A moment in tech history
San Francisco: I'm writing from what I consider a historic location, certainly in terms of my use and reporting of technology.
At the beginning of a week of broadcasting and blogging from Silicon Valley and Las Vegas, I'm in a San Francisco hotel, just a few hundred metres from the city's Moscone Centre.
Three years ago in January 2007, I sprinted that short distance, barging through the crowds, holding a video tape. I'd come from the Steve Jobs keynote, where he'd unveiled Apple's iPhone, and I was carrying pictures of me holding the phone straight after the event. At the hotel I handed that tape to my cameraman/editor Steve Adrain, and he edited the pictures into a report for that night's Ten O Clock News.
Now I consider this location historic not just because the advent of the iPhone unleashed the smartphone revolution, but because of the technology we used to get the story back to London. Instead of using an expensive satellite link - still the fastest, most reliable way to get breaking news out - we fed it for free via the hotel's wifi.
Even three years ago, TV reports were increasingly being sent in this way, but usually only where there was no alternative and the reports weren't time-sensitive. A slow internet connection from a hotel bedroom meant it could take a couple of hours to send two minutes of video. But at midday in San Francisco - 8pm in London - we managed to send our iPhone piece back to the UK in under twenty minutes. For me, that was the day's big tech breakthrough, although the touch-screen device looked quite nice too.
Three years on, and a lot has changed in technology, with television no exception. This time, there will be no tapes - Steve Adrain is trying out a new digital format which he can slot directly into his laptop and is instantly available to edit. And these days, it's nothing out of the ordinary to feed a cut piece via the internet.
And we're here on the eve of the launch of what could be another radical new stage in the smartphone revolution, Google's Nexus One.
Google has been less adept than Apple in keeping the wraps on its phone until the last moment - the Engadget blog has already got hold of one and carried out a comprehensive review, which is mostly positive. Could this be the device that finally gives the iPhone a run for its money?
Maybe - apparently Google staff who have been playing with their Nexus handsets for weeks are very excited about its prospects. However, here's the problem with the Nexus One - like just about every other iPhone-killer that's come along in the last three years, it looks too similar to the original, so there's unlikely to be a "wow" factor when consumers get to see it.
And however advanced the latest version of Google's Android mobile operating system may be, the user experience will still depend on the quality of the networks. One thing really disappoints me on my return to San Francisco - here in what should be the most connected place on the planet, it's still not that easy or cheap to get online on the move.
Expectations that cities like this would be blanketed in free wifi - or maybe wimax - by 2010 have been shown to be sadly over-optimistic. So mobile users are still dependent on 3G, and networks like O2 in the UK or AT&T in the US are struggling to cope with the flood of data from smartphones.
In a San Francisco cafe packed with geeky types eagerly scoffing the free wifi not available outside, I met a a man who confirmed my impressions that when it comes to mobile connections, this is not the land of the free.
Theo Zourzouvillys, a British software engineer who's been working in California for Skype since last September came up with a line I thought I'd never hear: "We are so lucky in the UK - the mobile networks are far better than they are here." Mr Zourzouvillys, a smartphone addict armed with a G1 Android and an iPhone, said it was much harder to use them in the US than he'd imagined.
I'm expecting to see plenty of exciting new gadgets this week and, who knows, perhaps another moment of tech history. But will I find it any easier to get online and stay connected at a reasonable price? I doubt it.
I'm 
Comment number 1.
At 5th Jan 2010, Crookwood wrote:My American mates moan about their connectivity, but I haven't heard them bless ours...
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Comment number 2.
At 5th Jan 2010, Paul Freeman-Powell wrote:"Could this be the device that finally gives the iPhone a run for its money?"
What do you mean, finally? It does irritate me how so many technology commentators assume that the iPhone is the "best" and assume that everyone else agrees with that too.
The iPhone has "been given a run for its money" many, many times, as there are so many devices out there which do much more, much better and for cheaper without the jumped up and pretentious marketing hype surrounding such a sub-standard product. Okay, the iPhone is good but not *that* good!
The iPhone has been raised to a non-existent pedestal by everyone, so that now all other phones that come out end up being compared to the iPhone (which in turn is yet another free advert for Stevey Jobs). That really irritates me. The iPhone is just a phone in amongst a crowd of other phones and shoud be treated as such.
Rory, I look forward to reading your review of the Nokia N900 when you get a chance... :)
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Comment number 3.
