Google Currents for Tablets & Smartphones

Cost of the app: FREE

Website:  http://www.google.com/producer/currents

Download : Google Currents on Apple App Store / Google Currents on Android Market

Video introduction to Google Currents -

It seems like aggregated magazine apps are all the rage these days. Due to the size of the screen these magazine apps were launched exclusively for iPad users.  First, it was Flipboard then Zite, then AOL’s Editions and then Yahoo!’s LiveStand.

Trying to make a huge push in mobile and social applications, how can Google remain behind? Google released Google Currents, a magazine app for iOS and Android devices a couple of days ago without any publicity. I was so excited about this app that while lying in bed and ready to sleep I came across a tweet that said that Google had released Google Currents.

Without any further ado, I went to the app store on my extremely slow network and downloaded the app. It’s around 10 MB in size but I fell asleep while downloading it. After getting up, the first thing I did was to try my hands on Google Currents.

Let’s see the screenshots before we go any further. The iPhone screenshots are from when you first open the app.

1. The first screen tells you that it provides free magazines for your smartphones and tablets with a focus on you.

Google Currents - the get started tutorial

2. Google has included a few magazines for free by default to get you up and running. You can either touch the icons to open or add more magazines.

Google Currents gets you up & running with a few free magazines

3. Trending topics – you can’t be social without including people, right? Google Currents tells you what is being read by other readers around the world with Trending tab.

Trending topics - to know what people are reading right now!

4.  Learn about the controls. While some of the controls are self-explanatory, Google could have done a better job providing standard icons for sharing and sync.

The controls in Google Currents iPhone app

5. You’re ready to roll. This ends the getting started phase of Google Currents. Click done to enter the app.

Time to Dive in

Now, whenever Google releases something I have high hopes from them. I’m almost always certain that they’re going to raise the bar in design, aesthetics and it’s trademark – speed. I was expecting something that would completely replace my news & magazine apps but I was sorely disappointed.

The app is slow – When you click an article on your phone you want it to load instantly. No exceptions. You just don’t have the patience to wait 15 seconds before you see any word of it. Google Currents downloads the whole magazine before you can read a word. While it is certainly good for offline reading there should be a setting whereby a user can toggle between offline & online reading.

The controls are confusing – The app just doesn’t feel intuitive. On some screens you can’t see the home icon. On some there’s this list of articles and 3 controls. Sometimes the app starts syncing all by itself.

The design is not good enough for phone reading – Scrolling is not comfortable on a smartphone. I though Google knew that. I would like to give brownie points to Flipboard which has rather successfully implemented the “card deck” mechanism to scroll ( Flipboard review coming soon!). I’m yet to try my hands on the iPad version of the app so I can’t say if this is just the phone thing.

No custom font and size – I know the font Google has chosen is acceptable but still it would be better to have a choice of fonts if only for size. Zite gets fonts and font sizes very well.

There are a few hundred magazines and according to Google all are free. I don’t know if it will be applicable in the near future but right now the collection of magazines is better than most apps out there.

Frankly, it feels like Google was desperate to launch an app and it quickly locked a few developers in a room on a condition that they’ll be released only after finishing an app.

I could have stuck with Google Currents if there were enough reasons to. But right now – I’d wait for improvements for Google Currents before deleting my magazine apps.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Nokia N8

Nokia announced the launch of Nokia N8 during the last week of April. The world leader in the mobile phone market promised a lot and created too much expectations for people regarding the N8 which would become another crown jewel, just like its predecessors N97. If you’re too excited to get your hands upon Nokia N8 then you’ve have to wait until the 3rd quarter of 2010.

Pros

• Flash enabled
• 12MP Carl-Zeiss auto-focus camera with a large sensor
• Real video format
• 720p HD video playback
• HMID card interface to TV
• Dolby Digital sound
• Xenon flash
• 4000 x 3000 image resolution for crispier and sharper images
• Aluminium body

Cons

• Doesn’t offer anything new and innovative except the powerful camera
• Won’t be available until the 3rd quarter! (A very bad strategy to create a hype around a product that dosn’t exist!)
• Zoom : 2x for images , 3x for videos
• Touchscreen without QWERTY – typing long messages will be a nightmare
• Will be available in very few countries, initially!

