can deploy and hope, or you need to find people on your side who are often more than eager to help and build, destroy or hack together - spurred on by built-in communications in the app, or augmented through dedicated communities on Google+, Hangouts and other chat tools. There, people will arrange times to meet, secret build or teardown events, or provide updates about activity in their neighborhood.

One Los Altos portal in our neighborhood.

I recently heard somebody say you either go deep into Ingress or you don't go at all. And it's probably true. I originally didn't get the attraction, as a low level player. But now I've seen things I build at midnight before heading home get taken down at 1:30 in the morning, or by six a.m. the next day. I've started to recognize and greet players on both teams, and you learn the patterns of the game, as one faction gains control over a geography, or specific people just refuse to ever give up, and seemingly play around the clock. And once you go deep, it really becomes a numbers game, as every activity is counted. Every hack. Every deployment. Every link from portal to portal. Every field. Every destroyed opponent portal. The more numbers you get, the more abilities you have and the stronger you are against the competition, and the more they need to be prepared for you.

Joining the Enlightened on Ingress has brought destinations, goals and missions to the activity I was already doing with Fitbit. It's dramatically reduced (even further) my idle sitting time, it's made me see and enjoy experiences I hadn't yet gotten to around town and in neighboring cities, and I'm getting new relationships with people from a variety of backgrounds, who all hold at least one thing in common - that we're playing Ingress, and working to expand the minds of humanity. It's more than a game. It's the true reality. I hope you do check the game out, and see what it does to your daily routine. And while I don't mind more competition, it'd be awesome if you saw the world in a new light by joining the Enlightened.

Grab Ingress on Google Play for Android and on iTunes.

Disclosure: I work at Google, and the Niantic team works within Google.

Cloud Powered Near Instant PC, Mobile Upgrades Are the New Reality

Buying a new computer or getting a new phone used to be a huge pain. Even if everything was up and running right away, you had to plan for hours, or even days, of moving all your data from the old device to the new one. And if you didn’t successfully complete the data migration, or had sufficient paranoia, you could end up with old devices cluttering your home - just in case you might need to get that old content. But with so much of our data moving from local disks to the cloud, and new operating systems improving their sync and account setup, the day of hot swapping devices is here.

As you know, for the past few years, our home has been a ChromeOS and Android family. This started well before I joined Google, and as each OS gets smarter, that move looks to have been the right one - especially when it comes to this issue.

Samsung's 2012 Chromebook Got Bumped for the 2014 HP.

Last week, thanks to a sale on Woot.com, I purchased a new HP 14 inch Chromebook for my wife. One evening, as she was using the 2012-era 11 inch Samsung Chromebook, I told her to close her eyes. I took her old laptop and put the new one in her lap, and when she signed in, she didn’t miss a beat. All her bookmarks were there, even down to the tabs she had open in her browser. With one move, and for the same $200 or so I spent two years ago, she got a faster device, double the RAM, and a larger, more vibrant screen, with no headaches around data.

There was no question of whether she had to back up photos, or copy her songs. No dragging and dropping off folders and documents. It just worked, exactly as I had expected it to. And the next morning, when she had to print to our networked printer, she just told the browser to print, and the printer was listening. No printer drivers, and not even a memory of a CD-Rom or DVD. It just worked.

A discussion on Twitter with +Josh Elman and +Edwin Khodabakchian

Meanwhile, on mobile, the story is much the same. Whether it’s due to an accidental drop (which has happened in our home more than once), or a required factory reset thanks to trying new software before it’s ready (that’s also happened), starting over with a new phone or starting the phone over from scratch is no big deal any more either. Signing into my account brings my account information, access to my data, my apps, and my preferences.

In the storage industry, we used to talk about hot swappable units - which would enable upgrades without reboots or interruption of access to data. The dream of upgrading servers, disks, arrays or network equipment without downtime was rarely achieved, but often talked about. On the consumer side, many of us have grown accustomed to the inevitable pains that come with getting new devices or even upgrading those devices from one system version to the next, and it doesn’t have to be this way any more.

Standard Disclosures: I work at Google, the company behind ChromeOS, Android, and great tools that help you sync your content between devices. You can assume I prefer cloud-based data.

Life By Numbers and Notifications

From morning until night, I'm led by numbers and notifications. These numbers prompt me what to do next, what actions to take, and often, can be used to inform whether my decision was the right one. And throughout the day, all my devices, working in concert, alert me to what they believe is the information I need to know right now. As we've seen a graduation of our primary content consumption from longform text to microtext, we're moving again to the notification being the central medium by which our get our updates.

