Google announced yesterday that it was retiring Google Reader as part of it's overall pruning of legacy Google Services. As David Morgenstern noted, 

I really don't understand the dissing of RSS and apparently I'm not alone based on the alarm on Twitter as well as worried posts on discussion boards, such as that for the popular NetNewsWire app on the Mac and iOS platforms.  I've been a long, longtime user of NetNewsWire and use it throughout the day.

RSS, though, while very useful and pretty cool when it was released in 1999 (basically an eternity ago in Internet years), has not aged well in the hypersocial second decade of the 2000s. I'm not suggesting that just because something is old that it must be replaced. I don't even mind the UI of most RSS readers, including Google Reader (arguably one of the best). That's not what has aged so poorly (even if Google Reader does look a bit old school by current Web standards). What is in need of replacement (and has already, for many users, been replaced) is the approach to finding and reading content on an increasingly crowded Internet.

About a year ago, I stopped bothering with RSS entirely (up to that point, I'd relied heavily on Google Reader for feeds of news, entertainment, and fodder for my own writing, as do many tech writers). By that time, though, my Google Reader inbox was a mess of barely relevant, from countless blogs and sites that I'd discovered and with which I wanted to keep up. There was too much to read, too little time, and much of what rolled under my cursor had little to do with my interests for any given week, let alone a particular day.

Twitter, on the other hand, never failed to surface several articles worth reading, often from an author or three that ended up buried in my RSS feed. Since most of the people I follow on Twitter are at least peripherally involved in my primary fields of interest (education, search, digital marketing, and sustainability), all I had to do was dip my toe in the river of Twitter for a few minutes and I had what I needed. I usually ended up with a couple things that I didn't even know I wanted.

I've made a point not to fill my Twitter feed with an echo chamber of exclusively like-minded individuals, so I generally had balanced perspectives in my reading and made use of what was essentially a crowd-sourced, personalized RSS reader. Facebook tends to be more for interpersonal commmunications for me, but LinkedIn has become a very useful source of current, relevant reading as well. The same can be said for Google+. RSS? That's just a mess created by a Web that has proliferated so dramatically that my little set of favorite sites and authors was woefully inadequate to uncover the wheat hidden amidst all of that chaff.

RSS readers don't exactly lend themselves to conversations either — the sorts of conversations that happen quite naturally on social media (including social bookmarking/linking sites like Reddit). These conversations add a great deal of value to what we find on the Web and help build context in overwhelming volumes of information.

It's no wonder that Google has seen such a drop in usage that they could no longer justify keeping the product active. Although I know it's a bit Big Brother for most folks, I personally can't wait to have Google Glass make reading suggestions to me (and then read me the articles I select) based on current trending topics in areas where I frequently search, my social feeds, and my recent writing. Obviously, this extreme vision of the "Web 3.0 RSS reader" isn't for everyone, but it is, after all, 2013. We can reasonably expect every service we use to be social, personalized (preferably automatically), and look great on mobile. And Google Reader just wasn't cutting the mustard.

This is all well and good (and it is very, very good), but what interests me most is the AI engine behind SwiftKey that allows it to learn from your typing, from things that you write. You can connect it to your Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook accounts, as well as to an RSS feed and your text messaging, giving the software a huge amount of data to learn commonly used words and phrases. The result is predictive text that works well for even the sloppiest and fastest of thumb typers or sliders, and it makes touch typing on a tablet almost a pleasure.

Where this starts getting really cool, though, is when you start thinking about the application of this sort of machine learning and predictive input to various vertical markets and specialized use cases. In general, for example, healthcare providers love tablets for the ease of access to patient information, medical research, medical imaging, etc, but hate the finicky text input that comes with most health management systems on tablets. Doctors can barely write a legible prescription, let alone tap out notes during the limited time they're with patients. With SwiftKey, though, the combination of its predictive engine and ability to accept hastily scrawled input and turn it into the words you actually meant to enter can make tablet input simple and accurate for even the busiest of doctors or most overworked of nurses.

SwiftKey has actually done quite a bit of work in the healthcare field specifically because of this potential, developing an entire healthcare application. Obviously, the video I've embedded below is a nice piece of marketing, but it gives a sense that SwiftKey's vision is not just to be a better, prettier version of Swype. Note, by the way, that the SwiftKey 4 keyboard is only available for Android; its healthcare solution is available on both iOS and Android, because the predictive input is embedded within a larger application framework, but still uses the iOS keyboard.

It isn't at all difficult to imagine applications outside of healthcare. This is a no-brainer for educational settings, especially in special education, where students with motor impairments would benefit tremendously from the predictive text. Similarly, teachers and school clinicians collecting data and documenting individual educational plans (IEPs) for students could take advantage of the capability for specialized language. Even outside of special education, with a focus increasingly on having students create content rather than merely consume it, SwiftKey's dramatic improvement to the usability of touchscreen-based keyboards is quite significant.

Engineering, manufacturing, quality assurance, and virtually any other market that uses specialized vocabulary and benefit from keeping users in the field highly mobile could easily tap into the potential of SwiftKey. In fact, SwiftKey has an SDK and partners with a variety of organizations to create applications around their predictive input engine.

One of the major drawbacks to touch has always been the lack of a keyboard. Even young people, who tend to be remarkably adept with this sort of thing, will usually turn to a full-blown PC for any serious writing, leaving their touch devices for texting and Facebook updates. However, SwiftKey is changing the way we think about "typing" and making increasingly ubiquitous touch devices much more usable for all of our computing needs.

A lot of people use pre-paid, no-contract phones. They’re first phones for kids, first phones for people old enough to remember operator assisted calls and party lines, phones for those with inadequate credit to get a long-term contract from a major carrier, and, increasingly, pre-paid phones are making their way into the hands of the technorati who want an unlocked smartphone.

That said, the majority of these phones are feature phones and pre-paid plans and carriers feel second-rate at best to the average consumer in the US. Even the major wireless providers in the US are getting in on the act, offering their own pre-paid plans (though largely marketed to non-technical buyers).

All of this has changed, though, with the Nexus 4 on deck and unlocked iPhones increasingly available. The Nexus 4 in particular was never intended for sale through a carrier like most phones in the US. Rather, Google bypassed the restrictions, painfully slow Android updates, and other nonsense that carriers bring to the table.

And consumers have spoken. Google can’t keep this unlocked superphone in stock, even with the absence of 4G capabilities. Consumers also gladly plop down top dollar for unlocked iPhones, march out to their nearest convenience score, and activate their phone with a simple SIM card kit.

So why the change? Because contracts are expensive, restrictive, and rarely come with unlocked phones. A variety of Android phones are launching on pre-paid carriers as well at very aggressive price points. The Tracfone of the early 2000’s is long gone (although Tracfone, owned by a Mexican telecom company, actually owns most of the pre-paid brands in the US) and a broad cross-section of consumers is happily jumping on the bandwagon, saving money and switching phones on their terms rather than waiting for the magical end of their 2-year contracts to upgrade. There is simply too much innovation happening in the mobile space for people to be bothered waiting for updates that might never come or foregoing that great new phone they want because they aren’t yet eligible for an upgrade.

