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John Gruber has posted an insightful article regarding the lack of a Google Android “wow-factor” to date in the mobile market. Like Steven Frank, Alex Payne and Andre Torrez, I too have been flirting with the idea of bagging the iPhone. Well, they actually bagged it — I’m still waiting for the competition to heat up. But, like Steven says, he misses the apps that were once so usable (and available) on his iPhone. It’s the same reason why so many people continue to use Mozilla Firefox as their web browser…it’s all about the add-ons.

Like most people, I happily use Yahoo! mail…for it’s simplicity [i.e. intuitive web interface and native push to the iPhone] and often ponder getting one of these and using Linux again. What’s the common theme, you ask? No frills with little bullshit.

There will always be BS with any software, phone, or email service and people like me [Gruber would classify me as a "genuine technology wonk"] are fickle, if not obsessive-compulsive, when it comes to gadgets, OSs and their web browsers. We become so dependent on particular features that anything else seems utterly frustrating but ironically, the thing at which we’re currently pissed off [I'm lookin' your way AT&T and Apple] has raised our expectations so high that most “new” gadgets are a complete joke.

In Alaska, it’s either AT&T or the local guys. The local guys have better coverage, but their phones are crap. We just got 3G service in Anchorage not too long ago, so in theory Alaskans could band together in a class-action suit against Apple, who claimed at the initial launch of the iPhone 3G (July, 2008) that with 3G it was blah-times faster than blah.

We had suffered with EDGE for another 11 months.

We Alaskans can’t even switch to Verizon or T-mobile, because they’re non-existant in “The Last Frontier.” You would have to be a pretty sick bastard to move to the “Lower 48″ just to use the Palm Pre on Sprint’s uber-reliable network. Hmm…my luggage looks lonely.

Did Google’s Eric Schmidt leave Apple’s board because the Big-G is actually working on a gPhone? Time will tell. Despite the iPhone’s issues and slew of security flaws, the combination of the well-designed iPhone OS and the App Store will make it very difficult, as John points out, to “Kill the iPhone.” Quirky tech geeks can get aroused too, so let’s hope Google is working on a gPhone that hits the gSpot.