Like most of you, my day starts with an alarm clock - mine being on my Nexus 7. When the time hits a certain number, the familiar tone blares. I pick up the device and am confronted with two things: Notifications, which catch me up on the emails I received, responses on Twitter, and any texts or instant messages that came overnight. The next scan goes to the numbers. How are the stocks I watch doing? Up, down or unchanged? How many emails do I need to respond to, and do the social networks (Google+, Twitter and Facebook) need responses?

With the essential bits out of the way, I move on to the next numbers - which usually means opening up my laptop and using Feedly. Feedly, like Google Reader before it, catches all my RSS feeds and lets me know how many items are new, I hit J and K to get caught up, share the very best to Pocket (which then flows to LG Stream on Twitter), and bring that number down to zero.

Only with my email box empty, social networks made whole, and Feedly brought down to even can I move on to the next steps. No pun intended, that means getting ready for the day and making sure I have my Fitbit on - and have weighed in on the Fitbit Aria scale to track progress. If I'm completely wired, I might be sporting an Android Wear watch (I have the Samsung Gear Live), my Nexus 5, and the Fitbit. All three devices are counting my steps, and the Nexus 5 (thanks to the Moves App) actually tracks exactly where I've been and how long I stayed there - my every movement being tabulated.

   

Moves Tracks My Every Step in Parallel with Fitbit

The drive to work gets counted. Automatic scores me on a scale of 1 to 100 on whether I've driven too fast or wasted gas on the way. My GPS tells me how many more miles it is to reach my destination, and how many minutes it expects I'll sit in traffic and peek at my colleagues who are looking at their notifications on their devices while driving.

While I'm at the office, my Nest thermostat works in the numbers to keep the home temperature feeling just right. My Sunrun solar panels are taking in heat from the sun and converting it into Kilowatt hours of energy. If the numbers produced are higher than the numbers consumed, and they almost always are, then we saved money that day. The Rachio sprinkler system checks to see if expected rainfall is above a specific numeric value, and if it is, they simply won't run.

If I've updated my content channels, at home or at work, the numbers tell me what's happening - through Google Analytics, Twitter and Google+ Insights. Who's watching and engaging and sharing the content? I can be alerted if one of my posts has reached the top of Hacker News, or is shared by Marc Andreesen on Twitter. The numbers always tell the story.

The Hacker News bump begins.

While most of those numbers are a holdover from the PC and even mobile-centric world, the new age of devices is driven almost entirely by notifications. Google Glass, in addition to being a first-person perspective camera, is a notification machine, getting you the updates you need directly, and giving you the option to engage. Android Wear goes beyond the clock and brings the notification (and engagement) to the wrist.

Android Wear is here. You can get yours on Google Play.

Application developers are getting smarter about how they can make their app less passive and more active. If it can justify notifying you to an update - be it ESPN's SportsCenter alerting me to trades or Google Now telling me it's time to drive home, then the app stays on my radar. Abuse the privilege, and the app (often games) will get uninstalled.

The day's efforts becomes a balance of managing the numbers and the notifications. Answer the emails. Read the updates in Feedly. Respond to Twitter and Google+. Answer the instant messages.

There are three checkpoints to tell you how you're doing. The first comes at 1 p.m. Pacific (4 p.m. Eastern) when you find out how your stocks did on the market. Did you make money or lose it? Mint.com and the Check app can give you updates on your daily progress. The second comes at the end of the workday when you get home. Did you whittle down your work to inbox zero or have more to do when you left than when you started? And the third comes at the end of the calendar day. Did you walk enough to get your step goal? Did you drive well enough to keep your score at 100? Did your favorite team win? What was the score?

Then you get ready for the next day by setting the alarm and seeing, in clear numbers, how many more hours you have left before starting the numbers and notification race again. There's an app for that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some notifications and updates to clear.

Disclosures (per usual): I work at Google, which owns Nest, and is behind Android Wear, Google Glass and the Nexus 5 and 7. Our friends at Facebook now own Moves, and we occasionally partner or compete with Twitter and others on various bits.

Staying Ahead of the Curve on Tech Trends Isn't Trivial

When it comes to picking choices in tech, making the wrong decision on formats, manufacturer, or version can set you back in terms of dollars, leave you with rapidly obsoleted hardware, or find you investing time in something that provides you with non-optimal returns.