At 5th Jan 2010, Psycho B Delic wrote:Speaking as one who has an iPhone I think it vastly over rated. My old Nokia could access more of the web, albeit on a smaller screen, and didn't require a rubber protective coat or film to protect it from the 'real' world. The camera is a joke and the fact you have to sign up for itunes and give your credit card details to Apple just to activate your iphone is an insult.
"the advent of the iPhone unleashed the smartphone revolution" !!!!
What a load of twaddle! Why is it that Mac Fans always assume that Apple invented everything. Ipods were not the first mp3 players, iPhones weren't the first smartphones; the iSlate is not the first tablet.
I suppose that now Safari and OSX have made it into the top ten most security flawed pieces in software during 2009 we'll discover that Apple invented anti malware software!
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Comment number 4.
At 6th Jan 2010, Morgan Kelps wrote:As a Yank, I think this is a true step in the right direction, it is abound time we started moving to an open network GSM model rather than the archaic CDMA networks we have been using. Also reading up on the ecom aspects and think there are some pretty big challenges to Apple that Google is throwing up.
Time will tell how big of a success this is!
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Comment number 5.
At 6th Jan 2010, Paul Freeman-Powell wrote:I've just watched Rory's report on the new Google phone and was once again irritated by the factually incorrect nonsense spouted about how "great" the iPhone is.
Now, don't get me wrong... in general I really enjoy Rory's reports and articles, but Rory, when you say things like "the iPhone turned phones into little computers in our pockets" (paraphrased) it knocks your credibility rather.
The iPhone brought NOTHING NEW to the smartphone market. Ok, it may have done some things a bit better than others did at the time and it was certainly successful (due to marketing and marketing only) but it deserves only a fraction of the sucking up which you're giving it.
Just look at the phones HTC were doing beforehand, and the Nokia N95 which was released about 6 months prior to the iPhone...
And along now has come Maemo (jumped from tablets into phones) which I for one can't wait to try :)
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Comment number 6.
At 6th Jan 2010, Opaque wrote:People always miss the point about the iphone, the itablet etc.
They might not be the best or the cheapest, but they are the ones that got that technology into the general publics mind. They are the ones that made technologies go mainstream.
The ipod, and especially the iphone made Iiunes what it is, serving the majority of the legal download market.
Although so many people hate it, Apples place in peoples minds is what helps that general public perception. Blackberry=business, Microsoft=Evil, Google=Software, Nokia etc = the bad phones and problems they've had before.
The idea of an iphone killer isn't a better camera (most phones have better cameras than the iphone), the battery life, the memory etc, it's can it become more than it is? Can it become synonamous with quality without needing to be actually better than it's competitors?
The only way that is going to happen is if the next version of the iphone is SO bad and so full of mistakes, bugs etc that is damages it's existing brand.
A lot of the other problems are to do with the telephone networks, eg the coverage of 3G. That's O2, thats AT&T, that's not the Iphone. The ire against the system isn't against Apple.
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Comment number 7.
At 7th Jan 2010, Anthony Nigel wrote:O2 in the UK isn't all that bad of handling all the smart phones, I think the iPhone exclusivity they originally had forced them to prepare there network for a "data" hammering.
Recombu did an awesome comparison of network speeds around London, compairing Orange and O2:
Overall I've been pleased with the network performance I've recieved on my iPhone 3G with O2 therefore I am a little disappointed that the is only initially going to be available on Vodafone as I won't go back to them.
I've always heard that the mobile networks are a lot worse in the States, but I'm not suprised considering the sheer amount of land the networks must have to cover!
Anthony
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Comment number 8.
At 8th Jan 2010, Ian wrote:Love it or hate it the iPhone is the standard all other smartphones are currently compared with (I'm an Andriod phone user and love it but still think the iPhone is a better product).
What people are forgeting is smartphones are effectively mobile PC's / MAC's with phones attached to them and the only thing that matters is the operating system - just look at the last 20 years with Microsoft and Windows. Handsets will always evolve just like PC hardware.
IMHO this will take a while to play out just like it has done with browsers (Explorer vs Firefox etc) but once Android obtains critical mass it will quickly become the dominate player (i think it will overtake Symbian in the next 2 to 3 years).
Unless Apple make their platform open source (they won't!) it's just a matter of time. And Windows Mobile? - they've already missed the boat.
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