As I noted during the Great Debate and moderator Andrew Nusca reiterated, the only sticking point here is the enterprise:

But there's a big asterisk on the pre-paid market, and that's the IT organization. "Procurement becomes an issue," Mr. Dawson said during the rebuttal stage. That's a big blocker here: the traditional one-stop-shop mentality that IT harbors is at risk here, even though most consumers focus on the impact of contracts on their wallets.

Nonetheless, most people know where they stand. As BYOD takes over the enterprise, those people might find themselves on the same side as IT for once. And wouldn't that be nice?

In fact, the wider availability of unlocked phones that can be used with a variety of carriers may be the best thing to happen to the enterprise since companies like Dell and HP started delivering mass market commodity PCs. Imagine the opportunities for resellers to now deliver mass market commodity smartphones, pre-configured for deployment in an organization on whatever carrier could provide the best price for airtime. Being able to negotiate substantial savings with a new breed of wireless resellers by buying in quantity. Or being able to more easily support BYOD, which, as Andrew points out, is where most of us are headed.

Andrew asked us to look into our wireless crystal ball and predict where the industry would sit in four years. I took a pretty big leap, but I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that the current trend towards pre-paid and unlocked phones would have a pretty significant impact on both consumers and the enterprise (in fact, more so on the latter):

Most importantly, though, when consumers and businesses want to buy phones and tablets (the latter, by the way, will replace phones for many individuals who simply use VoIP and a headset to make calls through their tablet which is their primary computing and communication device) will go to the same places where they would purchase computers, networking equipment, televisions, or any other electronics. Consumers will buy unlocked devices from big box stores and businesses will buy them from VARs or direct from OEMs, and manage them in the cloud, allocating bandwidth as appropriate to users. Gone will be the days of buying phones at the Verizon Store.

Or, I should add, through expensive corporate contracts with Verizon or AT&T. And that's a good thing for everyone involved.

In many ways, Google is 100 percent correct. When I bought my Nexus 4, I opted to save a few dollars and just buy the 8GB model, since the majority of the content I access lives in Dropbox, Google Apps, and various other components of Google's cloud-based ecosystem. I'll occasionally watch a movie or catch up with Game of Thrones on it, but it's primarily a tool for business communications. My next tablet will most likely be a 16GB Nexus 10, and I've never regretted buying an 8GB Nexus 7. I am Google's ideal consumer and business user, and guess what? I'm not the target market (or markets) for Apple's latest iPad.

So who is and what does this have to do with Google?

I live in the middle of nowhere and pay dearly to ensure that I at least have a reasonable connection to the Internet, bonding satellite, and DSL to do my job (and keep my kids happily surfing, and only complaining a little bit when Netflix buffers). I'm surrounded, though, by people who have a second (or third) home out in the country. As they sit out on their porches during the warm New England summers, an iPad loaded up with high-definition movies will be a welcome companion. On their intercontinental flights? Same deal. If Internet access is at all spotty (and, contrary to what folks who live in the big city believe, it's spotty or non-existent in lots of places that are still desirable places for the elite with disposable income to spend their time in), locally synced content starts looking a lot more attractive than streamed movies or music.

So the new iPad will appeal to luxury buyers in ways that no Android tablet will. But this isn't just about watching Avatar in full HD at your remote cabin in the Alps or on your yacht beyond the range of Wall Street 4G. There are vertical markets that will be very well served by a portable high-resolution display and a lot of local storage. Although Apple has made a point of not being an enterprise player, this is, in fact, an important enterprise play. Health care is the easiest example of a market primed for tablets with lots of storage. The pagers we see on TV's medical dramas have long been replaced by smartphones and notebooks, and tablets have eaten patient charts for lunch, especially in large teaching hospitals.

A single digital CT study, for example, can be half a gigabyte, and the realities of even fast networks require doctors and staff to pre-fetch such large files for review. Well-funded hospitals and the doctors they employ would gladly trade a less expensive Android tablet or iPad for one that can give them more immediate access to these sorts of files.

On-site engineering applications, oil rigs, remote geological surveys, and more also lend themselves to as much storage as possible, as much resolution as possible, and the best form factors possible.

Perhaps these are all markets that Google is happy to leave behind in favor of low-cost, cloud-centric hardware for mass consumer audiences. But the luxury market is important. Health care, science, and engineering, and even media and production markets are more important. Google has only brought its ultra-fast broadband to one city, and expansion of fiber networks from other carriers has ground to a halt. 4G has a long way to go before it even approaches ubiquity, and in-building cellular is a growing market at best.

Until then, no matter what the cost, Apple is going to make money on these things. Will they sell in the volumes that less expensive iPads do? No, of course not. But Apple is bumping up against a nearly inelastic good with its high-end devices in specific markets, and they're smart to make this option available. For Google to ignore these potential markets and rely on the cloud, a set of technologies that won't be universally available (or available at adequate speeds) for some time as infrastructure catches up to technology, is a mistake.

Chances are, Google's cloud strategy will win in the long run. The potential benefits are clear, and many consumers and businesses are already leveraging the cloud to their significant advantage. Our telecommunications, though, aren't nearly as robust as Google's cloud yet. Apple, clearly, has upped the ante in the meantime.

The problem with this much, choice, though, is twofold:

1. For users, finding games that aren't just well-rated but that you like and, in many cases, that your friends are playing so that you aren't playing with people you don't know from Prague.
2. For developers, getting users to find your game through the noise.

But does anyone really care? These are just games we're talking about, right?

Well, yes and no. I saw one of the first television commercials specifically advertising a kids' game app the other day. It wasn't a port of a game for a Nintendo handheld or some add-on for the PS3. It was just a native app. It wasn't educational, either. It was a genuine game meant to be played by tweens on a handheld and the commercial had all the production polish of a Call of Duty advertisement.

Gaming is big business and there is an incredible amount of money to be made by independent developers and major distributors alike. The availability of compelling games is actually a reasonable indicator of the health of a platform. The growing trend towards convergence of all of our entertainment devices onto one single handheld i ushering this into place.

However, it hardly makes sense to build an app that nobody will be able to find amid hundreds of thousands of other games. And for consumers, a robust marketplace of compelling, interesting, new games will increasingly become a deciding factor when selecting a mobile device. So the stakes are actually quite high for Google (and Apple) as they fight for market dominance. Even for consumers, one can only play Bad Piggies so many times before they start itching for something else to occupy their thumbs while they wait in a line somewhere.

This is where Applorer comes in. I had a chance to talk with the CEO of Stream Media, Applorer's producer about their very nifty app last week. Chua Zi Yong spoke with me from Singapore about the very real challenges that small developers are facing (i.e., the ones that can't afford to advertise their apps on Nickelodeon) reaching a critical mass of users that can provide real financial returns. It's the prospect of these financial returns that will drive continued innovation in handheld gaming. Keep in mind that gaming was also a key factor in PC processor and GPU innovation in the early days of widespread computer adoption.