As an early adopter, you have a higher tolerance for risk and you take bets on product direction before the rest of the population may agree with you, and your choice to move one direction can act as the initial spark in a good situation, or as the canary in the coal mine, in a negative one. This thought crossed my mind as we saw the news yesterday to Sony's recent struggles, largely tied to their ongoing challenges hawking Blu-ray.

As Sony was quoted in the Verge, "demand for physical media" was "contracting faster than anticipated," and they were left holding the bag. But this really shouldn't have come as a surprise. More than three years ago, I said I was through with physical media, and I haven't looked back. Between streaming video and audio services like Netflix, Spotify and Google Music, or eBooks from Google Play and Amazon, the Web has taken over where physical media couldn't compete.

And let's be honest for you Netflix users? How many of you still get the DVDs? Netflix is a perfect example of a company that saw the transition coming and pivoted to where the trend was going. Now they're overwhelmingly known for their streaming services instead the traditional red envelopes.

The last five years have seen pronounced trends that in hindsight are impossible to ignore, from the rise of smartphones and debut of functional, popular, tablets, and the integration of social networking in all aspects of society. You can debate the ebbs and flows of financials for some of the larger social networking sites, but you can't deny their immediate impact.

On the tablet and smartphone side, there were two obvious trends that people could recognize right away if they kept an open mind. The first was that the iPad was going to be a hit. The second was that Android, due to its partner-friendly approach and rapid iteration, was the horse to bet on.

Without pulling an +MG Siegler and calling this post "I was right. Let me tell you why...", I'll highlight a few bits from both topics.

Let's Talk iPad

Immediately reacting to the iPad's introduction in January 2010, I didn't go over the moon and claim the new consumer tablet would solve world hunger and eliminate illnesses in our lifetime. But I did see it for exactly what it was, concluding, "They are going to sell a ton of these machines, and you'll see them in places you never expected. Casual computing and content consumption are going to drive it." That's exactly what happened, with the hindsight of four-plus years.

The iPad may actually have sold too quickly and been too successful a product to keep Apple beating expectations, but it found a niche between the smartphone and the laptop, and set the stage for the tablet being the first computing experience for my young kids.

Companies that bet against the iPad (or tablets in general) have found themselves swimming upstream, defending an antiquated platform and in some cases, extracting revenue from fatigued customers, whose numbers are decreasing.

Let's Talk Android

While Apple was pushing the iPad and doing tremendously well, iOS wasn't the smartphone OS I ended up enjoying, for a whole bunch of reasons. Six months into the iPad's lifespan, I turned in my iPhone and turned to Android, saying at the time, "a bet on Android is a bet on the future. I am betting on an ecosystem and an application environment that encourages best of breed developers to move their product to a growing population of smartphones, and I expect to reap the benefits. "

There's no question in my mind now that was the right move - and you have to keep in mind that was more than a year before I entertained the opportunity of joining Google myself. I saw the trendlines that pointed to Android being the quantity leader, with greater partnerships and a fast-growing developer ecosystem that brought top apps to the hundreds of millions of users, and that's exactly what happened.

Let's Talk Smaller Tablets

Soon enough, the first generation iPads I bought aged, and another trend emerged - of the small form factor tablet, starting with the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which I preferred, and later the Nexus 7. This 6-7 inch form factor was a perfect fit for customers, as you could see with the rise of the Galaxy Note, ever larger standard smartphone sizes and the rise of the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 line. Even Apple capitulated eventually with their own iPad Mini, although they're not usually the ones to admit they were late to an idea.

So what am I getting at? I'm not here to tell you I have a crystal ball that tells the future. But you can see, with your own eyes and experiences, what the trends are going to be, and being stubborn because something has always worked one way doesn't mean it's a good idea. You have to evolve as a user, as a developer, as a businessperson, or as a company, to make sure you're impacting that change and choosing wisely. Or you'll end up with a home full of VHS tapes. Don't forget to Rewind.

Usual Disclosures: I work at Google which is behind the Android operating system and is a partner or competitor with many of the companies in this post, like Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify and more.

Why Nest Protect Reporting an Emergency Filled Me With Comfort

/via https://twitter.com/louisgray/status/456120763343327232

This morning, my Nexus 5 chirped with a notification I hadn't seen before. While I was at the office, my Nest application was telling me, in no uncertain terms, that there was an Emergency in the kitchen at home. There was smoke, and the alarm from our Nest Protect smoke alarm was sounding. I called home quickly, and my wife told me, embarrassed, there was simply a small issue with the microwave, and all was fine.

