mobileMinds

After years of mildly successful MP3 devices someone finally stepped up and did things right. Of coarse I'm talking about Apple, and they continued this winning strategy with the iPhone.  While the user interface on the iPod was nice it wasn't great until the iPhone. What made it such as success was iTunes, it wasn't the store itself at first, it was the inclusion of a easy to use software that provides a simple way to sync your digital media library to your device.

History is littered with device makers and software companies that tried to tackle this market with long to no success. I'm not talking about start-up's with great idea's and no marketing dollars, companies like Sony, Dell, Napster, and Real are just a few who tried and failed to succeed. Why did all of the companies fail, when it seemed so easy for Apple to succeed? Well in my opinion it was because they made the software to work with the hardware, not just one or the other it is a complete solution. Apple is the only company until Microsoft released the Zune bundled with the Zune software that was a complete solution for managing and syncing digital content to it's hardware. 

I know we don't need a history lesson so why am I writing about this? I have been very vocal about the smartphone market and the great devices that have been released in the past year or so from Google and Palm. These devices have so much potential as both platforms are great at playing multimedia. While the music player on both Android and WebOS are let's just say early versions. The real problem is the same as it's been with all the other devices that tried and failed at this, no sync software included. I just can't understand why Palm or Google hasn't realized this and addressed it. It seems like such a simple thing to address to help your company succeed in this growth market segment.

Well, Google may have something under their selves to address this if the rumors are to be believed. I read a report today on Gizmondo see the reference link below, that indicate that the NexusOne may be designed to work with a dock. I maybe the only person in the world who buys dock's but I would choose a phone with one over one without if they both meet my requirements. As I wrote above the ability for a phone to also work within a dock is a key requirement that should be added along with the sync'ing of media in a easy to use interface.

With Google rumored to have been looking at Lala.com, it makes sense for them to be looking at adding media as a priority to the Android platform. So I for one would love to see them address this in short order.