The problem with saying "we were better" when you lost

After seeing the Dolphins come up short on every meaningful stat except the final score in their 30-25 win over the New York Jets, it was interesting to see the comments from their side.  Rex Ryan is talking about how great their team was, and how "it doesn't make sense" that the Dolphins won.  It's funny, but I don't remember hearing those comments when Miami dominated every statistical category against the Colts, and yet still barely lost, because they couldn't stop one or two big plays.

The sad truth, Rex, is that football is more than just 'standard' offensive and defensive plays from scrimmage.  Your team called the wildcat "nonsense", a few weeks back, but I don't recall you having any issues with running two fake punts.  If it works for you, it's solid play, but if it works for the other team, it's nonsense?

Same thing today.  New York got burned not once, but twice, by Ginn on the special teams play.  They also got stuffed for a loss, stripped of the football, and watched Jason Taylor roll in for another TD.  And finally, when the game was on the line, they watched the Dolphins drive methodically down and make a much-needed score.  So yes, all the numbers in the world can look great for you, but the fact is, if you are letting big plays happen in one or more facets of the game, then you can not act like you should somehow have been gifted with a win for having those numbers.  Miami wasn't given the win against Indy for owning the ball for more than 45 minutes of the 60 minutes of play, nor for all their rushing yards or other stats.  You are given credit for scoring touchdowns and field goals.  How you do it is your business.  Do it any way you want.  Do it with the wildcat, do it with fake punts, do it with turnovers, or do it with returns.  HOWEVER IT WORKS, IT COUNTS.  And if your team cannot stop ALL the ways that the other team can score, then you simply DID...NOT....DESERVE...TO...WIN.

Rex Ryan's act is great entertainment, and as a first year coach he's going to be given some latitude, and yes he's brought excitement and hope to New York, but many of his players are acting utterly classless, and acting like they are still somehow a better team than the Dolphins even though they've now been swept.  Here's a clue for you, Coach Ryan:  Winning teams find a way to win.  Stats or no stats, ugly or pretty.  Winning teams find a way to put more points on the board than their opponent.  That's how the game works.  I say this as a Miami Dolphins fan who has watched Miami deal with 'shoulda woulda coulda' all year.   So congratulations for figuring out how to shut down the wildcat for most of the game.  But when the game was on the line, you did NOT.

So tell your players to shut up with all the trash talking, show some class for once, and own up to the fact that the better team DID win today.  Just because they didn't do it the way YOU think they should have, doesn't change what the scoreboard says, nor does it diminish the respect you owe them for having beaten you twice in a season.

Now, move on.

Need for Speed Shift. I've been had....again.

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for any simulation with my RX-8 in it, particularly one with a great interior driving view. I love my car. Mazda makes cars for driving enthusiasts, and when I get the chance to race in it, albeit virtually, I am already more than halfway towards forking over my hard-earned cash for it.

On the other hand, I'm also a racing enthusiast, and appreciate the art of racecraft. This has never been one of EA's strong spots, and is an area where even the superstars of video gaming get it wrong. The Forza and Gran Turismo series, for all their virtues, always miss the essential art of racing, and ultimately I am always left feeling empty by their games.

Need for Speed Shift enters the fray a month earlier than the highly anticipated Forza 3, and I believe this is no accident. EA's product management team knew they needed to squeeze as much cash as possible out of the window between their release and that of Forza. This is particularly true because Need for Speed boasts some extremely sweet graphics. You may have seen their commercials. The game just flat out looks great.

What I do not know for sure is whether they knew the game would ultimately fall to earth against Forza, and rushed it out to get what they could out of it, or whether the game COULD have been so much better, but again, Forza fear caused them to rush the release.