While getting alerted to something you can't immediately do something about is no doubt unsettling, it's also reassuring - especially when you consider the alternative (and status quo) is to not be notified until you come home and your house is ash. The Nest Protect alarm correctly detected smoke, communicated (in English) what the problem was, and notified me immediately on a device I always have with me. And as my wife confirmed, the device was being quite direct with her. "There's smoke in the kitchen," was the message from all our devices around the house.

I Can See Status of My 4 Nest Protects from My Phone

Prior to Google's acquisition of Nest in January, I had purchased four Nest Protect smoke alarms in December, to start an upgrade that felt long overdue. As is recommended by code, our home has smoke detectors in just about every room, and their ancient look and behavior, matched only by their limited abilities and nuisances when functioning, give us something of a love/hate relationship. Their every noisy chirp when batteries ran low had us racing from corner to corner in the house, trying to track down the decaying device, and their overreactions to burnt toast or anything else had us all too eager to leave them simply disconnected - which was no good.

So I was more than happy to take down four of the dusty beige models with no personality and start putting Protects in their place. With a little setup, each of the new devices connected, by Wifi, to one another, and they now hang quietly in our major traffic areas, waiting for any hint of trouble. And one perk, which few talk about, is the Protects' ability to function as a nightlight - providing illumination in near darkness, invaluable for the quiet tiptoeing in the hallways, past sleeping children at night.

Adding the Protects to our home in December seemed like a logical move after getting the Thermostat last year. And while they don't see as much activity as the Thermostat, which is constantly keeping our temperature in check, it's comforting to see their current status in the app, and know that all is well.

Today's "Emergency" was quickly resolved, and I got another update.

There's not much to be excited about when it comes to the world of smoke detectors. But as Nest said when they first introduced the Protect series of smoke alarms, "Safety shouldn't be annoying." Too often, people end up in the same situation we had been, where the alarms in their homes were sitting to the side, with batteries out, or batteries had simply gone out and were useless shells - doing nothing to ensure the safety of the people who needed them to work.

Like Sonos, you can view the status and manage any of the devices by name - usually tied to their location. As we placed Protects in my electronics-heavy office, the hallway between my kids' bedrooms, the kitchen and our living room, it's easy to know which device is following status of each location, and in times of assumed crisis, they work in concert to let you know an action has to be taken.

There's really two ways to do smoke alarms: The old way and the Nest way. Every older smoke alarm in my home is now assumed to be a liability, waiting for its time to be replaced. They don't talk my language, they don't look good, and they aren't equipped for this gadget-centric age. I've never gotten a notification from my older alarms, and I never will. Today's alert - even if it was a small one - confirmed that going with Nest was a good idea. And whether you think I'm biased because I work at Google, and can now count the Nest team as colleagues, consider I paid full retail for these devices (including the thermostat), and did so without any knowledge of an impending buy. That they're now working on our team is actually pretty cool. It's always good to have smart software impact my life.

Disclosures: Nest, as mentioned, is a subsidiary of Google, where I work. I purchased the devices prior to the acquisition, and haven't gotten any kind of discount or any favors for being on the same team now. I just have a bias in favor of products that work well.

In Tech, In Order for X to Win, Y Doesn't Have to Lose

While it's somewhat hard to imagine now, with Apple seeing incredible success, it was less than two decades ago when the company, facing a small market share, and minuscule developer interest, had to pull a rabbit out of its hat to ensure longtime survival. That surprise came from an unexpected partner - longtime nemesis Microsoft, who in 1997, not only gave the then-beleaguered company a much-needed cash injection of $150 million, but also promised continued updates to the then-essential Microsoft Office suite, required to keep Macintosh's hopes alive as a viable platform.

Amid the shocked faithful, who responded with boos over making Internet Explorer the default browser for the Macintosh, instead of the arguably more Mac-like Netscape Navigator, CEO Steve Jobs said the unforgettable phrase easy to forget in an environment where it's commonplace to pit technologies against one another:

“If we want to move forward, and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.” (Source: YouTube)

Turns out, as with many things, he was right. Microsoft, despite the company's many challenges, still is worth more than $300 billion, and saw income of more than $16 billion in the most recent quarter. When it comes to operating system choices, usually one picks Macintosh or Windows (and not both), or mobile OS choices, one could pick iOS or Windows phone (and not both), but both companies have managed to have significant places in the tech world for the last two decades.