Let's start with what Applorer is, first. This promotional video does a good job covering the highlights:

So essentially, Applorer is a social platform for game discovery. What are your friends playing? Do they like the games? Then give them a shot and hook directly to the Play Store from Applorer.

The value here for developers is that Applorer is learning in a very Google-esque fashion what sorts of games individuals like. Then, through partnerships with developers, it can begin providing featured and recommended games via Applorer that are highly targeted at the gamers most likely to be interested in them. Zi explained that many developers were seeing cost per install (CPI) for apps featured and advertised through non-targeted methods of $3-4. Since most apps don't even come close to this in terms of price (and many are free and/or ad-supported), this is hardly a sustainable business model. Applorer's targeted approach to recommended and featured apps can bring the CPI down drastically for developers.

For me, I'm not a serious gamer, whether on consoles, PCs, phones, tablets, or otherwise. But I'm always looking for fun distractions. Increasingly, first-person shooters have been grabbing my attention. And, not surprisingly, I've found some great new FPS apps through Applorer, along with more of the puzzles and word games I tend to play with friends and family. And although the user reviews in the Play Store are usually helpful in sifting through countless redundant and often low-quality apps, a recommendation from a friend who shares my interests carries much more weight.

I tend to download a lot of apps, try them briefly, hate them, and then uninstall them (or just forget about them until I can't even find the apps I actually use anymore). Interestingly, though, the apps I've installed as a result of Applorer are all still on my phone and tablet and I play them all. I'm sure the amount of noise will increase on Applorer as the userbase increases commensurately, but so far, Google hasn't done much in the way of personalized recommendations that make sense for games in the Play Store and certainly hasn't added robust social features like those in Applorer ("3 of your friends +1'd this app" doesn't count as robust). To be honest, Applorer would be a great acquisition for Google since the app's social engines and hooks into Android are really quite slick.

Now if we could just get Stream Media to create versions of Applorer for other categories of apps (or if Google just bought them and integrated their engines throughout the Play Store), we'd be a lot further ahead in terms of finding the 10-20 apps out of the 600,000 in the Play Store that we'd actually use and love.

I'm not dismissing this outage, by the way. I live, eat, and breathe Google and the Gmail outage (caused by a bad update to their load-balancing software) had ripple effects across many related services (including the Chrome browser for users who, like me, choose to sync data across their various services). This isn't a small thing and, in fact, leads to the title of this article.

For Google, it was a hiccup. A bit of bad software rolls out, doesn't work, and gets rolled back. For the millions of people who rely on Google to get their jobs done, to enable important (and sometimes critical) business and personal communications, to write and calculate and advertise and sell, even a minor blip is cause for concern. As one analyst posed in the aforementioned Wired article,

“Imagine a scenario where you can’t even open your Android phone or you can’t get phone calls on Google Voice. it’s not just your browser.”

Given the market penetration of Android and projected domination of the mobile space, this sounds like a nightmare scenario. One wrong move from Google and all of our phones, tablets, Chromebooks, browsers, and communication tools go dead, assuming we've bought into the whole Google ecosystem (and many of us have). Doctors don't get urgent messages, stocks don't get traded, teenagers around the world stop texting for half an hour...you get the idea.

In reality, it's also a pretty damned unlikely scenario. In part, problems like those encountered Monday are rare anyway and Google's business model relies on the trust of its users. Google has the ultimate vested interest in ensuring problems like these don't happen.

Let's also keep in mind that Google detected the problem via its own monitoring software within 21 minutes and took action 7 minutes later. Just a few minutes later, the bad update was rolled back off of its production servers. There aren't many IT departments that can claim that sort of response time for on-premise communication and collaboration software. All users had to do was tweet about the Gmail outage for half an hour and they were back up and running.

Yes, there are risks involved in putting all of your IT eggs in one basket, whether that basket is in Mountanview, Redmond, Seattle, or somewhere else.. What's the alternative, though? Several disparate systems from several vendors, requring either separate federation systems or countless user logins? Or expensive, highly redundant on-premise solutions? Even Microsoft and its partners are doing a healthy business selling hosted solutions because they generally save time and money.

Whether your system of choice comes from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, or sits in your own datacenter, someday it's going to go down. Service providers strive for "five nines" or 99.999% uptime. That's a great goal, but even that goal (a stretch for many) implies that some downtime is inevitable.

Google's success means that even that tiny amount of downtime has wide-ranging, worldwide effects and commensurate headlines and Twitter outrage. However, it's important to keep this in perspective. When a plane crashes, it makes headlines for days. Hundreds of people might die at once. And yet 3000 people die every day worldwide in car accidents, very few of which we ever hear about. It's a matter of scale that makes front-page news.

Are Google's or Amazon's scale reason enough to avoid the cloud? Not at all. The conveniences and cost savings for most businesses make occasional downtime an extremely reasonable risk for the majority of businesses and individuals. The key is managing panic when things do go wrong, as well as demanding that cloud providers (the big guns in particular) continue to innovate and offer better reliability at better prices than we can achieve ourselves.

lack of transparency with its customers or the media has hardly inspired much in the way of confidence. It seems likely that demand will still be pretty extraordinary for a well-reviewed, unlocked, $300 superphone. So will the Play Store be crushed again by demand? And will those backordered phones actually make it out the door? After all, despite the debit from my bank account overnight, I don't yet have a tracking number in hand. Frankly, given the experience so far with Google's Play Store, I'm not holding my breath.

I'll attempt to buy a phone at 3:00pm my time today and see if I have any more luck. I'll post live updates here; post your own experiences in the talk backs below. One would hope that a few thousand brilliant minds at Google have been working tirelessly to ensure a much smoother experience for their second round of Nexus 4 sales here in the States (sorry, international readers...I'm afraid you're still out of luck for now). Whether their presumed hard work pays off remains to be seen.

Update - 2:08pm EST

Thank you, Google, for making a liar out of me. Moments after I published the post above, I received that elusive shipping confirmation for my phone. I bet a lot of other folks did too.

Update - 3:30pm EST

I gave it every benefit of the doubt. I tried several times and at different periods over the last 30 minutes. And here's the shocker of the day: The Google Play Store isn't handling demand even for a phone that is supposedly shipping in 4-5 weeks!

Here's the teaser (what some companies might call a "pre-order"):

And here's the result:

When you do finally get a pre-ordered device in your cart, watch out for the double and triple orders that users experienced the last time around. 

Awesome.

Update - 4:10pm EST

So the general consensus on Twitter and via the spate of emails I've received from frustrated would-be buyers is that Google learned absolutely nothing from their prior launch two weeks ago. Buyers are reporting the same haphazard status updates in the Play Store ("Shipping Soon", "Sold Out", "Add to cart", etc.) and the same unreliable buying process that they did on the 13th. Some folks have obviously been able to order a phone, but they're not the ones making noise on Twitter.