I must add I am EXTREMELY disappointed in the game reviewers who went gaga over this title. I trusted IGN with its 9 out of 10 score. I should have known better. The guys at IGN are good guys. I've known some of them and wrote a nice handful of PC racing simulation reviews for them, from the viewpoint of a more hardcore PC Simulation enthusiast. The console titles never came my way for review. Honestly, this is largely due to the fact that you need special machines to play pre-release titles, and console games also have not been the types that you tend to outsource. But I also know that the guys doing the console racing game reviews are often the same guys playing first person shooters and other genres. They aren't necessarily big on racing. Therefore, they are perfect targets for games like Need for Speed Shift, where longevity isn't the key. The goal for this title is to win the reviewers on the presentation, and make it fun just long enough to make the review deadline. After that, the battle is won. Customers part with their cash, and no one really cares where they are with the game several weeks later. So, yes, I'm a little irritated with IGN and other review sites that gave this game such high marks, but not at individuals, nor at their competency, as much as irritated that the game review world has become a 'game' in itself, and EA won this round, having figured out how to get what they wanted out of the reviews and thus maximize sales in the short term.

So, with all this preamble....why am I unhappy with the game? Well, first of all, it's not necessarily that the game physics are 'relaxed' for more casual gamers. That's all well and good. You can have various assists that you can turn on and off, and you don't want the game to be too hardcore to pick up and play.

However, EA released a title that is, quite frankly, buggy in its car physics, not just relaxed. Cars don't just drift around every corner. You wouldn't want them to! You'd burn off the tires in no time. In addition, when you're in a pack of other cars, drifting all together, you tend to have a lot more collisions. What you want is clean, smooth precise handling that's easy on the car and feels great for the driver. You do NOT NEED TO DRIFT AROUND A CORNER TO GET A BUZZ! EA doesn't get that. Consequently, you'll see that in replays, your car is the only one kicking up tire smoke around every corner. Most of the AI cars don't. It's not like you MEAN to be doing it, but you try to drive the default handling setup around a corner as perfectly as if Skip Barber himself were scoring your line, and you will usually still end up sliding the tail out. It's extremely annoying.

EA added a 'quick and dirty' setup screen where you can change the handling of your car. Ironically, it's backwards. If you set it to max oversteer, your handling will start to act more like a car should. Consequently, this is really the only way to play the game unless you are a 12 year old with ADHD guzzling energy drinks and twitching like a maniac. Unfortunately, you cannot change the car tuning for the cars that are provided for you in manufacturer challenges. If they give you the car, you drive it as is, and you're back to the stupid default handling.

Again, this might be fun for a reviewer tailsliding around a few corners and oohing and ahhing at the nice tire smoke, but does NOTHING to convince anyone that this has any resemblance to real racing.

Then there is the 'precision vs. aggression' aspect of the game. You get points whether you're punting people into the weeds or smoothly passing them without contact. It doesn't matter how you drive, you get points. What the heck????? Why try to drive with precision when it makes no difference HOW you pass?

Then they SET YOU UP for shenanigans by saying. "here you are, you're starting 10th and you have 3 laps. Have fun!". At any sufficiently high level of AI, you're not going to get your way to first place unless you barge through on every corner, getting lots of 'dirty pass' points in the process. How many real races are 3 laps? I do more than that at my local go-kart track!

Racing is about reeling someone in, lap after lap, figuring out where they are slow, where they are fast, and finally timing your pass. A pass is something that is set up over time. It is NOT a "oh crap the race is only 3 laps I'm just going to dive underneath them and use them as my brake through the turn". That's NOT RACING! That's just stupid. I can play Burnout if I want that (Oh wait, that's also an EA game).

And now we get to the AI. There's nothing worse than watching a field full of Lamborghinis act like their drivers have just popped into the local bar for a few before taking the track. These guys move over on you down the straights, chuck you into walls, are incapable of maintaining any semblance of the racing line, and just basically turn every race into a wreck-fest. There's no "I" in the AI here. So, again, you have 3 laps to beat them all, with a dodgy handling car that likes to do tank slappers down the straights, against cars that will hit you for no particularly good reason at all, and you actually call this RACING?

Now, EA could certainly patch this game. The oversteer/understeer bug could be fixed, the AI could be tuned, and some options for longer more believable races could be added. Am I holding my breath? Nope. I believe EA is in this for the quick cash influx. They do not particularly care if you still like the game one month later. The PC team might fix some bugs because that audience has come to expect it, but I seriously do not expect EA to ever admit they did anything wrong on this game. After all, they got their sparkling reviews, they got their $60 game sold as much as possible to desparate people impatiently waiting for Forza 3, and now it's time to move on.

