Google and mobility

Google has a lot of faith in us consumers. They hope we know what the hell to do with text messaging which just caught on in the last year or 2 here in the states. They hope that your phone isn't from the 90s and you're not sporting a Zack Morris phone. They hope that you know the consequences of not having a data plan, or being smart enough to sign up for a data plan to use their applications.

So far this is what has been rolled out that I use occasionally to frequently from google on my ever rotating inventory of phones.

• Google Mail on my phone browser (http://m.gmail.com/) - I had set it as my home page when ever I hit my little internet button on my Sony Ericsson w600i.
  
• Google SMS - Great for when the wife says, "where's this? Or what's the phone number to that?"
  
• Google Maps via a small java midlet/application (eats up data) I don't use this as much as I should. I should've made more use of it when we were completely lost in Boston, but I digress.

And now google has come out with a Java midlet that lets me run Gmail as a full blown client on most GSM phones. Which is nice but I have to ask myself, is it really necessary? Maybe its due to the fact that I'm not your usual email user. I use email on the go to really just keep tabs on what's getting emailed to me, so its more of a one-way communication. In any case, I opened up the Gmail midlet, thought it looked nice, and then promptly closed it. After all, it would've probably been a lot more useful on a "dumb" phone but with my new Dash, its redundant.

Sidenote: I hated how Sprint and Verizon created little wall gardens on their phones and would only let you do things on your phone the way THEY wanted to, which is why I switched to T-mobile.

What I do like is the fact that Google has taken the initiative to make my life easier. And although I know their corporate mantra is "do no evil," it is a bit unsettling to know how much I rely on Google for my services, and they in turn know my every move (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheets & Documents, Google searching). They're also making sure I'm completely addicted to their services. Because I know that these mobile apps are nothing more but enticers to keep me glued to coming back to their site time and time again. I really do hope they stay the course of doing no evil.