Wouldn't it have made more sense to wait an additional week before releasing new pre-order stock and really nail this, once and for all? The really miserable ecommerce experience getting repeated here is an absolute mystery to me.

Signing off in disillusionment for now.

The past 10 days, though, the blogosphere, Twitter, and Google+ have been buzzing about the utter mess that marked what should have been their single most significant product launch in the company's history. More than a few folks called out the more vehement bloggers and posters (including yours truly), telling us to stop whining about our first-world problems and give Google a break. "Boo hoo...you can't get your new phone before Thanksgiving." "Companies make mistakes...get over it." "Go buy an iPhone and quit complaining." "It's just a *#@!-ing phone."

This isn't about me (or anyone else) getting a new phone, though. And it's not "just a [insert expletive of your choice here] phone. The Nexus 4 is a direct attack on the US wireless industry. How could a $300 unlocked phone, on which Google even took the risk of excluding LTE to short circuit negotiations with carriers, not be a game-changer in a country of contracts, lock-ins, and dismal competition?

The phone is also a direct attack on Apple. As I write this, Apple is "busy updating the store" but unlocked 16GB iPhone 5's run $649 (or closer to $900 if you head for Amazon to try and find one). $300 for an unlocked phone with arguably better or comparable specs? Yes, it's an iPhone attack, score 1 for Google.

It's also a chance for Google to show the world that Android doesn't need to be hobbled by carriers or the fragmentation that has caused developers to create apps for iOS first and Android as a pain-in-the-butt afterthought. At $300, a lot of people can potentially be using the latest and greatest version of Android, updated directly and regularly by the great and powerful GOOG itself. This isn't a low-volume, Nexus One-esque device. The Nexus 4 could be the Android superphone for everyone (or at least for a large cross-section of smartphone buyers).

And Google blew the launch.

No, I'm not whining about my new phone. From a business and PR perspective, this makes the privacy gaffes around Google Buzz look like a minor stumble. And it's my job to look at this from the business (as well as the consumer) perspectives.

To make matters worse, Google has been first inconsistent and confusing in its communications with consumers and silent in its communications with media and the larger community. Just an hour and a half before I received my backorder email, Google Play Support responded to an email inquiry telling me that my phone would ship the next day. A few days ago, they sent a followup email thanking me for the opportunity to answer my questions and asking if I was satisfied with the resolution. Uhhhhhh...no.

Other backordered buyers have been told to "just keep checking" their Google Wallet accounts for updates. I'm not making that up. Requests for comment from Google have been answered with silence. Nothing on the Google Blog. Not even an attempt to spin the mess with talk of "unprecedented demand" or a "market hungry for a different way of doing business". Not even a mea culpa. Just the occasional cricket chirping in Mountain View. Or is that what missed opportunities sound like?

Oh well...at least I have pumpkin pie.

I wasn't exactly generous yesterday in my descriptions of the Google Play Store as it melted down for users first in Europe and then in the US trying to buy a new Nexus 4. It was a mess of the first degree and I continue to wonder why Google, arguably the most powerful and successful Internet company in the world, can't seem to get e-commerce right. I was slightly mollified when I, like many other hopeful buyers, managed to push through an order well after other news outlets were reporting that the phones had sold out. It still wasn't a user experience to write home about, but at least a bunch of us got our phones, right?

According to our backend analytics here at ZDNet, almost 40,000 people read that article, telling buyers not to give up just yet. I received elated emails and tweets from people thanking me for the article and telling me that they had also finally been able to order their phones.

So to anyone who read the article, jumped back on the Play Store, and bought yourself a Nexus 4, I'm sorry. Because, most likely, you got an email today much like mine:

A lot of people who didn't read my article also are receiving this email today instead of the expected UPS tracking number and shipment confirmation they were expected. So now it's time for a rant.

Hey, Google! What the hell??!?! Honestly, I'm not upset that  that the phone is in huge demand. I'm not upset that they sold out far faster than expected or that they just didn't have enough supply. That's great for Google, great for Android, and great for wireless in the US where carriers have a stranglehold on the market. I'm freaking thrilled, in fact, that the market is embracing a new model for buying phones and sticking it to the carriers who have been totally ubstructionist to updates and have, in many ways, crippled Android over and over on phone after phone.

I'm angry because this is bloody Google - You'd think they could figure out how to handle peak loads and ecommerce at least as well as Apple. Google locates their datacenters near hydroelectric dams for God's sake so that they can access enough power to keep the world searching, to process the 72 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, and to crunch enough data to automatically give me directions to my various destinations as I hop into my car for an appointment.

And yet Google couldn't switch from "Ships in 3-5 days" in the Play Store to "Sold Out" several hours after their stock had been depleted. Google didn't know the difference between "Coming soon" and "Sold Out" and actually let people continue buying phones long after they had all been gobbled up.

Google didn't have the sense to limit numbers of purchases to one or two per household and the situation was exacerbated because the miserable excuse for a storefront that they call the Play Store was such a disaster at peak load that people were buying two or three phones accidentally.

Google has enough information from the nation's aggregated searches to track influenza outbreaks faster and more accurately than the CDC and yet they didn't anticipate demand for a $300 unlocked superphone running the latest version of Android. Gee, Google, do you think a few people might want one of those? They certainly knew I did based on the search and social data I happily and consensually share with them every day through my Google account.

Google can track the movement of illegal weapons worldwide better than our own government who should really be in a position to know about the weapons trade. And yet, when I sent an email today checking on the status of my order, just moments before I received that backorder email, the automated response cheerily told me that my phone should ship today and that I would have a UPS tracking number by tomorrow.

Why is this so damned hard for a company that is probably better than any other at processing data? Why, for a company that pioneered large-scale failover and redundancy and can shift literally petaflops of processing power among its various datacenters worldwide, could it not handle demand for a phone? Have you ever gotten an email from Apple saying, "Gosh, so sorry, we didn't think many of you would actually want a freaking iPhone so we didn't bother scaling our ecommerce systems or building a kajillion phones, so even though we told you that you got one, we were wrong so now you'll have to wait a while"? No, probably not.

Google finally discovers the secret sauce for Android and turning the wireless industry on its ears only to be derailed because its online store choked. Really? Seriously? Because Google didn't have the scalability or computing muscle to handle a spike on a few of their several hundred thousand servers? Because there weren't any Google engineers smart enough to figure out a better way to do ecommerce? Despite being able to auction millions of ads in real time? Really?

Ridiculous. Just ridiculous. Google, if you're listening (and I know you are, since you already know virtually every move I make), please go buy a company that knows how to sell things on the Internet. There's one or two (or 100) that do it fairly well.

Bottom line? Maybe the whole Google Play fail this morning left a few in stock or maybe Google scrapped a rollout in another country to free up phones for the US (as they did in the Netherlands earlier today). Either way, there just might be a phone or two that you can snag.

Good luck!