Rarely does the winner take all.

Fast forward from Steve's words in Boston in 1997 to today - a world where big companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and others command significant visibility and influence - but comparably younger companies like Twitter, Dropbox, Tesla, Nest (pre-acquisiton), Uber and others manage to also carve out interesting opportunities and become big companies themselves.

It's often assumed that if one "wins", another has to "lose". If Facebook wins, does Twitter lose? If Android wins, does iOS lose? If Amazon wins, does Google lose?

As a user of these technologies, and someone who watches the market closely or writes about these technologies, I see lines forming - not just of people who prefer one technology or one company relative to another, but of people who also display an equal and opposite reaction, to strongly dislike the company or technologies less preferred.

Those decisions have odd echoes. It's assumed that if you like the iPhone, then you must prefer Apple Mail over Gmail. If you like Windows Phone, you must also prefer Bing search to Google search. And if you have a blog that covers the minutiae of Apple's comings and goings, that documenting any negative opinion about their perceived competition should be highlighted with equal or higher volume.

Simply stated: I disagree, and think we can do better. You can like one company's vision or products even if you purchase from another one. It can be possible that all the major players find a space where they are successful. And the best products are built when it's the users' values that are at the forefront, rather than a false battle started to strengthen the position against another player.

Larry Page, Google's CEO, addressed this point at Google I/O last summer, when he said:

"Every story I read about Google is 'us vs some other company' or some stupid thing, and I just don’t find that very interesting. We should be building great things that don’t exist. Being negative isn’t how we make progress. Most important things are not zero sum, there is a lot of opportunity out there."

Recently, The Verge wrote a great in-depth piece about being a fanboy, asking "Have you ever loved something so much it hurt?" showcasing a number of examples of people so consumed about making sure people knew which side of these battles they were on that they were unforgiving in their tone with anyone else who disagreed. I believe you can have a strong preference, and can evangelize a product or platform, like I do often with those I enjoy, without having to cut down alternatives or those who've selected a different way.

The world is a very large place. There are many millions of people who haven't yet purchased smartphones, tablets or PCs, let alone decided on their favorite OS or apps. There is room for many small companies and big companies alike to innovate and do incredible things. There's room for us all to intellectually choose to be fair and review each new product on its merits and stand for those things we believe and like without needing to tear down alternatives. It might be fun, but we can do better.

Disclosures for transparency's sake: I work at Google, which makes some of my personal favorite products, like Android, Gmail and ChromeOS. It can be assumed Google occasionally competes with other market participants like Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.

(Images via Dreamstime, which is an excellent resource)

Either you are in Engineering, or you are in Sales.

At BlueArc, our longtime CEO and executive chairman Gianluca Rattazzi had a saying which he often weaved into his presentations at our company all-hands meetings. "Either you are in engineering, or you are in sales."

The idea was to have employees from all corners of the company take ownership of our shared revenue goals, or think about what each of us could do, whether we were in Marketing, HR, Finance or Support, to encourage us to meet our number. Even if we weren't dialing for dollars or meeting with customers, if we weren't the people actually building the product ourselves, we had to think like salespeople. It also was aimed to reduce conflict between teams, as we wouldn't shake our heads at the antics of account managers, or point fingers when one territory or account proved harder than expected.

Meanwhile, engineers have to keep being focused on what they do best, which is design and deliver incredible products. Most engineers, as Dilbert often points out, make terrible sales people. They would likely rush to tell you the product's latest flaw or highlight the bug list of the week instead of working to find a way to make the current offering fit your needs - which would delay or block the sales cycle.

As I see it, product managers are the buffer between engineers and marketing. Marketing is the buffer between product management and the real world (aka the customers and press). Between those two hops, code turns into features, and features turn into benefits. If lucky, those benefits can turn into revenue, and as most companies tell you, revenue solves all problems.

Which brings us back to the split - either you are in engineering, or you are in sales. Even if you don't carry a quota-bearing number, as an employee of a company, you take some amount of pride from the work delivered there. When the company is having a hard time, you have a hard time. When the company is preparing a new product, you are probably eager to try that product, and tell the world about it.