I DO expect to see more cars and maybe tracks added to the game, along with the corresponding charge in Microsoft points, to see if they can milk a few extra bucks out of the title before moving on to the next quick hit.

Honestly, I'm also angry at myself. I should have known better. I have seen this enough times before that I DO know better. But I'm human, and the prospect of my RX-8 pounding out laps on the Nurburgring Nordschleife is enough to make me ignore the small warning voice telling me that I'm about to be had. I guess as long as EA can make me forget how abysmal their racing games tend to be, they have no incentive to change.

Congratulations EA, you out maneuevered the reviewers and even racing enthusiasts who know better. I'll keep watching to see if you patch this title on the 360 & PS3, but I'm not optimistic.

Another thing the iPhone still can't do

I am in a community theater production, so I decided to peek at the App Store on iTunes to find an app that might help me memorize my lines. I figure there should be something there.

Sure enough, there is an App called HollywoodHelper that will do just that. Looked great. I didn't see any reviews, but the screenshots looked promising.

I downloaded it, and then realized my mistake. By not reading carefully the language in the description, I missed that it needed to share files with your computer via Wi-Fi, and that the host application they created for this only works on a Mac. They are hopeful to have a Windows version soon, but two things are wrong here, in my mind.

First, why does every Apple App developer have to make their own transfer system for the iPhone? For all the crowing about the superiority of the phone, Apps don't share files! Each one gets its own area, and therefore you cannot just download a generic file downloader program and use it with different applications. Unless I've missed something, this is horribly inconvenient. Of course, the Cult of All-Things-Apple will probably continue to talk about what an awesome device we have here, but consider that if this were on, say, my G1, I could just download the files to the SD card, either by plugging my phone into my computer the standard USB connection, or put the card into any card reader. All apps can read the storage. Not the iPhone.

Second, again, had this been an Android Market application, my "oops" moment wouldn't have cost me money. I could just get an immediate refund from the store at the touch of a button. But now I'm at the mercy of this app developer's timeline for developing a Windows file transfer program. No refund for you! All Sales Are Final in Apple's grand vision.

Now, it is also only fair to point out I could not find a similar application at all on Android, so unless I want to write it (I'm considering it), I'm out of luck entirely, but not because of any failure on Google's part to write a decent operating system with a shared file storage system.

Oh well, time to open Eclipse and write some code. I wonder if I can write the app for my G1 before this developer re-invents the wheel of file sharing code for Windows over a wi-fi connection?

My XBox 360 Technical Support Horror Story

So, here's the deal. I have an XBox 360 that exhibits the dreaded "red rings of death" (RROD) error. I'm told that although it's out of warranty, this is such a problem that my XBox will be repaired at no cost. Great. Nice to see Microsoft cares about its customers.

I get the XBox back. Apparently it's not the same one I sent in. It's a REPLACEMENT, and it has a note telling me that to expedite things they just sent me a new one.

Unfortunately, the new one refuses to detect my HD DVD drive, and it also disconnects from the Internet and forgets its network configuration constantly. In other words, it's as much of a headache as the old one was.

I call XBox 360 support, and after a brief conversation and a very long hold time, finally get to the 'top' of the Customer Service where Carlos (who declines to give me his last name) proceeds to tell me that my XBox is out of warranty and if I want to have it fixed I have to pay for it. Apparently they send my "new" XBox to me under the OLD warranty. This means that they can send me a complete lemon and I have NO recourse now. (Although I bet if I can make it show me 3 red rings of death I could probably get my replacement).

I tell Carlos I want to further up the chain. He proceeds to tell me I can go no further up the chain. Policy is policy and if I want my 'new' XBox fixed I'm going to have to pay for it.

So is THIS how Microsoft stands behind their product? Is this some kind of cruel joke?

