You know when you have a demo for Safari it’s going to be a bad day.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) has become Christmas morning for many Apple fans over the years, but the luster normally associated with the event has dwindled in recent years. Today was a chance for Apple to prove to the tech community that they still had it. So did they pull it off? Sort of.

If it were up to me, I’d put Jony Ive in charge of just about everything over at Apple. After being the hardware design head largely responsible for the industrial design direction of nearly every signature Apple product, Ive took his first crack at iOS 7, and quite frankly, hit it out of the park. iOS 7 is beautiful in every way, finally getting rid of the Fisher Price aesthetics present on the iPhone since its inception. But beauty can only take you so far in a smartphone world where iOS still appears to be falling behind. Apple announced app multitasking that looks exactly like Android Jelly Bean’s, as well as Control Center, which is oddly similar to Android’s notifications quick settings.

OS X, for me as a MacBook Pro owner, felt more overdue for an overhaul than iOS, but only saw modifications to finder, multiple displays, Safari, Keychain, and iWorks. The final result was a slightly disappointing 10.9 Mavericks update announcement. With the new OS, Apple also announced its new Mac Pro line, which looks like something from Prometheus (that’s a compliment), and will help solidify the Mac Pro’s place within creative shops for years to come. Apple did also announce newer versions of the MacBook Air starting at $999 and shipping today – but without a Retina Display it was another let down.

So what’s the verdict? Well, if you own an iPhone you should be really excited – iOS 7 is beautiful, the only problem is you’ll still have to wait to get it – probably mid-September. For Mac users, installing Mavericks might depend on how old your Mac is. I wasn’t exactly happy with Lion and above running on my now three-year-old MacBook Pro – so I’d wait and see. But pending performance issues, Mavericks is a nice update. iTunes Radio offers a nice Pandora competitor, but was hardly the same announcement Google delivered at I/O regarding their Google Play Music All Access service.

So regarding Apple’s WWDC announcements overall, the company should be uneasy about their mobile position. Google stalled the announcement of Android 4.3 – perhaps strategically at Google I/O – to announce it in the coming weeks. If iOS 7 is just catching up to a year-old OS (Jelly Bean 4.1 – 4.2), what will happen when 4.3 drops? Also, rumored to be down the pike is a reboot to the popular Nexus 7 line, Google Glass in the fall, and the Motorola X phone. Apple’s safety net is their position within the desktop/laptop consumer space – but within the mobile space it may be dying.

Google is still growing services such as Google Play Music, Books, Movies & TV, and Magazines, as well as their new messaging app Hangouts. Many of these apps would have never gotten off the ground if iTunes was available on Android two years ago – and Hangouts would have a tougher time chewing into iMessages if the latter was available on both platforms. Of course, it’s hard to imagine a world where core “exclusive” iOS apps make their way to Android, but it’s what needs to happen to protect Apple’s mobile future.

It’s rumored that Apple may be announcing a more competitively priced iPhone tomorrow, and I’m one who actually thinks it’s a good idea. Emerging markets will be where the mobile industry continues to grow, and currently, Android has the better position. But if Apple fails to deliver less expensive hardware, their next best solution is opening up their software – especially apps. Once again, it’s hard to see Apple doing this, but it’s much easier for iTunes to be on Android than Google Play on iOS.

Apple has an opportunity to squelch competition – for better or worse – by just changing their philosophy slightly. Also, in the background are stalled announcements from Google we didn’t get at I/O – Android 4.3, Hangouts SMS integration, Nexus 7 update, and potentially others that could bolster competition. So perhaps the most important thing introduced tomorrow at WWDC will not be the variety of updates and additions to Apple’s services, but how it distributes them.

For me using Google Talk (Gchat), SMS/MMS Messaging, and Google+ Messenger seems incredibly redundant, especially when looking at the fragmentation within Google+. Go on Google+ in your browser and find Google Talk. Go on your mobile device, and find Google+’s Messenger app and Google Talk. Looking to continue a thread started within Google+ or Gmail from your browser? Well you can do that in your Google Talk app. Try to continue a thread from the Google+ Messenger app and good luck. Start a video chat from Google Talk on your device, but then try to add people into the hangout, well that’s not possible – you needed to start it in the Google+ Messenger app. But then try to start a video chat in Gmail and they’re now Hangouts – what the hell is going on?