Update: 12:24pm EST

At least from here, the 8 and 16GB phones are now showing as "Coming soon" again. If you can even get the play store to load. It's slow, buggy, and links often redirect to the home page. The Nexus 10 appears to be in stock, but that's not on my wish list for the day. This appears to be an even bigger e-commerce fail than usual for Google.

Update: 12:33pm EST

The Play Store is such a disaster that it actually seems to be crashing Chrome. Could be coincidence, but I don't think so. Users are reporting repeated boots of items from their carts and are unable to buy phones or accessories.

Update: 12:38pm EST

The Play Store seems to be stablizing, but still no luck on buying a phone. I don't want to be notified. I want to buy something. If Apple can make this work for much higher demand, shouldn't Google, of all companies, be able to scale an online store?

Here are some images from the initial shopping cart failures when the Nexus 4 briefly went on sale (you can follow the link or navigate the iframe below):

Update: 12:50pm EST

Wait, what was that?! In stock again! No, wait, the Nexus was just booted from my cart and is back to "Coming Soon." Nice.

And 2 minutes later, in stock again, clicked Purchase, and another error.

Update: 1:06pm EST

While the Nexus 10 tablet is showing In Stock, attempts to add it a shopping cart end in a server error. Looks like I could buy a Chromebook if I wanted another one, but reports are coming in of failures for the new Chromebooks at the end of the purchase process (thanks for @SJVN for that update).

Update: 1:47pm EST

Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zippo. A few moments of hope when the Nexus 4 showed as available for purchase, only to be dashed against the rocks when the transaction failed. And now, many refreshes and several cache clearings later, it's still coming soon. I'm no longer holding my breath. For those of you who managed to snag a phone today, share your experiences in the talkbacks. I'll update again if anything changes.

Update: 1:54pm EST

CNET is reporting that most of this refreshing was for naught. The Nexus 4 sold out within moments of going live in the US Play Store. Thank you, Google, for your clear messages and transparency. And for doing such an awesome job of keeping the Play Store running smoothly under heavy load. Glad I didn't cancel my Verizon service just yet.

The 4.7-inch Android device went on sale in the U.K. on Tuesday, alongside Google's two latest tablets, the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 -- and it looks like the devices are proving popular. According to reports on Twitter, some customers found that stocks of lowest priced Nexus 4, the 8GB version, had been snapped up within a mere 15 minutes of going on sale.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to leave wireless contract land, terminate my Verizon contract, and snag a Nexus 4. With the Nexus 4 going on sale shortly (we know it will be today, but Google has done a much better job keeping the actual time under wraps than they did the phone's design), it's time to decide just where I'm going to take this unlocked phone to actually hook it up to a network.

But first, I need to decide if I'm going for the 8GB ($299) or 16GB ($349) model. The consensus among most reviewers and pundits is that 8GB is woefully small. In fact, the lack of expandability has been one of the key criticisms of the new phone. However, I stumbled across an article today on AndroidCentral, where the author makes a great point about the 8GB model:

One day we'll see smartphones with terabytes of storage, but until then I have to use the cloud. I know I'm not the only one. You're still going to need the cloud if you have a lot of media, there is no way around it...

I guess I could give Google the extra $50 [for the 16GB model], and still not have enough storage, but instead I'll use it to pay for next month's service, or a trip to the movies with my wife. There's a case to be made for buying the 8GB version, and I fit that case.

And he's right. Google left out the SD card slot for a reason. Not only does it add cost, weight and complexity, but it's sort of irrelevant in Google-land. Google exists because of the Internet and the cloud. Local storage is so 2008. I'm with the AndroidCentral columnist. Give me the 8GB model and my wife will be $50 less mad at me for buying yet another computing device. In fact, by selling my Droid Razr and an old second-gen iPad on Gazelle, I can cover the $299 8GB Nexus 4 completely. For that matter, if I sell my Nexus 7, I can almost cover my Verizon early termination fee (and who really needs a 7" tablet when your phone is pushing 5" anyway?).

So there's one decision down. The 8GB model will do the trick.

Now for a tougher question. What carrier? Verizon has great coverage in my area and the only regret I have about leaving them is that I'll hit more dead spots in my neck of the woods (and when I say woods, I mean it literally). AT&T has reasonable coverage out my way, but is quite a bit more expensive. T-Mobile coverage is spotty at best near my house, but has a growing footprint. Where coverage exists, it's as fast as you can get on a non-LTE phone and I'm increasingly spending time for work in Boston and New York. Google Voice and various VoIP apps mitigate coverage issues a bit, too, since calling over any WiFi or carrier data network looks pretty much the same with the right software. It's certainly a non-issue at home since my Google Voice number rings my business line, my home phone, and my cell phone.

AT&T and T-Mobile aren't the only options, though, for GSM phones. There are a number of pre-paid carriers that utilize the AT&T and T-Mobile networks but resell data/voice services, usually at a discount. Since they resell service from the two major GSM carriers, coverage issues don't change, but clearly it isn't necessary to go directly through AT&T. There's an interesting roundup of pre-paid providers that support the Nexus 4 on geek.com which certainly favors the T-Mobile resellers (and T-Mobile actually wins the comparison with its pre-paid plan), largely because of reasonable data caps before throttling kicks in and the higher speeds available where HSPA+ services are available.

So in spite of the poor coverage in my area, I'm going to hop on T-Mobile's $30/month pre-paid plan. When I'm within range of WiFi, I'm not overly concerned about data coverage, and when I'm on the road (where data coverage is generally very good), I want the fastest speeds I can achieve. The $30 plan only includes 100 minutes of talk time, but prodigous use of VoIP should make that a non-issue as well. $15/month adds hotspot capabilities. Count me in. Of course, the beauty of an unlocked phone is that if T-Mobile doesn't end up suiting my needs, I can go elsewhere, no harm, no foul.

And speaking of counting, I, like many other Google nerds, am counting down until the "Notify me" button switches to "Add to cart" on  the Google Play Store.

It's no secret that I think Verizon service stinks (aside from my ability to get a few bars of 3G in my neck of the woods). The company is slow to help with issues, expensive in terms of both broadband/land line and cellular, and my unlimited data plan that was originally supposed to be grandfathered forever is coming to an end. Now it's apparent that Google's latest flagship Nexus phone, the Nexus 4, will not work on Verizon's LTE or CDMA networks.

Not that the Nexus 4 is my ideal phone. It needs to trim about 3/4 of an inch off of its screen size to get there and true 4G/LTE is mighty nice when you can access it. However, most Americans are used to buying in to carrier-sold phones because it's the only way to affordably purchase high-end mobile devices. Buying the latest and greatest phones unlocked is just painful (I know, everyone else on the planet does it that way, but $6-700 for a phone is tough to swallow for a cheap Yankee). The Nexus 4, though, is being sold unlocked for as low as $299 for the 8GB version. I was planning to spend $250-$300 on my next carrier-subsidized phone. Verizon is looking less and less attractive by the second.