I'm planning to investigate and see how much higher I can take this, because this is utter bullcrap. It's not like the 'new' XBox 360 worked properly even for awhile. It hasn't worked since it's arrived (at least with respect to these features).

I had committed to Microsoft XBox and their products, but I'm now seriously considering switching to Sony and getting a PS3 slim.

If anyone reads this and has suggestions for how I can take this to the next level, I'm listening.

(Follow-up: I just sent the gist of what is above to Aaron Greenberg @ Microsoft, and I quoted back to him his interview clip from Tom's Hardware website :

Still, Greenberg says that Microsoft is standing by the quality of its console despite the problems, and will even make it right by fixing the problem at no cost to the consumer. "But at the same time, we've been working hard to make improvements in the products we're currently making, so I really feel like most of this is well behind us," he said.

I will be watching to see if he lives up to these bold words).

"Google engineer Dan Morrill explained that the company spearheaded the development of the open source Android platform out of frustration with the slow pace of innovation in the mobile space. "

My answer would be that Cyanogen created his mods out of frustration with the slow pace of innovation in Google's Android:

To wit, even when 1.6 (Donut) comes out, Android will not :

1. let you save to and run apps from an SD card
2. solve performance issues
3. add International Fonts (such as Hebrew)

Those are my top 3 issues. About the only thing to go ga-ga about (from an end-user standpoint) is the new version of the Android Market, and even that is just still playing catch-up with Apple's App Store.

If Google were smart, they would have a 'T-Mobile' build of Android and a 'Experimental/Beta' build of Android that people could contribute to and pull down onto their phones, so that those of us who want to be on the bleeding edge can be there.

No, the iPhone is not the be-all and end-all

I have gotten several messages from different friends who own iPhones and talk about how wonderful it is, and oh what a pity it is that I have a G1.

Let me make this point, and I cannot make it too strongly. Having 80,000 apps in your app store means NOTHING if the one thing you really want or need to do cannot be done.

In the case of my iPod Touch, which has all the same pros and cons as an iPhone, there are things that I simply cannot do, that are the things I WANT my device to do.

A classic case in point is PodCasts. Initially an app called Podcaster was put out for the AppStore. Apple yanked it with no explanation. Eventually it came out that Apple was intending to add podcast functionality to the device, and we know that Apple simply cannot tolerate any competition, so the app was killed and sent to jailbreak exile.

I was livid with this decision, but later on was relieved when Apple announced podcast support. I would finally be able to get the podcasts I want on my device. Or would I?

Nope. The podcasts I get are radio programs that have password protected podcasts. I can get them via iTunes and sync them, but I still cannot get them directly on my device when I'm out and about. This means that I cannot hear the radio show on my way home from work. I have to wait til the next day. I find this annoying and aggravating. Unfortunately, as an Apple device owner, I shall have to wait and hope that some day the mysterious overlords in Cupertino deign to provide me with this functionality. Had Apple not barred all competition on their device, I have no doubt there would be not one but several Podcasting apps that supported this feature.

But wait, there's more...Said radio program websites offer a spot where I can login and download the mp3 on the same day! A-ha! A viable workaround? Nope. You cannot download an mp3 and play it, last time I tried in Safari (maybe buried in 80,000 apps is a way to do it, but I haven't found it yet). At any rate, workaround also dead.

Meanwhile, I have an app on my G1 that supports password protected podcast subscriptions and works great. And I can go into any web site and download audio files to my SD card and they are added to my phone's audio library.

So, happy iPhone users, what say you? Do you LIKE the situation where you are simply told that if Apple doesn't provide it, but MIGHT sometime in the future, you're out of luck in the meantime? Do you like being able to browse to websites with various kinds of content, only to find that you are barred from actually GETTING and using such content on your device?

A gilded cage is still a cage. If your iPhone has not provided you with such frustrating moments, then I congratulate you. Unfortunately for me, these are just a couple of the dead ends I have run into with Apple's device, and all the Apple kool-aid you can feed me is not going to change this reality.

