6/25/2008 - Android Dream has built-in compass

It seems like every gadget has to have a "wow" feature that sets it apart from other gadgets in the same class or something that is so innovative and new that it's impressive only because we haven't seen it before. Apple products have always had some kind of "wow" feature, but many of them are sometimes dismissed as pure aesthetic niceties and not purely useful features. If you look at some of Steve Jobs' keynotes, some of these features include the handle on the original iBook, the minimizing animation of the Dock, and the accelerometer features in the iPhone. Each of these demonstrations elicited oohs, ahhs and generous applause.

Apple's upcoming competitor in the cellphone business, Google, is coming out with its own operating system for cellphones, and many of its features can already be found on the iPhone which came out a year ago. Even if the Android operating system proves to have more features out of the box than the iPhone, the new version of the iPhone software coming out next month will allow people to download third party applications. One wonders then how Google can possibly compete with Apple. Well, put a "wow" feature in there and put out the demonstration on the internet. What could this feature possibly be? A built-in compass:



It may look cool, but how could this possibly be useful? It's like looking at a photograph of someone who is directly in front of you already!