And the reasons to dump Verizon and figure out a way to go with the Nexus 4 just keep rolling in. It looks likely that T-Mobile will enable its WiFi Calling technology and AT&T is improving its coverage all the time, making my Verizon lock-in less of an issue. Quad-core phones remain few and far between, but if I've learned anything from my Motorola Droid Razr, it's that I can chew through as much processing power as a phone can throw at me. I want the sort of performance from my phone that I get on my Nexus 7, so I want four cores, gosh darnit.

I also spend far too much time on my phone to goof around with mediocre screens. The Nexus 4 has resolution and pixel density that can go toe-to-toe with the iPhone 5. My phone is also my primary camera and video camera, both for cute things my kids do and shooting quick shots and clips for work and the Nexus 4 has some pretty incredible camera technology that makes the iPhone's panoramic shots look like child's play.

I'm sick to the teeth of getting OTA Android updates from Verizon that are at least a generation behind. Verizon can't seem to get updates pushed down in a timely manner to its flagship Droid devices and I have no faith, expectation, or hints that this is going to change. Yet Android is improving in terms of UI in leaps and bounds with each version. I don't want some Motorola-skinned, Verizon-bloated, outdated version of Android. I want pure Android. The Nexus 7 excels in large part because it is just Android - regularly updated by Google and unencumbered by bloatware and carrier/OEM nonsense. Which means I need to make a Nexus phone work for me.

The final reason that I'll be snagging a Nexus 4, Verizon and its far-reaching network be damned, is ironically Windows 8. I've been so impressed with Windows 8 Pro and the initial crop of Windows 8 tablets that I'll gladly make my next portable computer a large tablet running Windows 8. Not a Surface, mind you. Windows RT has not impressed me for a variety of reasons. But squeeze a real PC into a 10.1", 16:9 tablet form factor, give me a replaceable battery and slick I/O options, and toss in a Wacom stylus for fine art work and notetaking? Count me in.

Suddenly, a larger phone makes a bit more sense since I certainly won't be carrying around my primary computer (a large tablet), a 7" tablet, and a phone that I wished was a lot smaller than said 7" tablet. A phone that's big enough to be a GPS in my car, highly readable in a hand, and just "tablety" enough to make me not miss the Nexus 7 too much (and to be really useful when my Windows tablet isn't within reach) seems like a fine idea. My 10-year old really wants my Nexus 7 anyway. I actually think that within a year, a whole lot of people will have a large Windows tablet or convertible/hybrid as their primary portable PC. I'd still love to see a 4" Nexus phone with all the bells and whistles, but for $300, I can live with this.

The lack of true 4G/LTE was a big disappointment at first blush, but HSPA+ with MIMO WiFi is nothing to sneeze at. It also allows me to access very reasonable data plans, use the phone internationally, and avoid the ridiculous battery drain of LTE. In fact, until LTE technology matures a bit more, HSPA+ remains a solid option, still giving me much faster data access than Verizon's 3G and keeping battery life almost reasonable.

Am I rationalizing here to justify getting the latest and greatest Android phone? A little bit, yes, but my Droid Razr is a huge disappointment in terms of performance, battery life, and availability of updates. If it takes a bit of rationalizing to jump out of Verizon's plans, get a relatively inexpensive unlocked smartphone, and have access to better-than-Verizon 3G, all without compromising battery life, I think I can live with that. Buh-bye, Verizon, hello unlocked, up-to-date, unbloated, superfast, superphones.

I've talked to a lot of people looking towards better approaches to BYOD as well as formal enterprise deployments of tablets and, with the launch of several Windows 8 tablets (I'm not talking Surface, which is a consumer-only play that I fully expect to go the way of the Zune and Kin devices), the degree of competition in this space just increased drastically. When I interviewed Google's Chief Android Developer Advocate (and one of the key architects of XML and a driving force behind open sourcing Java at Sun Microsystems), Tim Bray, over two years ago, he told me that he "hopes for at least 3 major competitors in the market driving innovation and providing consumer choice over the next several years." He just got his wish.

In fact, on the tablet and enterprise fronts, I would argue that Google has much more to fear from Microsoft now than it does from Apple. The Apple faithful are going to use Apple products. They're going to push BYOD with iPads and iPhones and few will be swayed even by the coolest of new Windows 8 tablet and hybrid devices. Android users, as a group, though, tend to be a bit more pragmatic and brand loyalty doesn't run nearly as deep. And these new Windows 8 tablets (again, I'm not talking about Surface), are really cool. Just when you thought innovation in the PC space was dead, these devices running full-blown Windows, natively capable of hooking into Active Directory, and able to run any Windows application (not just apps, but actual Office 2013, Quickbooks, Firefox, Minecraft, or whatever) come on the scene.

I spent a fair amount of time with Dell's Latitude 10 enterprise tablet and walked away wanting one. Not just because I like toys and gadgets. I'm a Google fan to the core - Why would I want a Windows tablet? Why indeed. Because it's useful. Sure, the UI is actually quite nice and performance is remarkably good for an Atom-powered machine. In fact, the experience and graphics are as smooth as anything my iPad or Nexus 7 can dish out. But the ability to run any Windows software I want, dock it and have a full-blown Windows PC, and then grab that Windows PC and shove it in my bag makes it significantly more useful than my iPad. Add support for a Wacom stylus and suddenly, the issues inherent in writing and drawing on a tablet also go away, making it as useful for visual communication as for productivity, web surfing, or entertainment.

Android convertibles/hybrids have also been less than satisfactory to date, but the 12.5" XPS 12 really shows the flexibility of Windows 8, as well as the hardware innovation that has been lacking in this space for so long. Again, this computer dispenses with the novelty of a convertible and makes it really useful as a business machine. It's not often that I get excited about anything with Windows on it; for businesses, though, these are just two examples of portable computing devices that make Android a much tougher sell. Particularly for companies that have invested substantially in Microsoft infrastructure (and that's a lot of companies), the ability to manage both of these without any third-party software through Active Directory is a deal-closer in and of itself.

Android isn't going anywhere. Windows 8 tablets and hybrids aren't for everyone. In the best case scenario, we're going to see Google pushing a lot harder for fast, efficient, business-friendly hardware/Android combinations. However, devices like Dell's or slick tablets/convertibles from the likes of Lenovo and HP are going to give Google a run for its money.

Speaking of money, the one downside to these devices is price. Traditional laptops with comparable performance can be had for much less. However, for many people, those inexpensive laptops will sit side-by-side with a tablet on a desk or in a messenger bag. With Windows 8 Pro tablets, the right docks or convertible solutions just might find those bags getting a lot lighter. Why have two devices when one can be a great tablet and a solid PC at the same time?

Of course, Google is in the enviable position of potentially winning regardless of the OS businesses and consumers choose. As long as we keep using Google for search and Chrome as our browser, they get to deliver their bread-and-butter ads. However, Google is going to need to make a much stronger case for Android tablets in the enterprise now that Windows 8 tablets have arrived.

