Motorola to Add Google to Mobiles

Kijori writes "Motorola has announced plans to enable users of its mobile phones to access Google's internet search engine at the touch of a single handset button, the BBC is reporting. "The US mobile phone maker said it would introduce Google's software technology to many of its new handsets. The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones." While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

okay.

[User 956]

The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones."

Well, they could do that by offering screens with an acceptable resolution for browsing the internet. Even the *brand new* Treo 700w only has a 240x240 screen. WTF?

No they're not

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

Not at the current access rates they won't. I've used WAP once, and after getting my bill, I was through. Many people I know had the same experience with it.

google stories on slashdot?

[DarkClown]

what is the record for the most google stories at the same time off the slashdot homepage?
right now there are 3...
wonder what the record is for any single topic having the most slash-share at a given time...

Why would I want to use Internet on mobiles?

[Xugumad]

"People are going to spend all their time on it eventually,"

My experiences with Internet on mobiles so far has been that it's slow, expensive and awkward to use. If you spend a lot of time on buses or trains I suppose I can understand a desire for mobile Internet access, although using a laptop and data card would seem a much better solution anyway. The only time, ever, that I didn't have easy Internet access, and it was an issue, was a sys-admining problem that I'd have needed ssh to fix, anyway (and the idea of doing sys-admin work on a mobile screen with the standard keypad gives me nightmares).

Anyone, why would I want this?

Re:okay.

[carlislematthew]

Perhaps we should have a 3" LCD with 1024x1024 resolution? At a certain point, those pixels are going to get tiny and useless. Most people don't like small fonts and difficult to read text. My mother-in-law runs a 17inch monitor at 800x600. It kills me when I see it...

Re:okay.

[timeOday]

The VGA (640x480, or actually 480x640) screens on PocketPCs look great. They're too wide for a phone, but a 640x240 screen, held in landscape mode, would work great on a phone in combination with a scroll wheel. From my own experience browsing on various Palm and PocketPC devices, the main thing to allow normal rendering is adequate width.

Re:okay.

[carlislematthew]

Earpieces are a pain (admit it) and almost as bad as putting a calculator to your ear... I've tried bluetooth headsets and they're OK, as long as you remember to charge the damn thing!

I'm coming from a situation where I've had all the gadgets, and have got fed up of having an oversize and unreliable phone. I'm also fed up of charging all these damn gadgets all the time. I'm ditching the bluetooth headsets, ditching the huge phone/pda/unreliable-piece-o-crap and going back to as basic a phone as I can find!

Re:Not any time soon

[macpeep]

Perhaps not in the USA. But the USA isn't the only country in the world, and in particular when it comes to mobile services, it's definitely not representable of the rest of the world. In Asia and in Europe (I live in Finland) people use the Internet a lot - directly and indirectly. Directly in the obvious ways; web, email, download of games, etc. And indirectly by using various applications that access the Internet - for example online multiplayer games, news readers (like the Finnish "Kanavat" application that downloads compact web-like content from various media sources and allows these to be read offline and/or with zero-wait between page switches).

The prices are obviously not as cheap as they could and should be, and crazy expensive relative to home broadband Internet. But in absolute terms, it's not that bad. I pay 18 euros a month for 100 MB of data traffic. 100 MB is a huge amount to download over a cellphone link (with EDGE or 3G UMTS, the real-world speed is at best somewhere above 200Kbps). I typically read the news from a couple of websites each morning on the subway, and that results in total data downloads of maybe 50 megs per month. 18 euros for that is around 50 cents per day for this pleasure. Like I said, in absolute amounts, that's really not so bad!

Rumor has it that flat-rate fees for unlimited traffic are coming (to FInland) in 2006 and the prices will be around 20 euros a month.

Peppe

Bill

[michelcultivo]

Wait the first bill and you will see if you need it anymore.