I’ll give it to the Quince company – they make nice interfaces. Really nice interfaces. Smooth, sleek and all that. But when it comes to devices, it’s sometimes a hit or miss. Google, on the other hand, well…they’re still playing a lot of catch-up. Google is a great big brother data collection/aggregation company but for all the work put into Android, especially into v2, it’s still just not the same.  Jennifer, a long time Mac-head, battled with me for the better part of 11 years.  If you walk into our home/MadeByGirl offices now, however, it’s nothing but one-bite fruit machines all over the place.  And though I hate some things (ok, code-writing is just an abomination and I STILL can’t get used to the command keys, something about Ctrl and Alt just fit my fingers well). And I suspect that the next few objets d’art that materialize will also be sleek and ringing “ta-da” when turned on.

Take the Kindle.  Now that’s a device with purpose.  Why is it so popular?  Because it has one purpose and one purpose only.  And it does it well.  Hey, if they added on a couple of other features, awesome, but it’s when it becomes overbuilt, that’s when it starts to become pointless.  Just like that, the iPod.  One purpose from inception, super design, awesome and intuitive interface, good UX, sells millions billions.

My G1, on the other hand, I am quickly learning that I wish it were just a freakin’ phone.  My very first Sprint mobile (circa 1993) was a somewhat bricky Samsung with a rocker switch and I loved it.  Hell, I wish I still had it – the roller switch was just so easy to use (compared to this pinhead sized trackball thing).  And for all the touchscreen love, I still miss that the phone was just to make calls.  Yes, I post from my phone, send text and all that other crap, but at some point I just started deleting apps because there really was no point to it.  Which is my point.

The iPad brings in a new level of “I really don’t know what I want to be.”  On the one hand, it’s very limited, but at the same time it’s pretty extreme.  I, like a lot of people, don’t seem to know where it will fit in.  Maybe I just need to use one for a while.  Or not use it as it sits idly on my coffee table, eventually becoming a very expensive coaster with a nice user interface.  Jobs had a lot of failures in the past but maybe we just don’t understand the impetus   crazy, drunken idea   motivation business model behind it quite yet (like Lisa).  Maybe the idea behind “just leave them all over like computerized notepads” really does have something behind it.

So back to Google – are we just plunking that idea on a browser?  As if every time Jennifer tells me to put the freakin laptop away while she’s trying to watch “Millionaire Matchmaker” and share a moment isn’t bad enough, but to have Google in my pocket, on the laptop screen, on my neighborhood gas pump (ok, that hasn’t materialized in my neck of the woods yet), and now on my coffee table too?  Right next to an iPad?  Does this mean that in 5 years, all the books in my custom-made bookshelf will be replaced with digital tablets (that I have to label with a Brother p-Touch – now there’s a device with purpose – one job, one UI, no complications)?

The age of computerization is nice.  It is.  But put the shit   screen   thing down and pick up a book.  A real book with paper and ink.  Enjoy it…it’s the original UI.

But this past week I installed the Google Voice app (and another one just to try out) from the Google team and wow, what a difference. Just the fact that I now have my VMs both audio (without having to call my TMob VM account) and transcripted to text is a true testament of how far things have come (imagine what a God-send the text transcript is sitting in a meeting with your tone off and not wanting to be an ass by dialing out while someone else was speaking). Both apps are easy to use, both have their benefits and drawbacks but as first release software, I suspect they will only get better. Now I see what all the kerfluffle was about when Apple banned Google Voice from the App Store.

In any case, it comes at a weird time since I’m (finally) taking a crack at more Java coding due to school – Dr. Jo got me really into it and I love the Eclipse IDE (which is weird because no one else in my class likes it, but especially since that Frenchy company came out with the Silverlight toolkit for Eclipse, I am rockin’). Part of me wants to get the G1 just for pure technogeeky reasons but this silly WM Dash (which now seems pretty ancient) that I tote is just plain boring.

So maybe I’ll get it and just put up with the spottiness for now. And maybe I’ll win the lottery too. Any comments? Would you get the phone knowing full well that a better one will probably be released in 18 months? Were you an iPhone 1 buyer who said “doh!” when they first announced iPhone 2? Should I buy it and just hope they do a firmware upgrade? Or should I save the pennies and get that sweet Dell E4200 after all?

[photos courtesy of EngadgetMobile - read the review]