Price

The N8 is priced at 370 euros which translates to approx Rs. 21500 in India before taxes! The pricing really confuses the user as to which phone among the N8 and its sibling N97 should be purchased as there isn’t much price difference between the 2 phones! Also, choosing a QWERTY phone in favor of a fancy new toy is very difficult given the price range for both is almost the same.

But as the market has shown N97 wasn’t as glaring a success as Nokia had anticipated. Some even called the N97 an iPhone killer!

While it certanly is difficult for any phone company let alone Nokia to shatter Apple iPhone dominance in the smartphone market given the depth and breadth of the app store.

Comparison of the Apple iPhone and Nokia N8

Whenever any new smartphone enters the market people start comparing it with Apple’s iPhone which is only natural given that the iPhone has become THE gold standard among smartphones.

I find it very difficult to compare N8 and the iPhone because its no Apple to Apple comparison (excuse the pun)!

Some of the hard hitting features to compare that come are -

Flash-support – It’s what made the iPhone notorious. There was a whole fiasco going over in the Flash community over Steve Job’s decision to stop supporting Adobe Flash. Adobe then spent millions in publicity to persuade Apple to take back its decision and start supporting flash again! Well the rest is history…he bottomline is Nokia N8 supports Flash.

Camera – The N8 beat iPhone (or ANY other phone in the market) over its 12MP Carl-Zeiss camera. The iPhone pales in comparison with a measly 5MP! If you’re photographically inclined then the N8 is the phone you must consider getting.

Multitasking – Both the iPhone and N8 support multitasking. Interesting thing to note is that both started supporting multitasking with the new Operating Systems introduced by both the phone giants – iPhone OS 4 started supporting it now and also Nokia’s Symbian^3 also introduced multitasking for N8.

I’d like to ask DailyPandora’s readers to share more comparisons between the 2 phones in the comment box below.

Some lessons for Nokia

Don’t try to fill new wine in old bottles – If you compare Nokia N8 with N97 and X6 you’ll come to realize that all these phone have very similar (if not similar!) feature with regards to -

• Display Size
• Dimensions
• Weight
• Video format support

Should I buy the iPhone or the N8?  ( tips for new buyers )

Both phones are great in and among themselves but when it comes to making a choice between the 2 its a difficult stance to take!

If you’re using a smartphone for the 1st time then an iPhone is definitely a better option. Many iPhone users, majority of them infact, suggest that it’s extremely difficult to switch to another smartphone after using an iPhone. Apple fanboys!

More serious users and reviewers chime that Nokia N8 might be a glaring improvement over the N97 (which was an overall failure) with its memory management, 2D and 3D graphics rendering, more sensitive capacitive multi-touch screen and the grand daddy of all camera phone a 12MP, HD supported Carl-Zeiss optical camera!

Some Lessons for Nokia

• Differentiate the brand – Can you tell me 1 peculiar similarity between Microsoft and Nokia? No It’s NOT software! Both great companies don’t know how to differentiate brands. With Microsoft it was MSN, Live and Passport all at the same time which led to confusion among users. With Nokia, it is the series and obscure, meaningless numbers – N-series, then E-series, etc Which leads to undue confusion and provides little insight to customers when making a decision to purchase phones!
• Popularize Publisize your services – Did you know Nokia provides unlimited photo storage, complete phone backup and sync, offline maps and apps through its integrated service platform Ovi? If you do then kudos to you! That’s because not many Nokia users aren’t aware of the existence of these amazing services!
• Instead of using same old features Nokia should focus on developing its marketplace by providing some sort of incentives for app developers.

I’d personally prefer iPhone although if Nokia’s interested in changing my mind I’d be more than happy to give my address

Edited: Corrected spelling mistakes, thanks to the 1st commenter of this post!