Google Says "We're Not Doing a Mobile Phone"

thefickler writes "A top Google executive has denied outright that the company is developing a mobile phone. Last week rumors were flying after a Google official speaking in Spain said that the company was looking into offering a mobile phone; and British phone analyst Richard Windsor claimed that during CeBIT Google staff confirmed that a Google mobile phone was being developed. However, Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, has now said 'We're not doing a mobile phone, I'd like to find something that is broader, rather than do yet another mobile device.'"

Comments

Not too interesting

[26199]

Although the article links to another about an Australian telco executive attacking the iPhone that's quite entertaining.

First things first

[bogaboga]

I wonder why folks at Google do not first help us with the Linux desktop. They could do so by enabling ODF document search, pushing open media formats (video and audio), and publicity. Right now, QT4 does not look bad or incapable at all.

Re:First things first

[MoonFog]

Their motto is "Do no evil", not "Help open source". They're still a company in the business of making money and unless they see it as a source of revenue to help making Linux a viable desktop alternative, do you really think they will do it? Just to "be nice"?

Re:First things first

[c_forq]

Umm... what? I thought we moved past mercantilism over a century ago. Less abuse of monopoly status and illegal business practices is better for everyone else, but it is possible for multiple companies in the same industry to all grow and increase in size and profitability.

Re:First things first

[Bogtha]

I wonder why folks at Google do not first help us with the Linux desktop.

Yeah. What they should do is pay people to work on high-profile open-source projects like KDE and GNOME. Of course, Google might be rich, but they aren't bottomless pits of money, so maybe they could get better value for money if they just paid students. Although, what with students having to, you know, study, it would only really be effective in the summer, but if it goes well, maybe they could do it every summer. They could even give it a funky name, I dunno, maybe something like Summer of Code.

You're totally right. Google should get their priorities straight and start helping Linux!

Re:First things first

[porkThreeWays]

Yeah I guess. But I think google is a little smarter than that. Their moves are more calculated. A mobile phone would need a platform and I doubt they'd use just another OS. It's the same way MS got into the server market. At the time the desktop was ripe for the taking. They took it. Once they controlled a sector they seeped into the server market because so many people were familiar with windows desktop. Once google controls the embedded market they could integrate it somehow with their web offerings. Once they control your phone and your browser, what's next? Taking on the Goliath in one swoop makes for great history, but you are more likely to be successful in winning important battles over the long term. Windows mobile sucks and is a piece of garbage and the others aren't a whole lot better. I think google could make a vastly superior product and take the market. Remember hotmail before gmail? Remember yahoo maps before google maps? They were awful products and google bitch slapped them and took their spoils.

Re:First things first

[c_forq]

No, the billions don't come from nowhere. They come from companies and economies growing. Do you think that there has always been, and always will be, 6 trillion dollars circulating in the world? For the Great Britian's economy to grow does it require the U.S.A.'s economy to fall? Look into capitalism, and positive-sum games.

Re:First things first

[SpecTheIntro]

The less money that Microsoft earns, the more there is for everyone else.

Except economics is not, nor has it ever been, a zero-sum game.

Re:First things first

[westlake]

The less money that Microsoft earns, the more there is for everyone else.

Fully half of Apple's revenues can be traced back to iTunes and the iPod. It ain't iTunes on the Mac with its 2% market share world-wide that's delivering those big bucks to Cupertino.

OSX on the x86 platform runs on a sub-set of the hardware which evolved with the commodity PC running Windows. The Linux Geek - if he is honest - also knows that it was the mass-market PC running Windows which transformed the home user from the Geek with the 14K modem to the family with fiber to the premises---and did it all in little more than ten years.

That's true from the beginning

[jmerelo]

What the Spanish official said, actually, is that somebody in Google, with the 20% time allotted to pet projects, was working on something or other related to cell phones.

So?

[BibelBiber]

And Apple is not doing a Video iPod. Companies have always been stating that they're not doing something which never really sopped them from doing what they want. So who cares? If they do a phone let them do it and if not why bother?

Re:So?

[QuickFox]

Maybe lying isn't evil in their book. Google has yet to define what they consider evil and what they consider good. For instance, encouraging and promoting domain squatting is definitely evil in my book, but apparently not in theirs.

Either that, or "Do no evil" doesn't apply in all fields.

Of course not...

[zappepcs]

After watching what happened to Apple, smart people should wait to see if wireless carriers are forced to become common carriers. Until they are common carrier status, its not worth trying to get into their game... sadly.

Nationwide Wi-Fi

[blindjim]

Now that would be a bit broader, mightn't it?

Too bad (Looking for investors!)

[crhylove]

Because there is plenty of room to make a cell phone that does what I want in the market, and for cheap, and yet nobody has done it.