At Google, as I mentioned last November, that process includes early access and beta testing, which we call dogfooding. Many of us are lucky enough to get early access to things like +Google Glass or the Chromebook Pixel. We are more likely to be using a Nexus 5, Nexus 7 or Moto X than the average +Android user, and have a more-encompassing understanding of the company's vision and products than those outside the company.

As an early adopter and technology enthusiast, promoting products I like is second nature. I've been touting ChromeOS for years. I switched to Android well before picking up a Google badge. I always tell people when products I like are fantastic. And that extends to visionary new ideas like Google Glass. I've recently seen some memes on various tech blogs about a perceived dropoff in use by Google employees of this early version of the product - saying the product should be so fantastic that people clamor to use it, and trying to read the tea leaves into saying the product won't succeed - a curious proposition considering it hasn't even launched yet beyond a small circle of Glass Explorers.

My Kids, Racing #throughglass

Without diving too deep into those weeds, I can say I do use it, and I find having a first-person view for recording video and taking photos incredibly valuable. I get instant notifications of email and texts and can respond by voice, hands-free. And wherever I go while wearing Glass, the questions are from excited people who are delighted to see how simple it is to use, not to mention how it non-intrusively lets me continue a conversation, while making eye contact, with the small viewer being out of the way. I take Glass with me on walks to the park with my kids. I took Glass with me to the +San Francisco Zoo on Monday. It becomes another lightweight way to capture the experience.

A View of My Wife and Twins #throughglass

If you're inclined to be skeptical, and that sounds like sales, that brings us back to the original thought - as an employee of a company that makes things, you represent the product. You can help others see how a product can be used, and if you're spotted using the competitor's phone or OS, or you prefer a competitive service or platform, people see that. That's part of why Steve Ballmer's kids weren't even allowed to have iPods and Bill Gates' kids used MSN search instead of Google. Those kids didn't work for Microsoft, but by extension, it would be a fairly bad case study to see them using competitive products.

The good news is I don't believe I'm at a place where I'm asked to use low-quality products like the Zune and MSN Search. It's easy to get excited about products that are making it easier to get information and share updates more quickly, or to get to my data no matter where I am, from any device. I can't go back twenty years and become an engineer, taking all the required computer science courses needed to be the true alpha geek, but I know I can do my part to improve the product from the inside, and tell the world about it on the outside. Think about yourself in your role. If you're not in engineering, aren't you in sales?

Disclosures: I work for Google, obviously. I often get to dogfood our products, like Glass, the Chromebook Pixel and others, free of charge. I paid retail price for my Nexus 5 and Nexus 7, and prefer Android to alternatives. If I forgot a disclosure, I should disclose that too.

Cover Makes My Android Phone Smart and Personal

I take my Nexus 5 everywhere I go. It's with me at work, at home, in the car, and practically anywhere. Considering I'm giving this device so much of my time, it makes sense that the device learns from my behavior, as I use different apps and do different tasks in different places and at different times. Instead of being an unchanging brick that waits for my next instruction, smart services like Google Now are bringing me updates relevant to my interests at the right time, and the relatively new Cover app is showing me what applications I might want to use next.

Developed by my good friends +Todd Jackson and +Edward Ho, along with +Gordon Luk, and designed only for +Android, Cover learns when I use different apps, and where, and brings those applications to a key piece of real estate on our phones that doesn't get much love - the lock screen. While other teams have designed widgets and launchers, the lock screen is an interesting battleground and one the typical smartphone user typically sees dozens of times a day. Now, instead of just being a place to wake your phone up, it is personalized and functional. It's as if somebody brought you breakfast in bed instead of forcing you to go to the kitchen and get all the ingredients yourself out of your many cupboards and fridge. And, like the best personalization systems, it starts out with great guesses, but gets smarter the more you use it.

Cover's starting point is fairly well defined. There are three main scenarios - you at home, at work, and in the car. When you're in the car, either driving or as a passenger, you're less likely to use some apps you use at the office, but others more.

Cover Highlights Some of My Top Apps at Home and Work

For me, I've always got +Spotify or Google Music playing on the ride to and from the office. It's in the car when I usually make phone calls to my wife to tell her I'm coming home, and make one last offer to get something on the way home. When I do get home, +Cover recommends I put the music on my +Sonos, or settle down and watch a film on +Netflix. And yes, practically everywhere I go, Gmail and Hangouts (for chat and SMS) play a big role.

