Tom Conrad

A few weeks ago, just after the iPhone 3G launch, I was invited to join a mobile round table put together by the folks at TechCrunch. They’d brought together a relatively large group of people with the goal of engaging in a dialog about the future of mobile and the implications of new solutions like the iPhone AppStore and the upcoming launch of Android.

As is often the case, once the discussion got going, folks on the panel tended to take extreme positions — in part to illustrate points and in part to keep the dialog lively and entertaining. Periodically the conversation would turn to Android and when that happened Mike Arrington would typically chime in with enthusiastic comments about Android’s open stance and potential. Others on the panel were more guarded in their enthusiasm and advocated a kind of wait-and-see approach. In the heat of the discussion I said something pretty inflammatory (“I need Android like I need a hole in the head”). It was a stupid thing to say, and I immediately regretted it.

My thoughts on Android are rather uncomplicated and are not in any way well summarized by my comments that day. Here’s what I really think

- It’s being built by a great company with a great team.

- Their SDK is evolving nicely and it’s getting easier and easier to develop really compelling applications for Android. The SDK released on August 18 (a few weeks after the TechCrunch panel) in particular is a great step forward.

- We want Pandora to be available everywhere there are listeners. On the web, on your phone, in your car, in your home. Everywhere. If that means investing in dozens of mobile platforms, so be it. Once Android is released and starts to gain traction with users (and I’m sure it will), I’m certain we’ll develop and release a version of Pandora for Android. We’ve of course been prototyping already and it’s clear that we can build a great version of Pandora for Android.

- I think that there are real challenges to the notion of Android as completely open when placed at least in the context of the US cellular market. For example, the US consumer is addicted to carrier subsidies on phone hardware. Even Apple was forced to reverse its stance with the iPhone 3G and go to a carrier subsidized model. Carrier subsidies mean one thing: network lock in. So I think that means there are two options for Android: phones that are truly open, but that are largely not price competitive for the mass market, or subsidized models that sell at scale but lose some of their open appeal. I guess my main point is that at the end of the day, at least in the US, it’s the carriers that control access to the spectrum which means that they’re typically the final arbiter of how “open” the devices accessing the network will be.

- Our experience with BREW, J2ME, and Windows Mobile — all software platforms that are at least somewhat device agnostic — has been that device firmware level issues often make porting very, very time consuming. When viewed through that frame, and combined with the fact that there are already 7 major phone OS’s that are viable in the US, the introduction of yet another mobile OS isn’t entirely exciting news in and of itself. Having said that, I’m sure my enthusiasms will shift once I’ve been able to lay hands on a real live Android device. Certainly the latest demos and emulators are very compelling.

- I think Google and RIM both have a very formidable competitor in Apple with respect to the maturity of their mobile development tools. In some ways, Apple has been working on the iPhone tools and SDK for something like 15 years since the basic mechanisms and tools have their roots in the NeXTStep platform. Having said that, I’m really encouraged by what we’re seeing in the latest Android SDK drops and it should be fun to watch this competition play out. Certainly the industry would benefit from these players each trying to outdo each other with respect to development tools and technologies.

So that’s the my real point of view on all of this. As much as anything, this entire back-and-forth was a good reminder for me that it’s just not smart, not to mention nice, to say anything that seems to openly disparage the hard work that other smark folks are doing in the industry. So to the Google Android team: sorry guys.

We’ve been working with the team at Sonos for about 6 months to get the Pandora Everywhere experience on their family of devices. During that time I’ve of course had the chance to listen to a Sonos here in the office a fair bit as we iterated together on builds. What I wasn’t able to do was to experience it in my own home. That all changed 48 hours ago when I setup my own multi-room Sonos system.

Best. Thing. Ever.

I’m a huge fan of Slim Devices and have been a very, very happy Slim customer for many years (going all the way back to their very first device the SliMP3). They’re a great company with a great team building really neat devices. But at the end of the day they really play at different places in the market than Sonos. The Squeezebox is more affordable device than the Sonos and the Transporter is at the very high end really targeted at the kind of people that pay ten grand for a CD player.

So, getting back to Sonos… this is a really delightful product. Incredibly easy to setup. I managed to configure a multi-room solution with Rhapsody, Pandora, and our own library of music in about 15 minutes and that included a round of firmware upgrades to take advantage of their latest feature (Pandora!).

The implementation of multi-room is the killer app for Sonos. It’s just flawless. I’m convinced that my home music use is going to skyrocket thanks to this. It’s also by far the best way to use Rhapsody (finally the $13/month makes sense to me). The Pandora implementation is also fantastic. I can’t wait to get back home and play with it some more.

The big news in music web-dom today is the CBS acquisition of Last.fm. I’ve frequently talked about my affection for last, and I really am happy to see them “exit” at a valuation that should be good for the entire team. Last is truly remarkable at getting great features out into their communities hands. It’s a great site with tons of really interesting content and conversations. I wish them continued success as they move into their latest chapter.