MyDreamPhone:

x86 low power chip.
1gb ram
USB charging and connectivity to mouse/keyboard/monitor/speakers through charger/docking station.
touchscreen covering whole phone.
1280x1024 camera (with decent color!)
geforce to go implementation
5.1 sound when plugged to charger
standard headphone jack (switching to stereo headphone mix automagically when headphones plugged in)
decent basic joystick (via touch screen?)
Firefox
Zsnes
Project64
FOSS Video chat with speex/H.264
FOSS winamp clone for mp3/ogg/wav/speex
beryl when plugged to charger (when in "computer" mode)
wine (when in "computer" mode)
FOSS mp3/ogg/wav recorder (for voice notes, concert bootlegs).
1-4 gb sdram, upgradeable via cheap sd chip
NO DRM
easy windows/linux/mac file sharing through wifi
Simple Loud Alarm(s)
Simple photo album, divx/xvid, online sync
Simple VNC with address book/ip lookup (assignable to "full screen" when in "computer mode" and added as an additional desktop that beryl can spin to)
Thunderbird
MSN/AIM/yahoo/skype/googletalk/myspaceim (maybe via extended gaimlib)
Urban Terror (when usb mouse available)
gimp with CMYK support (when in "computer" mode)
decent OCR via camera, and simple text file creation app
instant on OS
instant off OS
long lasting lithium/ion battery that recharges quickly through the USB port
Infrared/bluetooth
Multitrack wav/mp3 recording via USB mixer attachment (with phantom power)
Basic 640x480 xvid/h.264 recording video camera and easy YouTube upload
GCC and other programming tools (when in "computer" mode)
Basic SMS/GSM/standard cell phone features (address book with personalized icons/ (mp3/ogg) ringtones.)
$50

The sad thing is, 90% of this software exists NOW in the FOSS community. The final 10% would probably be a reasonably cheap programmer hire, maybe a year of dev time. This hardware is dirt cheap with economies of scale, so a $50 price tag IS possible. Then a serious kick ass FOSS standard would exist by which all phones and computers would have to interact with which could beat MS, Mac, Motorola, Sony, and Nokia to market.

This is a project that would make billions, and cost maybe a million initially. But since there is no free market on the planet, it's not going to happen. Some corporation would whack you if you made and started selling this phone. Like DeLorean in the 80's, or Tucker in the 30's.

Too bad, too, because with this phone, a lot of people would get a lot of great things done quickly. Including me.

rhY

Re:Too bad (Looking for investors!)

[AuMatar]

My dream phone:

makes calls
6 hours of active battery life

Thats it. I wish phone companies would work on making it a better phone rather than adding useless extras.

Re:Too bad (Looking for investors!)

[alanwj]

I wish phone companies would work on making it a better phone rather than adding useless extras.

This is the same argument that people use against features in "bloated" software. The problem is, that while everybody agrees that there are a lot of "useless extras", no two people can agree on what is useless and what isn't. What is useless to you may be critical for someone else.

Re:Too bad (Looking for investors!)

[linhux]

My dream is that people would stop making that exact comment every time phones are discussed on Slashdot. Seriously, it was almost an interesting topic five years ago. Now it's just boring.

Re:Too bad (Looking for investors!)

[Mr_Silver]

My dream phone:

makes calls
6 hours of active battery life

Thats it.

You want the O2 Jet then. It has 540 hours standby and 9 hours 50 minutes talk time (so almost 4 hours more than your request).

I wish phone companies would work on making it a better phone rather than adding useless extras.

They do. The problem is that the majority of people on Slashdot who say "I wish I could get a phone that only does X and Y" haven't bothered to do five minutes of research.

definition of phone

[rubikskube]

"Something broader, rather than another mobile device". Perhaps Google's definition of 'phone' or 'mobile device' is something archaic, and that what they're creating is so different from what we have now, it begs a new name.

Re:This just in...

[JackMeyhoff]

Actually MSFT is very bad at it, just look at the Zune and Vista mess.

Not "Funny".

[crhylove]

I'm talking about an iPhone killer. Everyone wants an iPhone, but iPhone will actually be worse as it is also not:

A. DRM free
B. A completely portable desktop computer
C. Cheap

As to all the haters and their skepticism regarding hardware prices:

Initially you could include a 1gb SD card REALLY CHEAP:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16820211309

You wouldn't need much more than a standard low power Pentium III clone to do all that stuff, and this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819112206

would be complete overkill and is $36 for a single one. I imagine you could get if for about half if you ordered a few million?

1gb of integrated ram has GOT to be cheap at this point. If we made a few million, there's no QUESTION you could do this phone for less than $50. Hell, throw in the USB docking station complete with HDMI out and usb mouse/keyboard, and you could still come in way under $100. People can buy any monitor or projector they want separately, or offer them a package deal for $200. This would replace every computer and cell phone on the market, and replace windows and macs and linux for 90% of all consumer uses, and probably a huge percentage of business pcs and cell phones as well.

The realm of the possible has been FUDed by corporations. Seriously, do the math, this phone is possible, I don't know how anyone could be so mentally limited as to moderate me "Funny". /. just proves that technological intellectualism doesn't preclude the sheep mentality of most primates.

*sigh*. People make me sad. Kennedy was murdered by our government. Science > Religion. Steel buildings don't just fall down because of some jet fuel. The "accepted" facts of today are OFTEN the laughable misconceptions of yesterday (frequently after less than a decade!). Ask for the facts and think for yourself. The invisible men in the sky probably don't exist, and if they did, they certainly wouldn't have written all that horse shit that you and our politicians seem to want to base their lives on. I mean seriously, "chosen people"?!?! What kind of racist ignorance is that? I continually expect /. to corroborate human knowledge and reality rather than the typical group think and media FUDD that I can get on Fox "News", and am routinely disappointed. Even the nerds are fucking idiots who can't think for themselves, apparently.

rhY