The G1 has its share of problems, and obviously still has some catching up to do where Apple's UI is concerned. It also, however, has its advantages, and it's biggest advantage is FREEDOM OF CHOICE where apps are concerned. I can download Opera Mini and have near instant web access on even slow connections. I've compared Opera Mini loading a site on my G1 on a slow Edge connection to Safari on my Wi-Fi 802.11g connection, and guess which one loads the content faster? Opera Mini!!! Not even close! But wait, you can't have Opera Mini on your iPhone, because ONLY APPLE gets to provide a browser. Again, enjoy your gilded cage. If you've never had freedom, I suppose you may not appreciate those that do.

So for now, I carry two devices. I carry my iPod Touch so my music library is mobile. (I have an iPod Connector kit in my RX-8 which uses the proprietary (of course!) docking cable, so I don't have a 'standard' 3.5mm or USB solution for my car at this point. When it changes, I'll move my music to my G1's replaceable (yes, I can expand my memory...can you?) memory card and carry ONE device.

Enjoy your iPhone, guys, but please do not look with pity or scorn on those of us who have escaped from your silky, gilded cage.

My Thoughts on Phone Apps

You know, I continually see comparisons between phones based upon how many thousand apps are in the App Store for that device.

As someone who has probably bought more apps than he should on both the Android Market and Apple App Store, I have few thoughts on this.

First of all, 95% of everything is junk. It's true for movies, books, music and now phone apps. So the realistic number of apps that are not is much smaller.

Second, there is a 'gold rush' effect going on. Apps are the "next big thing". Every midnight hacker dreams of putting a $0.99 app up that's going to make him an overnight millionaire. It wasn't that long ago that every would be internet start-up envisaged going public and being the next Yahoo, Google or whatever. How many of those actually made a product worth having and how many actually saw that dream come true? A very small percent.

That means that these markets are flooded with junk, and it is quite often hard to find a good app somewhere buried in the slew of bad apps. The ratings system helps a little, but honestly, you won't know how well it works til you use it. In the case of the Apple App Store, you can get "Lite" editions of many programs to solve this problem. In the case of Android Market, you can get a 24-hour refund, no questions asked. This helps as a good "lemon-law". The second time you download the app, however, the sale is final.

I prefer the Android policy for the good of the customer, but I can see how people hoping to make a quick buck might prefer the "sorry no refunds" model that Apple puts out there. 99 cents is an impulse purchase, and all you have to have is a pretty icon and a good description and you might part some suckers from their cash. Many of the people who uninstall the app won't come after you (it was just 99 cents after all), and will probably not even bother writing a review. So the App Store is, I think, more amenable to scams than the refund-based Android market.

But both markets really suffer from this glut of junk. What's sad is that if you were to take the best features of, say, 10 apps that purport to the do the same thing, and combined them, you might have a really great usable app that lots of people would want. This would be kind of an open-source collaboration system where people would use code.google.com or another open source system to pitch in and help with the code.

If Google can somehow encourage this kind of atmosphere, albeit one where the profits are divided among the contributors, I believe the overall quality of the apps would increase, and the amount of worthless junk would go down. Would you rather write your own app from scratch, have to compete with every other app out there (some written by commercial shops with their own development teams) or would you rather add or improve a feature in an app you already use? I think most people would be in the latter camp, and most people would be happy to not have to download a bunch of apps that all supposedly solve the same problem, and switch between them for different features.

Right now, Android is fighting a battle of numbers with Apple, and I don't really see the benefit to the customers. Sure, you want a larger user base to attract the commercials shops. For instance, I'd love to see my NFL games on a streaming DirecTV app on my phone, like the iPhone users can now do, but what I really want is a solid suite of apps to choose from, without all the garbage.

