Bluepulse, iPhone and Google's G1

A friend over at Cast.tv (they're doing awesome things with video search) just Bluepulsed me that her phone contract is nearly up and is torn between getting Apple's iPhone or Google's soon to be released G1.

Given that every man and his blog are talking about the G1 today, here's a comparison with as few stats as possible.

• GPS: Both have it, the G1 has compass based street view as well.
• App stores: iPhone is approval based (ie: higher quality apps), G1 is open slather (ie: more cool stuff for us nerds)
• Music: iPhone has ITMS, G1 has Amazon. Amazon music will be cheaper and starts with 6M DRM free tracks.
• Video: ITMS has video, Amazon doesn't (at launch anyway)
• Keyboard: iPhone has its touchscreen, G1 has a slider qwerty keyboard
• Camera: 2Mp on iPhone, 3Mp on G1
  
• Sync: iPhone has iTunes, G1 has no desktop sync
• Storage: iPhone has 8/16GB with no expansion, G1 has 1GB with microSD
• Screen: iPhone=3.5" 480X320 , G1=3.17" 480X320 (Sorry, tried to steer clear of numbers)
  
• O/S: iPhone is pretty slick, G1 seems not as slick, both seem functionally similar though.
• Form factor: G1 is bigger due to the keyboard
  
• Sexiness factor: 12 months ago you could just about pick up having an iPhone. This will NEVER happen with a G1 ;)
• Bluepulse: The Bluepulse iPhone app is available today. For now, G1'ers would be headed to bluepulse.com in their browser.

HTC Dream, AKA T-Mobile G1

So, if regular-phone-user 'I' were in the market for a phone what would I get? Given that the G1 is the first Android device to ship there are bound to be a few kinks, such as (cr)app overload due to the lack of an approval process in their app store, or frustration from the lack of desktop syncing. Coming from a Motorola/Nokia/Sony-Ericsson my bug threshold is pretty low, so while I'm sure these things will get fixed over time, let me know when it's done.

Compare that with the relatively tight controls over the iPhone features/apps and beautifully simple UI. That makes it a great intro to mobile internet, much the same as what Apple did with the desktop a quarter century ago. The iPhone is the way to go for now... unless of course you want some serious quality.

As for what Bluepulse is doing with Android, it's essentially the same as what I wrote a last year - If Android gets good traction and provides a way for us to give our users an even better Bluepulse experience, we're there!