This is good news for mobile advertising  companies that have clients looking to execute mobile advertising on Android and other non-Apple platforms.  There will be more available inventory options for smaller mobile ad players. However it will be impossible  to execute a iAd campaign  for  a medium to smaller brand since the minimum buy is $10 million to execute. So really it’s a double edge sword, Apple has brought the light of understanding to  major brands that big mobile media buys will be a norm and happen frequently.  The catch is that no one with less than a $10 million for their mobile media budget will be able to run ads on iAds  network.

Apple has always developed all their products to exist in an Apple eco-system. I think when Apple purchased Quattro, it was a little bit of a shock that they were extending their reach beyond the eco-system of their products.  Perhaps Apple felt pressure due to the highly popularized and drawn out Google and Admob acquisition? Or was it an attempt to maintain dominance,  they purchased a massive ad network to gain more control over their inventory? One thing is for sure, Apple is casting off the non-Apple inventory and ceasing to run campaigns on Quattro’s network of  publishers. So what gives Apple?! I understand that you have $40 Billion in cash alone and $275 million won’t break or make you; but what do you have up your sleeve?

The Casio Brigade is the toughest phone that I’ve come across so far. Casio subjected the mobile device to be tested up to military specifications. Some of the criteria was dropping the phone 26 times from a height of 1.5 meters,  submerged in 3 feet of water for 30 min,  and exposing it to extreme hot/cold temperatures for 96 hours. The phone passed these tests and I am sure it can handle some everyday or special abuse.  The phone has mobile web, navigation, camera,  video, and a full keyboard. Now I may not use this phone as my everyday mobile phone because it’s a bit on the bulky side, but it is a phone to use when hiking, camping, or even doing water activities. But much like answering a call in the grocery line or in a movie, be selective on where you use it. I would hate to hear a cellphone ring when I was surfing or trying to do something relaxing away from the hustle and bustle of everyday.

How can Google fix this?  Well they have some ideas in the future, but as for now they have created a site for developers where they show statistics about what version has visited the Android Market the most within the last 14 days.   This is a good short term solution, but how can they fix the long term implications of having so many different versions?  Turn everything into browser based web apps and rid themselves of apps all together.  Browser based apps work cross platform, cross version, and cross handset.  No longer would developers need to support each version, but one update to a version’s browser would support a bunch of new feature rich tools.

Another way Google plans on keeping all of their users up-to-date is by changing the way they update their proprietary apps – mail, contacts, etc.  By adding those to the Android Market, Google can add new features and have them pushed out to all users regardless of their version – thus allowing developers one base feature list to work with.

All in all, it seems like a big headache.  At least Apple has kept things consistent.  Let’s just hope Google follows suit and makes all of our lives easier.

Trying to win brownie points, I attempted to amuse the 18 month old with typical, yet wildly unsuccessful, baby-talk. In the midst of pinching her cheeks my iPhone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket, slide the screen ‘on,’ checked the text message and clicked the phone back to sleep. As soon as the screen went black the otherwise unamused 18th month year old perked up with interest.

She reached as far as she could with her tiny hands, made a little cry, and huffed a bit before I handed over my phone. If she threw it, it would land on the couch. If she drooled on it, the protective film would protect it, and if she fed it to the dog, it would get a little slobber-y. No biggie.

Instead of any of those things, this ‘typical’18 month year old looked at the blank screen, pushed the ‘on’ button at the bottom of the phone, slide her tiny finger across, and opened the home screen! Wh-wh-what?!? This 18 month old then began sliding back and forth between screens, opening application, and closing them by pushing the round button at the bottom and returning to the home screen! This surely is not typical…right? How can a child who has yet to speak a complete sentence and learn to walk completely know how to work the fundamentals of an iPhone?  Did Apple just do that good of a job with its UI?  Surely not.

A recent statistics showed that that more than one-third of 10-to-11-year-olds in the US owned a mobile phone in 2009, compared with 20% in 2005 – a 13% growth in 4 years.  In the 10-11 year old market, this is huge! Ownership among kids ages 6 to 11 rose from 11.9% to 20% over the same time period. (see the report here: leep.it)  This means, on average, ¼ of 6 – 11 year olds own a mobile phone.  All I had was an etch-a-sketch and a Rubik’s cube, and these kids have Androids!

Though I inherently know stats such as the ones above and have been spouting them off for years, it wasn’t until I saw the interaction between an 18 month old and the technology that I truly grasped the reality of the world and, to be grandiose, the future.  This most likely atypical, yet personally astonishing realization has me thinking about how technology has become such a necessity in everyday life that its use can be picked up by kids as easily as they pick up how to walk.

Anyhow, click the link below to watch the video! The hand that is turning off the phone is my hand; nothing in this video has been doctored. Enjoy!

iPhone

Google seems to have fallen into the same trap as Windows did many years ago: allowing any Tom/Dick/Harry that comes along to plug in to their OS and create applications with little to no limitations. And as a result, Google has lost sight of QT – Quality Control.

To date, there are 3 different versions of Android OS out in the public AND there is no certification process for apps – and Google has shown no motivation to create one.

In this post-Windows era, it is not enough to have wide scale use.  Consumers want more. They need and deserve more.  (Enter Mac OS X)

The trust that users once had in the uncomplicated, easy-to-use, junk-free company, will soon be demolished by the weight of virus-ridden applications and incompatibility issues between Android OS 1.5, 1.6. and 2.0. (See HERE for a great article on the pitfalls of Google Android)

Sure, Google may one day have the most widely used OS on mobile phones.  But to what avail?  A company that starts to skip QT, to disregard usability, and to brush-off consistency will pay for those mistakes.

Google – consider this my warning.