The Nexus One has a slew of new features (like the new Android 2.1 OS, phone wide voice search, incredible multitasking support, and a full multitouch display) that a lot of other Android devices on the market don’t have and, in terms of speed and capability, really stands up against the iPhone’s (the 3GS and iPhone 3G included) on the market today.

Now, I’ve only had the device for a few days, but I can definitely say that my mobile productivity has increased greatly since switching from the iPhone already! The Nexus One is one of (if not) the fastest mobile phones available for purchase, with 512 MB of RAM and ROM and a 1 Ghz processor powering it, and because of this, and the Google Android OS’s ability to run multiple applications at at time, I’ve been able to scream through emails while surfing the web, listening to music, staying up to date on Facebook and Twitter, and taking notes in class, all at the same time, whereas on the iPhone I would have to jump from one app to the next individually, thus slowing down my work pace greatly (especially only on an iPhone 3G).

Another thing I will say is that the Google ecosystem just really seems to open up once you connect an Android device to your Google Account – suddenly things like Picasa, Google Voice and Maps, and so many other apps have new functionality and plug right into apps you’d already be using anyways. Its just a really easy and fun experience overall, and the way Android automatically backs up everything you do on the web for you, without any action on your behalf at all, is really convenient and great for when your always on the go.

I’ll leave you with a quick video of the Nexus One, and once I’ve spent a good amount of time with the phone I’ll definitely let you know if this device could truly be the toe-to-toe competitor of the iPhone we’ve all been waiting for!

The Google Nexus One – Unboxing And Quick Hands On Video

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Facebook has been very hard at work redesigning their iPhone mobile application from the ground up and now you can download the new version that adds most of the features missing from the old application.

With this new version, although you can’t edit profile information yet, you can manage pages, friends, submit content, and view fans and comments on the fly in a simple, fast and convenient way.

It beats the old version by a mile, and finally you can see who’s looking at and chatting on your Facebook Page on the fly – get the updated Facebook mobile app for the iPhone and iPod Touch now from Apple’s App Store!

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While, on the outside, Snow Leopard looks almost exactly the same as the previous version of Mac OS X, Leopard, it brings with it a lot of business friendly new features that are definitely worth investing $30 in, the biggest being out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange.

Microsoft Exchange, as most business users will know, is heavily used in the business world to keep employees and their offices connected. Mac OS X Snow Leopard delivers out of the box Exchange support in all of Apple’s big built in apps, including Mail, iCal and Address Book. This functionality keeps your contacts, your calendars and your mailboxes all integrated and in sync, and this key feature alone is reason enough to upgrade to Snow Leopard if your Mac’s been kept out of your workplace due to it’s lack of Exchange support in the past.

In addition to Exchange support, Snow Leopard brings massive speed increases and decreased application and OS footprints to your Mac, freeing up anywhere from 7-20 GB of hard drive space and giving even older Macs a well needed speed boost.

If you haven’t yet grabbed your copy, Mac OS X Snow Leopard is only a $29 ($35 Canadian) OS that’s definitely worth every cent, but as with any new OS, beware of broken workflows, plugins, etc!

You can buy it directly from Apple at http://www.apple.com/macosx – happy upgrading!

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First, let me point you to the following Engadget article: http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/10/editorial-taking-the-iphone-3gs-off-the-job-market/

Now that you’ve read this, you may understand what this blog post is about. For the past 9 months I’ve been a fairly satisfied iPhone user, and I’ve always plugged the iPhone as being a business-centric device.

Now, let’s refer back to that Engadget article. Mr. Topolsky, in his post, brings to light the most upsetting flaw in the iPhone: it’s inability to multitask. Now, with the release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware Apple has tried to diminish the lack of this feature by adding it’s Push Notification system. Unfortunately, what is even more upsetting to me here is that developers are either having an incredibly hard time utilizing this Push system or they aren’t.

Or they can’t. There are just too many things that cannot work in a Push environment. What are Push Notifications? Basically, whenever an internet based application like an IM client or newsreader gets a new update or message, it pushes the message to you (for example, you’d recieve a message whenever you got a new IM).

But, say, how does an Internet radio application use this push method to continue playing music? Or a blogging application to keep your draft open while you refer to an email?

What it comes down to in the end is the apps that can have their background tasks pushed, and those that can’t. And there are a lot of applications that can’t, and that is one of the key reasons I’m beginning to doubt the iPhones business capibility as well.

Especially during the summer, when I’ve been working 10+ hour dayshifts at work, coming home, eating and heading out again, I’ve been finding it incredibly infuriating to use the iPhone as a business device.

For example, I wrote a blog post about the social mediasphere a little while back for my personal blog that I will soon be posting here on this blog, and, as I was on my break at work and sitting outside enjoying a cup of coffee, I was naturally on my phone, in iBlogger, typing away. About 5 or 6 paragraphs into the post my girlfriend sent me a rather important text message, but iBlogger doesn’t have a draft save option (bad design choice by them, but Apples folly nonetheless in this case). In order to reply to her text, I’d either have to finish the post or delete it and start again. I took a half and half way out and copied the entire post into the built-in Notes application so I could work on it at anytime now, but again, this was very irritating. Had the iPhone been multitask-capable, I simply would’ve been able to leave iBlogger open, jump into Messages, text my girlfriend back, and go back to my writing.

Another example just occured today: my client and I were conferring over Facebook and I was out of the house. It was of the essence I stay in contact with him throughout the day, and I had emailed myself notes to pass along to him during our discussions. I began typing a message to the client in the Facebook mobile app but forgot one of the points I had to send him, so I copied and pasted the whole thing into Notes and continued working there, flipping between Notes and Mail. But then I needed to refer back to his message, but I can’t copy and paste his message at all. And everytime I wanted to look back at his long message, I’d have to relaunch the app, watch it hang for a minute, then reload the message, read, hop out, go back into Notes, back into Mail, repeat. This process of application surfing, believe me, is a very painful one.

This is, by far, and all firmware bugs aside, Apples greatest mistake and the iPhones greatest weakness. Unfortunately for the end user, the iPhone is the only phone out there with the applications to truly enable mobile businesses. I honestly don’t think I could live without the ability to access the apps I have on my iPhone, but the way in which I use them together doesn’t make sense.

The Palm Pre, the most reknowned iPhone competitor, has an app store similar to Apples, a weaker developer base, but multitasking. If multitasking doesn’t end up on the iPhone soon, the Pre will inevitably overcome the iPhone with it’s easy and seamless multitasking system, but until it’s developer community grows exponentially, the iPhone’s app base is a thousandfold stronger then Palms.

So it really comes down to what your willing to deal with; those that want multitasking but are willing to give more to do less can get the Pre, and those that are willing to endure lots of headaches to accomplish their business on the go can choose the iPhone.

For now I’m sticking with the iPhone, but when it comes time to get another phone in 2 years time, I’m not so sure I’ll be taking that well designed and all so prestigious Apple path again.

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