The answer to this lies somewhere between iMessages and Facebook Messenger – with both being great, but not perfect. Facebook’s updated Messenger app is impressive, especially considering Chat Head’s seamless integration across Android. But its lack of delivering SMS/MMS conversations across devices is a giant limitation. This is something iMessages thrives at, but fails to deliver as a cross-platform solution. Google has a fantastic opportunity to bridge this gap and deliver all of the above – without limitations – by consolidating all of its services (Talk, Google+ Messenger and SMS/MMS Messaging) into one app: Google Babel.

If the rumors are true, and Babel is introduced alongside Key Lime Pie (Android 5.0) at Google I/O on May 15, with a “first-class” iOS experience as well – the war over messaging will drastically change. The one bottleneck remaining for Google may be tethering Babel to iOS’s SMS/MMS services – in order to send and receive within the app while also delivering them across the cloud (one of Facebook Messenger’s limitations). So there should be plenty of exciting announcements at Google I/O, but one housekeeping remediation needs to be Google’s messaging service – hopefully it’s Google Babel.

Facebook wants you to make trade-offs by sacrificing numerous features already present on Android for a few in their place – with the hope of making your Facebook experience better. Mark Zuckerberg stated, during the company’s press announcement today, that smartphone users spend 20 percent of their time on Facebook, and an extra 5 percent when factoring in Instagram. The problem is the other 75 percent spent using other apps – and this will hardly change.

Social networking is part of the reason we buy smartphones, but it’s not the whole reason. Most smartphones are judged by the suite of apps available alongside the interoperability of them across the core OS. Limiting the function of other apps (preventing lockscreen/homescreen widgets and other messaging apps) Facebook wants to stretch 20 percent of your attention across 100 percent of your phone – something even the most obsessed Facebook users might be hard-pressed to do.

The Chathead feature, however, is perhaps the most interesting. Being able to multitask multiple conversations while inside others apps could be highly useful and could be deployed in later incarnations of Android or iOS down the road.

To be fair, I don’t think Facebook Home will hurt the company, and it might even help – but not dramatically. From the perspective of Zuckerberg, Facebook Home makes a lot of sense (especially when they plan to inundate you with ads later on), but for most users it won’t. After over a year of rumors, the Facebook “phone” is really what we always expected it to be: Facebook-all-the-time. It puts the social network first and everyone else last with the hope of turning user likes into love with increased use – but it just might be a commitment they can’t keep.

** Facebook Home is set to launch on April 12, for compatible Android devices. It will also ship as the stock launcher on the HTC First on the same date. 

The Google+ Ghost Town

Everyone has their reasons for using or avoiding something, but never have I seen such scrutiny over a social network that’s doing so well. When GlobalWebIndex’s GWI.8 (Q4 2012) report came out on Jan. 22, 2013, it revealed Google+’s monthly usage had in fact overtaken the number two spot behind Facebook. Many found it hard to believe, but I don’t. Think about what the report says and how you share on each site.

Because of Twitter’s fast-paced and shortened nature, users are more inclined to share more often. Because of this, Twitter creates the illusion of more users while still having a smaller populace. Facebook on the other hand has a significantly larger population while sharing less – thus evening the playing field for both platforms when it comes to sharing external content. Want evidence? Look at any article (unless it’s about Facebook) and review the post’s sharing utility plugin. More often than not, Twitter has significantly larger totals than Facebook – and I don’t think anyone is making the argument Facebook has less users.

So because Google+ has longer posts like Facebook, people share like they do on Facebook. Users usually also share their own content, and when they do +1 external content it’s more judicious like Facebook. Want evidence? Once again, go to the same articles you’ve reviewed for Twitter and Facebook. You should see +1’s around half (maybe a little less) than Facebook Likes. This makes sense doesn’t it? Because if GlobalWebIndex’s report is saying that there are 343 million monthly active users on Google+ and 900 million on Facebook, +1’s in relation to Likes should be a little less than half.

There’s a clear audit trail of activity even if you’re not using Google+. But if Google+ is a ghost town who’s +1-ing these posts? Well someone is. Two of TechCrunch’s authors recently published articles (post 1, post 2) claiming Google+ has empty streets. But if you review both of these articles individually they actually have very similar +1 to Like ratios – one article even having twice as many +1’s.

