Orange (and Google) planning their own ‘X-Series’? Oh, save me. Please save me.

Link: The Carrypad UMPC journal.: Weekend UMPC roundup.

The Observer have published a report saying that Google and Orange are looking at a joint venture that will produce a Google branded HTC phone. This sounds exactly like the X-series from Three in the UK where they offer unlimited mobile Internet surfing at 1/8th of the price of a normal flat rate tariff. The trouble is, on a small screen with browsing.email only, you get exactly that. 1/8th of the Internet.

Oh dear.

This is an interesting one, a very interesting one.

First of all, HTC = Arse. Smart technicans, HTC, but they’re totally screwed by the Windows Mobile operating system as it stands today.

Quick aside: I can make any proud HTC device owner cry within 30 seconds. It’s really easy. First of all, you ask them to run MSN. Then you ask them to bring up a web page — say, Engadget, on the device’s mobile browser. At this point things are really creaking. Then I’ll ask them to create and send an email on an IMAP account with 100 emails in the inbox. I then make a phone call to the device. The owner, at this point, bursts into tears. Why? Because the device is still loading Engadget and is still negotiating with the imap server. Meanwhile it’s screen hasn’t quite rebuilt from MSN. The last thing you need, and that’s where the tears really start flowing, is for a friend to say ‘hi there’ by MSN, which really, really screws everything up. Audio functions are called. New graphic rewrites needed. Oh dear. It’s all a total mess for 5 minutes.

I kid you not. Worse case scenario: Do the above with a T-Mobile MDA Pro and then swap the screens around to turn it into a tablet. Heh. Useless. The device is dead for at least 20 seconds whilst it processes the screen update…

The reason, by the way, that this is an annoying situation (i.e. a Nokia E61 couldn’t necessarily do much better when really overloaded), is because these Windows Mobile devices pupport to operate like this. They’re ‘marketed’ to work in the above manner. ‘Take your office with you and so on’. They don’t work properly. They spectacularly underdeliver. That really winds me up. I’d love it if they did actually work as advertised.

Anyway, slight rant over, so it’s interesting to consider an Orange / Google tie-up. Knowing Orange, their X-Series will be absolute rubbish. Look at the tripe that they’ve rolled out over the years. I was stupid enough to buy a C550 and try downloading a full length audio track from their proprietary music service. Nothing short of total rubbish. You see I actually use these things. I genuinely keep my mind open — honest — to try new things. But when I’m fed total rubbish — and worse, when I’ve had to pay a few quid for it, that really winds me up. I start thinking, ‘hold on, seriously, who’s running this outfit?’

However, the involvement of Google could make things a bit exciting but they’re probably just the ‘search partner’ — a la Yahoo’s agreement with Three.

The Observer link mentioned in the Carrypad article is here.

Do have a look at the article. It’s peppered with useless shit like this:

Tony Cooper, a telecoms consultant at Deloitte, said: ‘There are numerous situations in which people say “I wish I had Google in my hand”, and I can imagine the younger generation of users would think that a Google phone is a cool idea.

(To be clear, I think David Smith of The Observer has done a good job, it’s just the comments contained therein that are winding me up.)

Will you read that quote above supplied by Tony Cooper. A telecoms consultant? Tony, I trust you were misquoted or that quote was from a research paper you wrote in 1999. If you’re wondering why I’m taking issue, Tony, it’s because ‘I wish I had Google in my hand’ is T-Mobile. Get yourself into a T-Mobile store and look at Web ‘N Walk. Right now. Today. It’s 7 quid a month for open access to Google. Gaaah. How annoying.

But Tony does continue thus:

He added: ‘It has a potential to be a success, and to offer commercial success for both companies, particularly if Orange can link it to its broadband offering. If I was Orange, I’d want to get a share of the ad click-through revenues; if I was Google, I’d want a share of the airtime revenue. The potential stumbling block is if it’s clunky and hard to use.’

That last line — this one:

The potential stumbling block is if it’s clunky and hard to use

Er, yeah, you mean like everything else Orange have trotted out related to their HTC devices in the past? Ooooh dear. Ooooh deary me.

Clunky and hard to use

That’s UK Mobile Operator Plc. 😉

I wonder what it would take for an analyst to actually call it like it is.

Let me sit and think what my response would be if David, the article’s author, had called me.

Sooo. Orange and Google ‘collaborating’ on a device. I think I’d position my response around ‘Well it’s 3 quid a meg’. You can get Google right now on Orange, but it’s crazy expensive.

Do you know what, I don’t think I’d have a lot to say to David.

I think I’d just be struck dumb, muttering things like, ‘er, well, they’re just a pipe David, seriously man, they’re a pipe, for data, HOW MUCH FOR A MEG OF DATA, David, just give the users access, HOW MUCH??? and stop charging them crazy per meg data prices.’

Then, if David had prompted me a little more, I’d have probably exclaimed, ’75 QUID A MONTH PRICE PLAN TO GET UNLIMITED DATA, BUT ONLY UNLIMITED OFF PEAK?’ and then I think I’d have spontaneously combused.

So, just as well he didn’t call.