As ZDNet's Zack Whittaker reported last week, referencing a well-publicized Reuters story,

The U.S. government's trade regulator may be preparing the investigation to start as soon as November or December, as European regulators continue to simultaneously probe the search giant for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the search market.

It's actually surprising that the FTC has taken this long to move against Google. Eric Schmidt has repeatedly pointed out that Google's growth and influence make it a target for regulators and the EU certainly hasn't been shy about going after the company. This isn't to say that the FTC should take action against Google. On the contrary. The FTC's evidence is sketchy and, in particular, the idea that Google is using its search dominance to hurt competitors is just so touchy-feely that it feels silly. When you dominate a market because that same market has chosen you over your competitors, it doesn't magically become time to start throwing bones to those competitors. It's like giving every little kid in a sporting event a ribbon because everyone's a winner, gosh darnit.

Nonsense. There are lots of losers out there in the real world. Right now, nobody can touch the ease of use, powerful analytic tools, reach, or cost-effectiveness of Google's AdWords and AdSense products. I've been responsible for placing hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads on Google's networks as well as on those of their competitors. There is simply no comparison.

And does Google promote its own vertical search results over those of its competitors? Maybe. You're using Google to search for the best Chinese food in Midtown Manhattan. Wouldn't you expect Google's Zagat-driven reviews to surface ahead of Yelp's? If you don't, then not only are you naive, but you forget that since Google wrote the algorithms that pick up search engine-optimized sites, the sites with which they're involved will probably have pretty decent SEO. Go figure.

The real story here, though, is that nobody cares except Google's competitors. One of the loudest voices urging the FTC to hit Google is FairSearch.org, a group funded in large part by Microsoft. I'd urge the members of FairSearch to try and place a banner ad for a reasonable price on the Bing/Microsoft ad network and then do the same on AdWords. I think a few of the folks handling marketing for FairSearch just might change their tunes.

Have we learned nothing over the years about government intervention in monopolies? Things have gone so well with the Baby Bells...why not give it another shot, right?

Instead, why doesn't the FTC save the taxpayer dollars it will invest in efforts to prosecute Google for what may or may not be anti-competitive practices and just let the market sort this out? It's only a matter of time before some new startup finds a way to disrupt search and related advertising. Amazon and Facebook aren't exactly sitting on the sidelines in all of this either and both, as examples, have incredibly powerful assets with which Google is struggling to compete. When you need to buy a case for that new iPhone, do you Google "iPhone cases" or just go right to Amazon and search there? I'm willing to bet that the majority of you cut out the middleman and search on Amazon. I know I do.

If the market could talk, it would happily say, "I got this." The Internet and the business models around it are moving a lot faster than the FTC ever will.

I've come to despise my current phone, a 4.7" Droid Razr for it's miserable battery life, lackluster Pentile display, pokey performance, and too-thin/too-wide form factor that makes talking and typing one-handed unnecessarily challenging. Fortunately, I'm due for an upgrade in December and have been hoping beyond hope that some OEM would have the good sense to jam a quad-core CPU and a great battery into a 4" or smaller phone. The name "Nexus 4" had been floating around the blogosphere...Maybe, just maybe, Google's upcoming flagship Nexus phone would be the one.

It now looks as though it will be based on LG's Optimus G, another 4.7" beast. Yes, the display will probably rock, performance will be awesome, and Android 4.2 will be on deck. Fabulous. But for those of us with Nexus 7's (or even iPads or other full-sized tablets) that go everywhere with us, phones of this size are overkill. Is it too much to ask for high performance and a nice display in a small package?

I hate to say it, but Apple doesn't seem to think so. The iPhone 5, by all accounts, is fast and smooth and it's 4" screen (!!!) has few rivals in terms of clarity and sharpness. Unfortunately, I'm just not a big fan of iOS. iOS 6 is fine on my iPad where most of what I do tends to be focused on a few applications (primarily Adobe's Touch Apps, Keynote, GarageBand, and Google Chrome). The OS is sort of irrelevant there, with the major requirement being that my daughter can watch Peppa Pig episodes in the car (Peppa Pig, unfortunately, is not available in the Google Play Store).

On my phone, though (and, increasingly on my go-everywhere Nexus 7), I tend to interact with the OS a lot more. Swiftkey is an outstanding replacement keyboard for fast typing in emails, texts, and social network updates. And I may be able buy Peppa Pig episodes in iTunes, but there's no Swiftkey in iOS. In the same way, iOS just doesn't handle multitasking as well as Android, Google Maps is still a vastly superior navigation tool, and Apple Mail is an abomination compared to the Android version of Gmail.

In fact, it's Android's tight integration with Google Apps (duh) that ultimately keeps me on Google's mobile OS. I live, eat, and breathe Google Apps for everything from invoicing clients to virtually all of my communication needs, especially when I throw Google Voice into the mix. Apple also really dropped the ball by not supporting NFC while Google Wallet is really quite elegant.

So iOS is out. I rely on my smartphone too much to compromise on the OS. Honestly, even the iPad Mini doesn't hold much appeal for me. I'll take my Nexus 7 anyday over a smaller iPad, where the iOS apps I love simply won't be as awesome. ArtRage would barely be useful on a smaller screen; same for Adobe Ideas or Proto. GarageBand as a portable recording studio and guitar amp on a smaller screen? No thank you. Give me all 10 inches of Retina bliss for four tracks and manipulating effects and loops.

Can you say first-world problem?

Good! I knew you could!

Unfortunately, that doesn't actually leave me any options for a Razr replacement. Most likely, the Nexus 7 will be relegated to testing purposes since I refuse to keep carrying a giant phone and a small tablet. The iPad will go back to being my primary tablet, and the LG/Google Nexus will become my next phone/compact tablet. If this isn't a first-world problem, I don't know what is.

But, believe it or not, I'm not whining about nonsense here. The point is that Android OEMs (and Google) are missing an opportunity here. There's a reason that Apple has clearly differentiated phone/iPod form factors from tablet form factors (even if a 7"-ish iPad Mini materializes). It makes sense to carry an iPhone, an iPad, and a MacBook. A 5.5" phone, a 7" tablet, and a 12.1" Chromebook? Not so much. A compact, powerful Android flagship phone could be an iPhone killer. Right now, it's David vs. a lot of Goliaths and we know how that story turned out.

On of the major advantages that Android has over Apple is the ability for huge variety in terms of form factors, costs, and features. The promise of Android is that anyone should be able to find a device that suits their needs well, whether those needs involve giant phablets, compact phones, entry-level phones and tablets, or bleeding edge devices with performance (and prices) that are second to none. So far, a major market segment is being ignored by Android OEMs and essentially being ceded to Apple and its nicely-sized iPhones.

So when my mom recently mentioned that she was ready to finally make the leap into the land of smartphones, she didn't just ask what kind of smartphone she should get. She reads my blogs. She asked me what kind of Android to get. And then it hit me. The best, easiest choice for her wasn't an Android phone at all. It was an iPhone.

