This strikes me as the first (user-centered) thing I've seen that is hands-down better than the iPhone experience. Yes, Android has an open app distribution policy, yes, there are multiple phones and carriers. But I haven't heard anyone say "I have to have an Android phone because of this killer app," and this seems like it could do that.
Locale is my killer app. I literally bought my G1 because I knew that it had this app, and it was the first thing I found and downloaded when I got home that night.
(What's up with the bright idea of "need to view Android Market on a handset" to see a list, in the main page http://www.android.com/market/ ? Perhaps also install iTunes, eh ;-)
P.S. Sorry, the first link is NOT the market page, and it's dated 2008. Can't easily find current price ...
Looks nice, but not a killer app in the sense that the parent is talking about. A more sophisticated settings/preferences is something only a small number of people would use.
I have both a BlackBerry and G1 and the Google Voice app on the BlackBerry doesn't work as well. It doesn't natively take over the dialer the way it does on Android.
The 2 OS-level (as opposed to app-level) features that are better in Android are the widget-customizable home screen and the notification panel. But yeah, this is probably the first killer feature.
I'm not trying to say you're wrong, but I get the impression that the reason Apple doesn't have something like that is that they think it will ultimately be worse for the user experience. Frequently they seem to eschew flexibility and customizability in order to simplify the interface. You could say they go too far (though I'd personally disagree in most cases), but I don't think that they simply overlooked features such as that.
This map, though, looks like it could be part of the iPhone default apps.
Ultimately, if they had a real keyboard and a better network, it would be better for this users' experience.
I agree on the keeping it simple part though. No need to make everything customizable when you have people that can make things more beautiful than you can. Sure, you can customize your version of van Gogh's Irises, but why bother? :-)
They get a nice cut when someone buys a $50+ navigation app on the iPhone. I don't see Apple making this or any other navigation app a native application and ruining the market that already exists.
They could also get a lot of third-party revenue by wiping out all of the native apps and letting other people sell them. At some point you have to worry about the value of your platform and now they have Android to compete with.
I think Apple's recent acquisition of Placebase, a mapping company, might indicate that they're willing to compete with Google on a navigation app.
From the NYT article: "Google executives said that they hoped that the new Google Maps for Mobile with navigation capabilities would eventually be available on Apple’s iPhone and other devices. But they said it was up to the makers of those devices to decide whether to include the application."
Given the way that the Google Voice app for the iPhone worked out, I'm going to guess that iPhone owners won't be seeing a Google Maps for Mobile with navigation capabilities.
I wasn't there for the briefing but some of the articles about this seem to indicate that Google is already working with Apple to integrate this with the iPhone's native Maps app.
Google and Apple have a weird relationship as far as mobile goes. Apple can do really lame shit like blocking Google Voice and Latitude, but when it comes down to it Google will still force a smile and continue working with them because they want all the mobile search revenue.
lol, uh no. sounds like they mean it's up to apple to decide if they want to develop it since they screwed us over with other products why should we bother to develop more good ones on their platform. good for google, screw apple for not allowing google voice.
