Last night, as I was leaving the office to go play football, word was spilling out onto the interwebs about a brand new Google service.
“Social features!” some said, “Keep your friends updated”, whispered others but, it was only when I saw the sad, inevitable combination of words that make up the phrase “Twitter Killer” did I finally switch my Mac off and head on out. Buffoons.
90mins later, post footy, I left the pitch and decided to upgrade my Google Maps and – to my surprise – buzz was there, but at the same time – not there.
Apparently, I can view my buzz layer but that’s about it. Looking around my Google Latitude I could literally only see two updates.
.
.
Really?!
Just two?!
Why so little?
Surely everyone must be buzzing about this awesome, brand new social product from the big G, right? Right?
Um… wrong. And here’s why:
Turns out that ‘the buzz’ is only relevant for a few of us. That’ll be the few of us running any handset with Android 2.0+ or an iPhone.
*sigh
It’s at this point I’m reminded that of course, Google is based out of San Francisco. And, as everyone knows, these are the only two types of devices that are used in Silicon Valley.
Me on the other hand, along with THE REST OF THE WHOLE WORLD, doesn’t.
Ah well. I’m sure it’ll be great when it gets here, but right now – all I can muster is a shrug, a ‘so what’ even.
As an old colleague of ours might say… Next!
.
To be fair, it’s mainly about the browser situation on respective platforms. iPhone has no dedicated app and it’s only because it’s a good Webkit browser that you see the chart above.
Features in Buzz require a heavy dose of web dev wizardry, so if I were you I’d rather push Nokia, RIM and MSFT to get busy on supporting decent Firefox or Webkit-based solutions.
RIM seems busy at that, Nokia looks at Maemo with Firefox, and we’ll see next week for MSFT.
check it out this morning, its Buzzpocalypse
Oddly enough, many of Google’s mobile products come out of London. And Google Voice also has a presence here, which you also can’t get in the UK.
What’s even better is that I have 2 phones – the Symbian-powered Nokia N97 and the Android-powered HTC Eris. I can buzz from my N97 with ease, as James showed above. I cannot, however, buzz from my Eris. If you look closer at the ‘supported devices’ snapshot, it says ‘Android 2.0+’, whereas my Eris (and the HTC Hero, Moto Cliq, MyTouch 3G, etc, etc) are all v1.5 or v1.6, which means they’re not supported.
Completely ridiculous that it’s not supported on Google’s own [fragmented] platform.
James Whatley Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 14:52
Hey Ricky, how do you buzz from your N97?
As you can see from the screens above, I couldn’t do it from the 5800. Am I missing something?
To be fair, it's mainly about the browser situation on respective platforms. iPhone has no dedicated app and it's only because it's a good Webkit browser that you see the chart above.Features in Buzz require a heavy dose of web dev wizardry, so if I were you I'd rather push Nokia, RIM and MSFT to get busy on supporting decent Firefox or Webkit-based solutions.RIM seems busy at that, Nokia looks at Maemo with Firefox, and we'll see next week for MSFT.
To be fair, it's mainly about the browser situation on respective platforms. iPhone has no dedicated app and it's only because it's a good Webkit browser that you see the chart above.
Features in Buzz require a heavy dose of web dev wizardry, so if I were you I'd rather push Nokia, RIM and MSFT to get busy on supporting decent Firefox or Webkit-based solutions.
RIM seems busy at that, Nokia looks at Maemo with Firefox, and we'll see next week for MSFT.
check it out this morning, its Buzzpocalypse
check it out this morning, its Buzzpocalypse
Oddly enough, many of Google's mobile products come out of London. And Google Voice also has a presence here, which you also can't get in the UK.
Oddly enough, many of Google's mobile products come out of London. And Google Voice also has a presence here, which you also can't get in the UK.
What's even better is that I have 2 phones – the Symbian-powered Nokia N97 and the Android-powered HTC Eris. I can buzz from my N97 with ease, as James showed above. I cannot, however, buzz from my Eris. If you look closer at the 'supported devices' snapshot, it says 'Android 2.0+', whereas my Eris (and the HTC Hero, Moto Cliq, MyTouch 3G, etc, etc) are all v1.5 or v1.6, which means they're not supported. Completely ridiculous that it's not supported on Google's own [fragmented] platform.
What's even better is that I have 2 phones – the Symbian-powered Nokia N97 and the Android-powered HTC Eris. I can buzz from my N97 with ease, as James showed above. I cannot, however, buzz from my Eris. If you look closer at the 'supported devices' snapshot, it says 'Android 2.0+', whereas my Eris (and the HTC Hero, Moto Cliq, MyTouch 3G, etc, etc) are all v1.5 or v1.6, which means they're not supported.
Completely ridiculous that it's not supported on Google's own [fragmented] platform.
Hey Ricky, how do you buzz from your N97? As you can see from the screens above, I couldn't do it from the 5800. Am I missing something?
Hey Ricky, how do you buzz from your N97?
As you can see from the screens above, I couldn't do it from the 5800. Am I missing something?
It looks like you don’t have the latest version – have you downloaded from google.com/m directly?
I have it working perfectly well on my I8910.
It looks like you don't have the latest version – have you downloaded from google.com/m directly?I have it working perfectly well on my I8910.
It looks like you don't have the latest version – have you downloaded from google.com/m directly?
I have it working perfectly well on my I8910.