The Googlephone - there's more where that came from
The Googlephone exists. The Mountain View Chocolate Factory is already selling the endlessly-rumored Nexus One from its very own online store, pulling in sales dollars and, yes, competing with existing partners. Namely Motorola and Verizon. Mountain View is now a retailer, and though the company says it didn't design the Nexus …
but how does it integrate with Cisco's Nexus products? Maybe it is a supremely entry level version? 1 vs 5000 etc.
now where are my snowman building gloves....
"Google has indeed expanded consumer choice. And that suits its advertising-happy business model quite nicely."
I may be misreadind your intent but it reads asthough you think expanding consumer choice is a bad thing. Doesn't that increase consumer power and isn't that a good thing?
Ah the Jedi like power of marketing to fool the weak minded. Its not choice, if the only choice is between Android based phone A and Android based phone B etc... At best its a Hobson's Choice.
Its still attempting lockin coercion into Google's server side spyware advertising-happy business model.
or pay for it and have google keep tabs on me and stream adverts..?
iPhone plz.
Hmmm... Google keeping tabs and sending the odd ad versus using the hunk of junk that is an iPhone?
I'm not going to use either, but if that was the choice the Nexus would probably win. Ok so they may well send adverts, but as long as they don't plan on interrupting your calls with adverts I think I can live with ignoring the ads.
Keeping tabs on me is a bit more of an issue, but then nowadays it's inavoidable, you can take all the steps you want to protect your privacy, but it only takes 1 'friend' to start using MyFace and they'll leak half your info for you. Not that it makes it any better!
The main point of this post is simple, the iPhone sucks.
Paris, because she sucks in a different way to Crapple's product
so you don't mind Apple keeping tabs on you then or controlling what you do with 'your' phone?!
... is that once Google release the code (shortly) people will be able to release versions with the ad interruptions hacked out. As Azimov wrote: it's a poor atom blaster that can't point both ways.
Google took the open source route to encourage adoption by the manufacturers. As it is now finding, however, that also allows non-manufacturer builds of the firmware to appear too.
"we wouldn't be surprised if Google wooed the pair with a cut of its ad dollars."
Why? What does Google get in return for giving away it's revenue? Surely Google is doing these companies a favour by allowing them to join in the Googlestore fun?
"It is an expansion of the marketplace. But that expansion favors Google more than anyone else."
Well, obviously - it's Google doing the expanding, how would that favour anyone else?
Is anyone else amused by the fact that HTC which would not exist in its current form if not for M$ shafting Sendo years ago over the origincal WinMo phone is now (outside of apple) the producer of most of the biggest threats to WinMo?
..until you reminded me, but now I am dining on schadenfreude. May your shadow never grow less!
Input: English (U.S), French (France), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil)
Display: English (U.S), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Korean, Japanese, Russian,
The lack of cyrillic input is incredible and without Ukrainian it's useless to me.
Bah, humbug Google...
Of course the language support sucks. They've gone for the largest language groups on the planet first. I can see why they did it, it's easier, and if I've learned anything from Google it's that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing a half-arsed job of it.
Or was that Microsoft?
Has anyone spotted a beta sticker on the thing yet? I'm sure it'll be there somewhere.
... yes it's clear you need that, mainly from the perfect spelling and grammar of your comments
Yes, perhaps this person needs to easily access the character set required for sending messages in perfect ukranian, as well as excellent english.
In my expectation this will not happen. The majority of phone users seem to want to talk to people, text people and take pictures of people while down the pub.
They choose new phones when they renew their contracts, and these phones are the ones the providers get from Nokia, LG etc.
These are the key customers for the mobile companies - not the iphone or Googlephoners
PS
"Rubin denied the existence of the Googlephone. But now that the phone has arrived, he denies that denial"
What happened to thou sahalt not bear false witness? Some might think that evil
Will it listen in to your phone conversation and insert context suitable audio adverts?
Can't really think of any better reason to buy it.
Will it have all the crappy apps which the iBrick has?
I'm looking forward to the free Speed camera alert. No more TomTom for me.
for not splitting a long article across needless pages. It's a welcome change.
Greasemonkey + "TheRegister Multi-page Printer Friendly Articles" script.