Add Your Address to Cover to Make It Smarter

I've been a longtime believer in the world of personalization. I think your streams should be smart. Your apps and sites should be smart, and the information that you put into the system should benefit you as much as it does the company whose service you use. I took a field trip up to the Cover offices on Friday and talked with the team about my early feedback on the app, and some ideas on where they could go next - a real Silicon Valley perk.

In addition to tackling the lock screen in a smart way, the Cover team has also made an impression on people through its Android only strategy. While many developers build in parallel for iOS and Android, or may go iOS first and Android second, the open nature of Android made developing for it the obvious choice. You simply can't do what Cover has achieved on iOS, and they've made exceptional effort to make the application beautiful and inviting.

I test a lot of services and apps, and tell you guys about a few. But Cover has made an instant impression on me, and it's one I'm keeping on my phone. If you're on Android, and you should be, add it to your phone or tablet here. I've known Todd and Ed from their time at Google, when they worked on Gmail, Google Buzz and other products. I know their attention to detail and desire to make incredible user experiences, and see their first efforts with Cover have met the high expectations I have for them. They're funded to the tune of $1.7 million from First Round Capital, and are just getting started.

Disclosures for Fun and Profit: Google is the provider of Android mobile OS and Google Now. Todd and Ed were both briefly colleagues of mine here at Google, and I worked with both during product integrations with my6sense during my time at Paladin Advisors Group.

First Friday Feature: MightyText: Web and Gmail Texting App

For nearly three years now, the overwhelming majority of text messages I've exchanged with friends, family and colleagues haven't started with my phone, but instead, with my computer, thanks to the ever-improving application MightyText. MightyText links my browser (Chrome, obviously) to my Android phone, and lets me send and receive text messages, including photos and emoji from the Web, and even from Gmail. Considering how much time so many of us spend in our email, adding text messaging is a no-brainer.

If you're a long-time louisgray.com reader (and thanks, by the way), you might remember MightyText initially launched as a Chrome add-on, called Texty, in March of 2011. (See: Texty: Texts From Google Chrome Via My Android Phone) In later months, they rebranded to MightyText, gained visibility from the larger tech blogs about a year later and can now sport hundreds of thousands of users, measuring by their Chrome web store stats. Meanwhile, as their user base has swelled, so to has their feature set.

MightyText's Web UI.

From the very simple interface you can see in my original coverage, MightyText now is best experienced through their fullscreen Web UI, or integrated in Gmail. As I have the MightyText Chrome extension installed, my Chromebook alerts me, often before my phone does, that I have an incoming text or call. I can respond from that notification, from the website or from Gmail, and don't even have to pick up my phone to interrupt my workflow.

Seeing Recent Texts on MightyText in my Gmail.

From the MightyText site, I am greeted with a history of texts, synced with my phone, and the option to keep the conversation going. I can add images from local files on my computer, send emoji (in those rare times I'm feeling silly), and even walk through photos I've sent or received by MMS. And MightyText even has a Pro option for just over $2 a month which brings advanced settings, such as themes, deeper photo backup, group texting and a lot more.

Sending a MightyText with emoji to Maneesh Arora.

But one unsung hero (until now, I guess), is MightyText's companion extension Gtext (find it here). Gtext adds a "Compose SMS" button in my GMail next to where I'd start an email, and brings the same photo and text history from the MightyText site to the place where I already spark most my communication. So from Gmail, I can chat (with Hangouts of course), send SMS or email, all in one spot.

Browsing Recent Photos sent in Text in my Gmail

MightyText even has a tablet client. So I often find myself reading a book or browsing the Web on my Nexus 7, and even if my phone is in the other room, I can browse or send texts, just as easily, even without a 3G connection. So texting isn't something I have to do on one device. It's something I can do from every single device, all synced automatically, with real flexibility.

Awwww... Viewing A Photo I'm Adding to MightyText.

You might call it a New Year's resolution, but in 2014, I've decided to use the first Friday of each month to feature something I use every day - even if it's not brand new. MightyText gets the January 2014 honor. I'm happy to say they were first covered here, before anywhere else, and are a real and growing success story. If you're on Android, and you should be... definitely check it out.

Disclosures: Given I work at Google, I have a bias in favor of great products that include Android, Gmail and Chrome in their ecosystem. You might think about Hangouts possibly competing with MightyText, but I didn't let that get in my way now, did I?

Are the Big Phone Carriers 'Good Enough' These Days?