When we review social media sites we should all be careful. Twitter for example is incredibly popular, but the majority of my friends avoid it. Does this mean I immediately assume no one uses it? No. So like any social network, the secret to an awesome Google+ experience requires you to use it first.

Clearly Google is going after Apple, but it may be too expensive ($1,299 for WiFi version) to just cater to typical consumers considering the MacBook Air’s baseline price at $999, and its lack of premium apps will make it hard to compete with MacBook Pro’s starting at $1,199. For someone like myself, living in Google’s world, to jump on board the Pixel bus (and I really want to), I need premium apps. I’d ditch my MacBook Pro today if I didn’t need an accurate display running Adobe Creative Suite or Final Cut Pro, but here we are.

So the challenge will be Google’s attempt to justify Pixel to pro users. The next step, is finding a way to get design and other premium apps in the Chrome Web Store while not losing value. Really the most important part about Pixel has nothing to do with the hardware, it’s the apps and how well they work – and it’s just not there yet. So it’s an enticing laptop. Sexy in every way. But if the Pixel wants to price like a premium laptop, it needs to have apps like one too. Until then, I’ll be standing by.

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Despite Android’s 70 percent smartphone market share, many still rely on iTunes for media purchasing and consumption – regardless of what device you use. Even though, for many reasons, Google Play can offer a better purchasing/user experience.

Google’s first priority should be music on iOS. Currently, Google Music offers the ability to store 20,000 songs in the cloud for free ($24.99 a year for iTunes Match), matches all of your songs to their official music catalogue without a “sin tax,” offers music content at a higher bit rate (320 kbps for Google Music, 256 kbps for iTunes), and usually sells at or below the iTunes listed price for the same content. All of this rolled up, creates an obvious use case for the store and its music app on iOS.

The problem for Google Play – especially music sales – is awareness. So the easiest way to create it is by making the service ubiquitous across all types of devices. Many people have no idea Google Music’s cloud player exists (including Android users) until I tell them – never mind the fact it’s free. All other services: Google Maps, Search, Gmail, YouTube and others are all successful because they’re cross-platform – the same should be true of Google Play. Making a dent in iTunes’ huge market share would be significantly easier this way and eliminate the obvious sacrifice iOS users make because of the apps unavailability.

Amazon realizes this, by launching its own MP3 store for iOS today, in attempt to carve out market share from iTunes. It’s important to note that Amazon’s new service is not entirely seamless either. It still requires you to go through Safari’s mobile browser to make purchases instead of having a native app to accomplish the same feat. Still, having an official app to playback your Amazon music (on iOS and Android) has been an option for some time now. But Amazon’s cloud service still costs you money ($24.99 a year) and only gives you 256 kbps playback on your device. Leverage this with Google Music’s freemium service, offering 320 kpbs playback, and you can see the obvious incentive to use the service – that is if the app can get onto iOS in a meaningful way (currently third-party solutions do exist: gMusic).

It’s very possible that Apple may be stalling such a release in the App Store for competitive reasons (like Google Maps) or Google may have its own reasons. Either way, Google should make the push to expand Google Play’s reach if it truly wants to challenge the digital leader (iTunes) in media distribution and sales.

From Google I/O, the company introduced two very important themes independent of the products themselves – the first being price and the second being branding. Here, Google took a different strategy by selling at ridiculously-low prices for top-end hardware (Nexus 7 at $199/249). Now Google finally had a legitimate contender in the tablet space, and its presentation would soon carry over to other products that followed. Google also, finally, locked down its branding into more digestible names for its Android devices (Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and Nexus Q), and finally abolished the dual-branding that probably created more confusion than sales (Galaxy Nexus).

But later in the year, as Oct. 29, approached, so did Hurricane Sandy. What could have been a monumental event for the company had to be announced in piecemeal fashion via blogs and YouTube videos. But what we got was more of the same snowball that was kicked down the hill back at Google I/O that introduced more rock-star hardware at dirt-cheap prices, while maintaining the same palatable branding (Nexus 4 $299/349 unlocked and Nexus 10 $399/499).

Also, once and for all, Google finally figured out the Chromebook. It was no surprise that a cheaper price would fix the fledgling sales of the Web-based laptop, but most probably didn’t think it was possible. But after slashing the price in half, and the introduction of two new models, the Chromebook was hard to come by this holiday season ($199 for Acer C7 and $249 for Samsung model).