Easy.
I never knew about autopager and it works great. I don't like slow downs from too many plugins but I think this one is worth it.
"If you want the best possible Google experience, you'll come to the store, grab the device, and [the Google] advertising model takes off."
Why would someone looking for a phone be interested in getting an advertising model that takes off instead? If this is really Google's pitch for their new toy, I'm afraid it is going to be lost on 99% of the human race. Perhaps they need to consult some people who know about advertising, or about people.
AAC, AAC+, MP3... wait a minute, what about my play's for sure library???????????
Thank you for a balanced well thought-off article. Many people thought (hoped) that Google will break a status-quo by offering very cheap / free phone, by making VOIP-only phone and adding many WiFi spots immediately, etc. I always thought that it could be too risky even for Google to alienate all its phone-service provider partners at once. I still hope that revolution is coming, but it is a slow revolution.
Vladimir Kelman
http://webofandroids.blogspot.com/
https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252BmGAqdR7kA
Horray. Go go Google I say
For many years I have been waiting for a phone manufacturer with the pods large enough to challenge the dominance of the network operators. The SIM standard were setup in the first place so that any SIM would work in any phone. It is the Network Operators wanting to lock-in their customers and the Mobile phone manufactures willingness to bend over to meet the Networks demands for locked phones that broke that sensible design.
I want to choose the best phone for me and the best operator for me and anyone who can start to make that happen has got my vote
I don't understand the hype around this - it's just another HTC Android phone.
It's no cheaper than existing unlocked phones and I understand that you'll be able to get it cheap/free with Vodafone when it comes out in the UK. So what? Ok, it's slightly better spec than my existing HTC G2, and it runs version 2.1, but I don't see this as groundbreaking. And here's me thinking we were on the verge of a £100 unlocked phone with some associated ad model that you could then use with any carrier you liked... colour me absolutely unimpressed :\
Ads? In my phone?
Dealbreaker I'm afraid.
I agree, not what i want and not what i would call choice either. If they want to make me see ads all the time then make the handset free.
I'm with you here. I have an HTC Hero. This "new" phone is basically the same thing with more power and no chin. I don't get the hype around the actual handset, nor the fact that google has "entered" the consumer electronics gig. It hasnt. It's just rebranding HTC gear with it's own name for some inexplicable reason. HTC should have just released this handset under it's own name.
I do want it though, purely cos it has a faster CPU than my Hero - like double the clock speed! And I just upgraded as well!
I dont think there are going to be ads on the phone but to get you into Google services. Be that as it may since I got my hero I havent logged into my gmail account from a PC. Though I do have outlook on the portable.
Wow, pay $549 for the phone and pay for the access and data and then have google stuff ads down your throat without a choice to turn them off.... what a great deal. I'll keep my iPhone and Sony Ericsson thank you and have real "choice".
Excited that it's finally here.
I think the iphone has had Google seriously worried about future revenues and their need to get into the mobile space. You only have to hear the stories about the success of the iphone and how O2 are having to throttle the bandwidth.
Remains to be seen whether the first version is a bit of a flop like the first Blackberry Storm..
Check out the UK Nexus One Blog
http://www.nexusoneblog.co.uk/
Flop? Not likely unless it does something dastardly like lose everyone's data like Micrososft's Danger did. I can't fault them for the pricing. The conversation with their phone partners probably went something like: "OK, guys, you don't want to sell this phone so we'll sell it. Where can we price it so you don't throw a fit?" The phones are up for sale on ebay and amazon priced at $700-$1000 and selling briskly to international customers who can't buy it at the Google phone store.
Google will sell an Android slate device too, priced the same way and for the same reasons. The top 5 OEMs have had them designed for a year and won't ship because of their existing partner relationships - it won't run Windows and it doesn't have an Intel processor. They'll hold up prototypes, and then come back later and say aw, shucks, we couldn't get it to work.
I think it's deliciously ironic that the efforts to prevent adoption of this technology are going to push Google unwillingly into being a consumer electronics giant they had no intention of being and make them untold billions in profits.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/170726/
http://www.androidacademy.com/3-forums/9-handsets-a-devices/247-dells-streak-mid-video
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