Last week, I got my hands on the brand new Nexus 5, and, as you might expect, I've been quite happy with it. The screen is fantastic. The size and weight are perfect, and the battery life is beyond anything I've had so far. But this isn't a post about the Nexus 5. It's about what I also switched when I changed phones - my carrier.

In the process of moving from my aging 2011 Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, I'm now on T-Mobile. This means in the space of five or so years, I've gone from an iPhone on AT&T, to an HTC Evo and Samsung Epic 4G on Sprint, to the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and now the Nexus 5 on T-Mobile. You could say I've tried all the big carriers here in the US, and experienced their positives and negatives. And in my experience, what they deliver, for the most part, is good enough.

Those of us who were early adopters on the first iPhone here in the US remember that AT&T was the only option - and the service's flakiness was well-chronicled. Many thousands of words were spent in blog posts here and elsewhere decrying AT&T's seeming inability to scale up to the unprecedented data demands brought on by the iPhone. (See: Thoughts on AT&T: What Steve Jobs Should Have Written) Calls that would complete without dropping, even with both parties staying completely still, seemed impossible, and it wasn't unusual for the first words after calling back were something to the effect of "Stupid AT&T".

Moving to Sprint for me was as much a function of switching to Android from iOS as it was leaving AT&T. In 2010 I was making a bet on momentum, app choice and quality, and that choice looks to have played out correctly. But when my family moved across town, we unhelpfully ended up in a place where Sprint coverage was not great - meaning most of my successful calls would have to be made in the backyard. For a year, that was just fine, and we made do - especially as most of the time, we use our phones for data, including email or texts, than we do with phone calls.

In 2011, I switched to Verizon when the Galaxy Nexus came up, and data/voice have been very good. No complaints. But they weren't a partner on the Nexus 5 launch, and while I had considered either going Moto X on Verizon, or keeping my creaky Galaxy Nexus around just a bit longer, I wanted to take another experiment and move to T-Mobile. As Pokemon was best known for saying: "Gotta Catch 'em All!"

/via https://twitter.com/louisgray/status/374207342763442176

Prior to making the switch, I polled people in person and many whom I didn't (via Twitter), to see how they rated their own carrier, on a 1-10 scale, and what mobile OS they were using. Surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of people rated their carrier with a score of 8 out of 10 or above. I had expected to see a lot of lower scores, and to see some trends play out, be it low scores for AT&T on iOS, or lower scores for the smaller carriers, specifically T-Mobile and Sprint. But by and large, people seemed pretty happy - leading me to wonder openly if the only safe business to be universally disliked is that of airlines - who never get any credit.

/via https://twitter.com/louisgray/status/374252273930489857

At the time, my curiosity was as much tied to MotoMaker for the Moto X launching first with AT&T. Was AT&T good enough again to be forgiven for their 2008-10 era quality gap? Could I possibly think of getting back with AT&T after all the frustration I'd seen? I saw people on iOS, Windows Phone and Android all giving AT&T scores above 7, and those from other carriers also being quite favorable. There were no clear laggards.

So when the Nexus 5 came available on Google Play, my internal debate over how to move forward was a pretty simple one. I saw that T-Mobile's LTE coverage includes my work and home. I saw the pricing for T-Mobile was in line (and actually a bit cheaper) than Verizon, and practically the only risk I'd be taking is if it was weak when I traveled outside of my usual stomping grounds. And so far... no complaints.

There's no question that as more and more of us as consumers and businesspeople are expecting more from our smartphones and tablets, that the demands we're putting on our telecommunications infrastructure is dramatically increasing. We've gone from a society that exchanged voice calls and simple texts to one where we expect full HD video and streaming live audio. We expect high speed access on all our devices, practically everywhere.

To build and support that demand, all the carriers are racing to be sure they're not the one who ends up left behind, as all the smart consumers end up attached to the market leaders. It's been a long time since I've read a great rant on AT&T, or seen a wave of people reporting dropped calls. Verizon's commercials promise the widest LTE available, and they do have "the map for that", but the alternatives seem to keep up in users' eyes. So maybe, just maybe, we've hit a turning point when the carriers are pretty good, and the user experience is going to get even better as our hardware improves and the mobile software gets even more excellent. I'm glad we've gotten this far.

Usual Disclosures: I work for Google. Google builds Android, and shaped the Nexus 5. I initially received my first HTC Evo free from Google I/O 2010 before I joined the company. This post isn't aimed to indicate any bias or favor to any Google partners. That'd be silly.