Finally, ask yourself what you're really doing with all those apps you download. One study I saw showed that a majority of people barely use their apps, and most don't even survive the day. They just get deleted after being looked at. They have the long-term hold on their users that today's newspaper does. They get browsed and tossed. I know that my personal weakness is treating my phone or iPod like it was a piece of luggage. I put everything in it because I never know what I'm going to need. But the REALITY is that I end up never using most of what's on it. It just eats space, but for some reason I keep coming back to the App Store and the Market regularly looking for new app 'fixes'. I wonder how sustainable this model is. Can these markets really continue to grow like this? I seriously doubt it. I think we're going to see some changes by Apple and Google to their markets to start separating the wheat from the chaff. There will always be plenty of junk up there, but if Apple and Google don't find a way to really help their customers FIND the quality applications, I think many people will just stop trying. There's just too much background noise to find a good signal in.

A good start would be notifications. I should be able to create very specific search criteria, save it, and be NOTIFIED when new apps hit the store that meet my criteria. That way I'm not having to play the needle and haystack game every time I want to find an app. It also helps developers by ensuring that their apps aren't lost forever upon arrival, swallowed in a sea of similar apps. Of course, the iPhone still really stinks when it comes to background notifications, so this would be an area where Android will shine.

There should also be some kind of way to find out how 'saturated' an area is. For instance, how many instant messaging clients that talk to MS Messenger do we really need? Maybe developers could have a source for looking at saturation levels for certain kinds of apps and maybe go write something original, realizing their sales are going to be abysmal unless they really can blow the others out of the water in some compelling way.

At any rate, at this point, only a small percentage of apps I download are keepers, and most are only sporadically used even when I do keep them, and I bet most people are in the same boat. So let's knock of this whole "app count" approach to the app situation and start looking at how well needs are being met by the apps that are there. I'll take one good quality complete Facebook app over several ones that each work well in one specific area of Facebook, thanks.

And the iPhone users start crowing

So it didn't take long for an old friend to tweet at me: "iPhone = joy".  

I suppose they are entitled to smile a little bit, since Apple has been taking a major PR hit for their evil-ness.  Only true, blind, cult of Mac followers can excuse their behavior.  Most people, even iPhone users, aren't so addled they can't see bad behavior when it's in front of them.

And honestly, we've seen enough questionable behavior at Google, that we know they are CAPABLE of it.  However, it doesn't make it less painful when it happens.

Still, the fact is, I'd still rather cut off my arm than buy an iPhone.  To take one lousy decision by Google and say it somehow justifies returning to the fascist "we-know-what's-good-for-you, arrogance of Apple, is the height of ridiculous.

I love my iPod Touch for games, music and movies, but I'm spoiled rotten by push notifications, background multi-tasking, on-screen widgets, customizable themes, etc on my Android.  To go back to the sterile environment that is the iPod Touch or iPhone is out of the question.  An Apple user obviously cannot appreciate this (I bet most have never even spent serious time trying a Google phone out, let alone a modded super-fast one like Cyanogen), but being able to move forward and backward in a multi-app environment is something I cannot live with out.  The herky jerky, "press home, launch app, get something, press home, find app page, launch other app, put something in, press home, find app page, start up other app" sequence is intolerable now that I've used Android.  

Yes, there are a few things better in iPhone.  The clipboard implementation is better done on the iPhone and the on-screen keyboard is roomier and...well, that's about it really.  Having Opera Mini and a re-flowing Google Browser just destroys Safari.  Even multi-touch is something I find I'm not really missing (even though I have it for the browser in the Cyanogen mod). 

But really, going back to an Apple device would be like returning home to a spouse that physically beats you up just because someone in the shelter raised their voice at you once.  

What Google does NOT say about Cyanogen

You know what was missing from Google's response?  A solution!

Even if you agree that Google is correct in sending the cease and desist order to Cyanogen, they have left his users (some 30,000 of us apparently) in the lurch.  They offer no solution, either.

Google KNOWS that this ROM runs on phones which came with Google Apps on them, and yet it basically says "choose, us or them", with a smiley face as if they somehow think that these ROMs are awesome, while sliding the knife into our back.

Google, if you want to persuade us that you're enthusiasm is genuine, and that your customers matter, you might give some thought as to how an authorized G1 (or other google phone) user can reload the closed source apps onto any Android build, as long as they are on an authorized device.

Doing so would convince me that you have not, in fact, gone EVIL in your attempt to protect your intellectual property.  But right now you've basically given us all the middle finger and left us with no answers.

