Dan Frommer on the Google/Motorola deal:

One opportunity would be to formally split Android devices into three tracks: Plain-old-Android, do what you want with it; the Nexus program (significant Google control, available to select partners); and a third line (complete Google control, exclusive to Motorola, ideally the highest-quality line). We’ll see if that happens — and if it does, whether it works. Everyone has different motivations for Android: Google, phone manufacturers, carriers, and consumers. They might never harmonize.

I do think track three will happen eventually. And when it does, track two will become meaningless. You simply cannot have your cake and eat it too — and then throw it up and eat it again.

It would be one thing to point out StarTAC once as a fun homage to Motorola’s history, but Google goes out of its way to point out the device in both their official blog post about the Motorola deal and the propaganda facts onesheet.

The money line:

Its many industry milestones include the introduction of the world’s first portable cell phone nearly 30 years ago, and the StarTAC–the smallest and lightest phone in the world when it was launched.

I mean, that was 16 years ago! Google couldn’t come up with some innovation a little more recent?

Admittedly, it is pretty hard. The only recent innovation I can nail down is perfecting the art of losing money.

If true, it’s really interesting. When I started hearing that Apple was working with Nuance last year on the Siri stuff, digging in, I learned that one of the reasons why Google was one of the few companies with their own voice technology was thanks to Cohen. Nuance is known to be very aggressive with pursuing lawsuits over their IP, which leads to a lot of partnerships — like Apple. Google was able to maneuver these waters without a Nuance partnership because Cohen was a co-founder of — wait for it — Nuance. And, more importantly, holds several of his own patents in the space.

Google is clearly working on their own direct Siri competitor for Android. And it was presumed that Cohen — and his patents — would be the key to this. But if he’s now gone from Google, it raises a lot of questions. 

(via Dan Primack)

The writing has been on the wall for this for some time. Chrome is great and IE hasn’t done anything interesting in years — the recipe for disruption. I suspect Google themselves will announce this milestone soon.

Next up: the battle for mobile browsing dominance. Safari clearly has the lead here right now, but Google is pushing hard with Chrome for Android. Next up: Chrome for iOS?

Remember last November when, out of the kindness of their hearts, Google started allowing people to opt-out of wireless access point collection? All you had to do was append “_nomap” to the end of your SSID.

It was such a seamless and elegant solution. Surely, everyone started doing it, right?

I’m with Jason Irwin — I haven’t seen a single “_nomap” SSID in all the places I’ve been in the past six months. Not one. I doubt anyone has.

I initially joked that usage would be .01 percent of the 10 percent that actually understand what to do. I’m pretty sure it’s actually far less than that.

The point, six months later, remains the same: this was a total dickbag move on Google’s behalf. It’s not the collection of the SSIDs (which others, including Apple, do as well) that’s so bad. It’s the notion that Google was giving everyone a choice with their opt-out. It was a false choice. No one was ever going to opt-out — certainly not the way Google implemented it. 

Mark Gurman:

According to trusted sources, Apple has an incredible headline feature in development for iOS 6: a completely in-house maps application. Apple will drop the Google Maps program running on iOS since 2007 in favor for a new Maps app with an Apple backend. The application design is said to be fairly similar to the current Google Maps program on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, but it is described as a much cleaner, faster, and more reliable experience.

The biggest step yet in the de-Googlification of iOS.

So, Mozilla and Google are upset because Firefox and Chrome won’t be able to run on Windows RT. But isn’t that obvious? For all the talk of “no compromises” out of Redmond, that’s exactly what Windows RT is: a compromise.

It’s a less-powerful version of Windows 8 that needs to be more tightly controlled to be able to run on less powerful ARM chips. Again, that means compromises. One of them is apparently browser control.

And Microsoft can probably do this because they’re a total non-player in the tablet space right now. While Mozilla and Google obviously think this should fall under the “browser choice” antitrust stuff from the 90s, this is clearly different. Windows RT is not going to have a monopoly over the market in any way, shape, or form. At least not anytime soon.

John Gruber brings up a good question:

What if Windows 8 for ARM, instead of being called “Windows RT”, were instead called, say, “Metro OS”? Would that make a difference? Is Dotzler arguing that Microsoft should not be permitted to ship a version of Windows that locks out third-party browsers, or that Microsoft should not be permitted to ship any OS that locks out third-party browsers?

In light of what Apple has done with iOS, it’s not clear how you can actually make the second argument. As such, it would be humorous if Microsoft continuing to use the “Windows” brand (even when they probably shouldn’t) came back to bit them in the ass here (but I don’t think it actually will).