By attempting to sell at or close to cost, this allowed Google to gain a foothold in new markets, while expanding upon its dominance in others. The one blemish for Google, mixed in the list of successes, was the lowly Nexus Q. Not surprisingly, it was the one product that didn’t adhere to both of the two themes presented in this article (price and branding). Selling for over $300 for a stripped-down-NFC-enabled Apple TV supplement for Android – it just offered too little for too much. But thanks to quick thinking, Google pulled the Nexus Q sooner rather than later, and will potentially reboot the product next year.

So as we move into 2013, the next step for Google will be the transition away from third-party OEMs – most likely just for products already designed by the company. And despite the Nexus Q’s initial failings, it was the first product designed and manufactured entirely by Google. Early evidence also suggests the same of Google Glass as well, as developer models will soon ship to early adopters who opted in back at Google I/O. The company still has some things to sort out however. Google Play has been a big development for the company, but they have repeatedly had issues with major launches and the logistics surrounding them – most notably the Nexus 4. So will Google complete the circle in 2013, and create its own proprietary hardware exclusively derived from the Mountain View giant?

So I waited. And as 12 p.m. EST, approached – I was ready. At 11:45 a.m., seemingly unprepared for it, the Nexus 4 was available early. As I scrambled to plug it into my cart, along with its bumper accessory, this was where the problems started. First it was Google Wallet, next it was the Google Play server. So I closed my browser and restarted, but the same problem remained. As frustration ensued, I attempted again, trying another computer instead. With the same failure as before, I attempted to hard-line in from my WiFi connection to an Ethernet cable – still no success. And at 12:10 p.m., a mere 25 minutes after the Nexus 4’s launch, it was gone. As I laughed in disbelief, for all my effort, there was nothing I could do.

I’m over it now, but the Nexus 4’s launch brings up a lot of questions. How does a company, operating entirely in the cloud, have issues with high volume? Why were there system errors for the people who actually got in? And was the early global sell out of the Nexus 4 the result of incredibly high demand or poor supply? To be honest, I’m excited and disappointed. It’s great to think that the Nexus brand is finally coming into its own, but with that said, despite doing everything right, I still failed to acquire one. I’ve been hanging around with a fragmented Android device for a while now, and would like to resolve that. I understand all of this is a petty problem (first world one for that matter), but I think at the end of the day, you can’t help but wonder how Google was not better suited to handle higher volumes of traffic for such a competitively priced product.

Google+’s greatest hope to resolve this has been Android. By building off Android’s dominant market share, and fully integrating itself in Android 4.0 (ICS) and beyond – with every new Android user, another Google+ account is born. But the next step was giving these Android users a reason to use their Google+ account consistently. In the mobile space there are really three ways to grab an audience with a social networking app: 1. messaging, 2. photos, and 3. check-ins. Google+ has all three, but one could argue messaging needs to be consolidated (Gchat and Google+ Messenger are separate), check-ins need to be simplified, and photos need to be more dynamic.

So with both messaging and check-ins relying on real-life social graphs to be effective, Google+ is better served sprucing up its photo sharing ability, through its mobile app, to keep casual users engaged. So with the release of the Nexus 4 tomorrow, perhaps the secret weapon in all of this is Android 4.2’s Photo Sphere function (click here for examples). Not only does it deliver an immediate selling point for the Nexus 4, but it also provides a very important use case for Google+. The reason being, photos like to be shared, and the only way to share Photo Spheres broadly is Google+. So not only does this new feature change how we record our environment, but they will also change how we share them as well.

After rendering your Photo Sphere and uploading it to Google+, users can interact with each one the same way they would a Street View rendering. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine the possibilities of everyday user creativity with this new feature, and how it will, once again, only happen on Google+. Leverage this use case for Google+ alongside the immediate one for the Nexus 4, and things are looking good for Google.

Once users start migrating to Android/Google+ for this ability, they will start using Google+ for other features as well. This poses an immediate threat to networks like Facebook and Twitter, who can upload Photo Spheres as awkward panoramas, but fail to render them with the same UI as Google+. Photo Spheres also offer obvious functionality missing on iOS’s camera app, and if nothing more than to merely acquire this ability, this new photo function on Android will bait many away from Apple, Twitter, and Facebook. So is this a perfect storm from Google? Tomorrow we’ll begin to find out.