It is a dark day when Google shows the same behavioral inclinations as Apple.

Google's "statement" about Cyanogen

Google has released their side of the story.

Here is the key bit:

"These apps are Google's way of benefiting from Android in the same way that any other developer can, but the apps are not part of the Android platform itself. We make some of these apps available to users of any Android-powered device via Android Market, and others are pre-installed on some phones through business deals. Either way, these apps aren't open source, and that's why they aren't included in the Android source code repository. Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it's done with the best of intentions."

Legally, they are in the right.  However, I think they need to be a bit more creative than this.  As a licensed G1 owner, I have a phone which includes these applications.  I want to continue to use these applications with the Cyanogen ROM.   At the same time, Google doesn't want Cyanogen to redistrbute the apps, presumably so that non Google Experience phone owners cannot get these applications.  Fine.   But then, use a technical solution.  Have Cyanogen do a check to verify that the device is a Google approved device and then let the ROM update go through.  OR allow me to backup and restore my Google apps from an SD card.  Or find another way to allow LICENSED owners like myself use my Google apps on my Android phone. 

This is not a problem that needs to be solved with lawyers and threatening e-mails.  It needs to be solved so that all parties are happy.  Google should be able to ensure the apps are used on its phones, Cyanogen should be able to make Android mods that don't deprive us of our software, and we users should be able to enjoy the best Android builds available.

The ball is still in Google's court.  I don't think this is over.  Not by a long shot.

Google goes evil on Cyanogen

The first improvement I would suggest to Google is to fire their legal department. Seriously. You can start a company with the best of intentions, but the moment you start hiring lawyers to defend what's yours, things start going downhill.

This is the case with Google. Apparently, doing their best imitation of the evil that is Apple, Google has ordered a popular Android ROM distributor to cease and desist. His crime? Modding the Android operating system, making it crazy fast and fun to use. How does Google see it? Well, his ROM includes the binaries for things like Google Mail and Google Maps. He hasn't modified them or wrecked them, they are just part of the distribution. So in spite of the fact that no harm is being done to Google, Google is demanding that Cyanogen stop distributing his OS. This is insanity on many different levels.

First, last time I checked, Android isn't within hailing distance of Apple in numbers. It is guys like Cyanogen that keep the development community engaged and fulfil the promise of Open Source.

Second, let's face it, even with Donut, Android is SLOW. One culprit is the low level Linux scheduler that's included. Cyanogen replaced it with BFS Scheduler (Not gonna say what that stands for in this blog), and as a result, the Android OS now FLIES. Zippy and wonderful and a pleasure to use. Going back to the unmodd'ed Android OS would be like trying to do the 100 yard dash in a foot of mud.

Third, Android hasn't gotten around to adding proper international font support. So I can't read Hebrew newspapers from Israel, for example, using 'official builds'. I have to root the phone and put in the fonts myself. Of course, if I can't use rooted operating systems, this option is out, and I'm stuck (it's worth noting that the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch have supported Hebrew and other international fonts out of the box. Remember this, Google....destroy the workarounds and the customers might just go to the company that did this right).

If Cyanogen were in any way damaging Google, modifying its binaries, or profiting from doing so, I might say Google had a leg to stand on. In fact, I'm sure that Google DOES have a legal leg to stand on, but not an ethical one.

I am hoping now that Google is just sending the cease and desist as an opening for negotiating a settlement with Cyanogen that will basically get him to agree to do or not do certain things in exchange for permission to redistribute the binaries. I still don't think a cease-and-desist order sends a very good message to the developer community (again, smells like Apple), but at least they can protect their intellectual property while encouraging and working with the best and brightest minds in the developer community.

The fact is, if Google shuts down modders like Cyanogen, it may not be noticed by that majority of Android phone users who use the un-rooted operating system, but it will have a chilling effect on developers, and developers write the apps that those users use. And right now, Google can ill afford the publicity that comes from letting lawyers loose on non-profit developers who are doing nothing other than making Android look GOOD!

Word.