I wouldn't make this recommendation to everyone and I don't think that the iPhone is the smartphone to end all smartphones. It's not. And for many people, I'd recommend some sort of Android. Of course, that's because I hang around with people who like to fiddle with technology and make their devices behave in precisely the ways they want them to. That level of customization isn't something that's available on the iPhone. The Apple faithful would argue that it doesn't need to be - iOS just works. And that's completely true. It just doesn't work exactly the way I'd like it to or the way many of my Android-loving brethren would like it to. So we stick with Android.

For my mom, though, customization, tweaking, and hacking aren't the name of the game. She can find her way around a computer, but the "just works" proposition is most definitely the better choice for her. Besides, if I were to recommend an Android phone, what features would matter to her? A giant screen? Stylus input? Near-term upgrades to Jelly Bean? The woman sells Jelly Beans in her store and she likes to eat Ice Cream Sandwiches, but this sort of geeky goodness means nothing to her.

She needs to get her email, surf the web, and track her calendar. She only has one email account. Facebook will be her big foray into the world of apps. And, as we all know, the Android Facebook app is despicably awful. The phone needs to fit in her hand easily and stand up to hyperactive dogs and sticky-handed grandkids. It needs to take great pictures. And it needs to work simply and without any fuss. Some of us relish the fuss. She wouldn't.

So I recommended an iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 is more than she needs and larger than she wants. She doesn't spend enough time online for LTE to matter. And she has a GPS.

I'm almost due for an upgrade myself and I can't wait. I've genuinely grown to hate my Razr and its miserable battery life and barely stable Motorola customizations. It's so giant and thin that I needed to add a case to be able to get a grip on it. And the screen, though big, has sad resolution. The question is, what will I replace it with? It won't be an iPhone. I'm too wedded to the Google ecosystem and Siri, despite being my new favorite mistress who lives in my iPad (nobody tell my wife), isn't enough to make me switch. But the speediest Android phones are generally 4.5+" beasts. I have a Nexus 7 if I want a big portable screen.

Maybe I'll just get a Blackberry.

Just kidding. I guess we'll just have to see what the holiday season brings to the land of Android when my contract is up. But I have to hand it to Apple. They've nailed several markets, a couple of which include my mom.

• Also check out CNET's live coverage of the announcement.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't anti-Apple FUD. My iPad rocks, I'm lusting after a new Retina MacBook Pro (my current MBP is getting a bit long in the tooth), and, given the choice, I'd have an iMac in my bedroom instead of a TV. Apple is going to sell a bajillion of these new iPhones and it's a solid upgrade, especially for anyone who has been riding out a contract on an iPhone 3 or 4. I guarantee my oldest son will be first in line to trade in his iPhone 4 the minute they go on sale, as will countless Apple faithful.

But, unlike the iPad, which has major advantages over 10" Android tablets because of its huge app ecosystem, Retina Display, and aggressive pricing, there is nothing announced today that will make the Android users who have driven Google's mobile OS to market dominance run out, break their contracts, and switch to an iPhone. As CNET's Scott Stein puts it,

Here's the question: which is the killer feature? It feels like the iPhone 5 is more of an overall refinement and re-engineering, as well as offering speed boosts across the board (4G, A6)

One thing that might give Google pause? The iPhone 4 is now free with a contract, meaning that Android OEMs will need to work harder for the low end of the market. However, there are plenty of great free Android phones, too.

Does Google need to keep pushing the envelope on Android? Improving performance? Improving the user experience? Sort out fragmentation issues and start strongarming OEMs and carriers to push updates faster? Get displays that can match the iPhone's Retina display? Keep driving down prices so it can still compete on both price and features? Keep building out its app and entertainment offerings? Keep advancing its own ecosystem around Google Apps, Google Voice, NFC/Wallet, etc.?

Sure it does, but we knew that. So does Google.

What we also know is that the new iPhone is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Google has a few months to breathe and introduce its own new revolutionary features in Android and prepare for the next big innovation from Apple.

You can check out the discussion here (ironically, conducted via a Google+ Hangout).

This panel discussion was particularly in response to Google's recent visualization of the worldwide small arms trade. Although this is, in part, a flashy, headline-grabbing showcase for Google's data visualization and web-based graphics technologies (Google has a page devoted to "Chrome Experiments", subtitled "Not your mother's JavaScript", of which the arms trade visualization is a part), it's also part of a larger effort at Google to influence policy and create change in the world through technology.

Along similar lines, Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, recently noted in a Washington Post op-ed with Jared Cohen (Director of Google Ideas), 

[The people of Juarez, Mexico] Have been overwhelmed by crime, their lives overcome with fear. They felt defeated, disillusioned and a little helpless. They asked us: What can we do?

And to us, at least part of the answer was obvious: technology.

And so began Google's use of their vast data resources and processing technologies to take on the Mexican drug cartels.

So is Google going where it shouldn't? Should this sort of thing be left to governments and diplomats? And what does it say about Google, our government, and technology in general that a private company is tackling issues like this head on and in new and innovative ways?

Personally, I say bring it on. Those governments and diplomats have been no more effective in stemming the arms trade, stopping the violence of the drug cartels, stopping the violence in Syria, or otherwise addressing global conflict than they have been in stopping hunger, AIDS, or human rights violations. If Google can offer a new approach that might actually incite action, let them. Look at Apple, even: What began as a PR nightmare for the company around labor conditions at FoxConn has turned into real, documented change in working conditions after Apple began public, independent monitoring.

Our discussion, not surprisingly, turned to privacy and the overall role that Google plays in our lives. The host asked, what if Google one day changed its slogan from "Don't be evil" to "Be evil". With all of its vast data stores (about all of us) and data mining capabilities, what would be the impact on us? It couldn't be good, right? Isn't this what the whole Google privacy flap was all about? Google Now, for those of us who have devices that can use it, already has an eerie sense of what we need to know before we ask.

Unfortunately for the one dissenter on the panel who called for utility-style regulation of Google, the panel was dominated by tech-savvy free-market Libertarians. He didn't get to say very much. And the consensus, as I've argued in the blog many times before, was that Google's contract with its users goes beyond its terms of service. It also runs deeper than the social contract we're supposed to have with our government (which grows more dubious all the time). It runs on profit. Google violates our trust in a way that really matters (so far, given its share of the search and mobile device markets, it appears that Google's privacy gaffes don't fall into that category), and it loses eyeballs on its services (and therefore, its ads). There is no better motivation to keep Google honest than the almighty dollar.

So give me Google Now. Give me every bit of information you can dredge up on the wrongs in the world. Expose corruption and oppression. Give me platforms for citizen journalists. Give me tools assessing the validity and value of information. Aggregate, curate, and synthesize. I need all the help I can get making sense of the world in which we live. And give me some credit for choosing to make use of all of these tools and not just blindly following the great and powerful Google. If better tools come along or Google goes rogue or our governments prove they can be as effective and efficient as the Internet giant, I'll happily (and swiftly) look elsewhere.