Comparing PlayStation Portable to iPhone and Android
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:01 amObviously, the Android and the iPhone are aiming for the market that is merging with powerful mobile devices that can do almost anything you want, including playing games. When the NDS and the PSP became popular (outselling most models of mobile phones), they were ridden off as game machines initially. But when you consider that Skype was added to PSP, then you opened up the question... can the PSP be the next mobile phone replacement? Although it did not support the GSM or other cellphone reception, the addition of a way to talk to anyone via the internet kind of opened up the doors for mobile phone manufacturers to start waking up to the potential of using the internet for communication that normally would be done via landlines or mobile phone cell antennas.
So now that the PSP can view photos, listen to music, view movies, play games, and let other program on it (via homebrew), it became more and more useful for the masses. Add in the ability for it to take pictures and movies, surf the internet, listen to internet radio, and talk and view over Skype, the number of useful things you can do with it became unlimited. The only thing that is holding back the iphone and the other Android is their weak (and I mean VERY weak graphics chip). Google's android did a misstep when they forced java on the developers. Java? This interpreted language is too slow! How can next gen games and applications compete with assembly on weak chips that are inside mobile devices? They can't make mobile devices too powerful (they suck up too much power, and thus battery) like desktops, so when you add in another layer like Java, you are actually crippling the mobile device. I hope Google wakes up and actually release an SDK that allows programming at the CPU level in either assembly, C, or C++. When the next iPhone releases a faster 3D chip that you can program with C, I wonder what google is going to do with android... they would have nothing to compete with it. Trying to do 3D with java won't cut it, and I hope they will realize this soon.
So maybe the next PSP (not the PSP-3000, but the PSP2), will merge Sony Ericsson with Sony PSP, and then we can have something to talk about. Make the screen touch capable, and the screen big. We won't need desktops anymore when this happens.
So now that the PSP can view photos, listen to music, view movies, play games, and let other program on it (via homebrew), it became more and more useful for the masses. Add in the ability for it to take pictures and movies, surf the internet, listen to internet radio, and talk and view over Skype, the number of useful things you can do with it became unlimited. The only thing that is holding back the iphone and the other Android is their weak (and I mean VERY weak graphics chip). Google's android did a misstep when they forced java on the developers. Java? This interpreted language is too slow! How can next gen games and applications compete with assembly on weak chips that are inside mobile devices? They can't make mobile devices too powerful (they suck up too much power, and thus battery) like desktops, so when you add in another layer like Java, you are actually crippling the mobile device. I hope Google wakes up and actually release an SDK that allows programming at the CPU level in either assembly, C, or C++. When the next iPhone releases a faster 3D chip that you can program with C, I wonder what google is going to do with android... they would have nothing to compete with it. Trying to do 3D with java won't cut it, and I hope they will realize this soon.
So maybe the next PSP (not the PSP-3000, but the PSP2), will merge Sony Ericsson with Sony PSP, and then we can have something to talk about. Make the screen touch capable, and the screen big. We won't need desktops anymore when this happens.