Google Announces "Open Phone" Coalition, No gPhone [Updated]

Ponca City, We Love You writes "USA Today has an advance story on Google's plans to announce a new operating system, geared specifically for cellphones with partners that include Sprint, Motorola, Samsung and Japanese wireless giant NTT DoCoMo. Although details won't be released until later today the new G-system will be based on Linux overlaid with Java and Google hopes to have a branded device ready for worldwide shipment by spring. Mobile Web browsing is notoriously slow and Google plans to change that by providing easy access to the Internet at PC-type speeds. Google plans to basically give away the software developer tools, used by programmers to write new applications. "If you're a developer, you'll be able to develop (applications) for the new Google Phone very quickly," said Morgan Gillis of the LiMo Foundation. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are noticeably absent from the coalition not wanting to support a device that favors Google over other providers. Sprint, the No. 3 carrier, supports the coalition, but it hasn't formally agreed to make the Google Phone available to its 54 million subscribers." Update 1727 GMT by SM: It's official, Google is releasing the mobile "Android" OS in place of the Google branded mobile phone that many expected.

Comments

Google phone, long awaited

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The new operating system will be called GNU/Goo/Do/Mo/SpriSamSun/Linux.

I, for one, welcome our new alliterative overlords.

It's offical

[neokushan]

Open Platform? Available to all? No hidden charges? It's official, Google is the polar opposite to Apple.

Re:It's offical

[timster]

Well, I am an Apple Fanboi (according to those with the time to track such things) so I'm obviously biased, but I'll answer your questions anyway.

Hidden charges: the iPhone is sold at retail for $400, giving the impression that you pay $400 and own one, but that isn't exactly the case. The device will not function (even as an iPod or whatever) until activated with AT&T. The AT&T plans available aren't exactly out of line for unlimited data plans but they aren't discount plans either. All these limitations are because Apple also receives a subsidy from AT&T, which is a sort of hidden charge.

As for "available to all", there are a few possible answers. As of now the phone isn't available outside the US and (without hacking) won't work with, say, Canadian carriers. Or if you speak in terms of development, right now nobody outside Apple can develop applications (without hacking).

The iPhone is still rather great, at least for those of us who happen to live in a place where AT&T coverage is really far better than any of the competing coverage. But I think everyone is glad to see Google put on some pressure in this space. Apple makes some good software but can get stuck in a bit of a cathedral mindset that can make their platforms a bit stale.

Really.... how?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Mobile Web browsing is notoriously slow and Google plans to change that by providing easy access to the Internet at PC-type speeds. There is so much wrong with this sentence that it makes me want to gouge my eyes out. I wasn't aware that PC-type is suddenly a benchmark for speed... and how exactly is changing the OS going to make cellphone browsing that noticeably faster?
Also...

One caveat: You'll have to use Google for navigation Do no Evil, eh?

Re:AT&T?

[morgan_greywolf]

But that's different. Apple isn't Evil(tm) and Steve Jobs is a Demigod(tm). The iPhone is an innovative product that will revolutionize the world! Thanks to Jobs' powerful vision, we will all live in one happy Apple Utopia(tm)!

Am I getting the MacFanboySlashdotGroupThink(tm) thing right, guys?

Privacy

[Yuioup]

Let me guess... they're going to offer it for free/at a reduced price in exchange for giving up all your privacy.

Y

Re:Privacy

[Reality Master 101]

Let me guess... they're going to offer it for free/at a reduced price in exchange for giving up all your privacy.

Privacy is just another asset I can use to barter. Why is it intrinsically "evil" for someone to choose to sell it? And yes, I understand that not everyone understands exactly what they're selling, but that's a consumer problem.

How open is open?

[KenRH]

The article states it will be linux-kernel + java, and of course it will be google servises as default for everyting. That is all fine.
But my question is; what if I want to use other services, will that be possible/difficult?

Re:How open is open?

[pavon]

Here is the actual Open Handset Alliance Website describing Android. Third party developers will have access to all the hardware capabilities and software libraries that the Google software has access to. So developers can do anything that the phone is technically capable of. I imagine it will be fairly easy for end users to load new software onto the phone.

Re:What version of Java?

[Constantine XVI]

AFAIK, Sun is working on deprecating JavaME, and since Java's OSS now, it opens up the possibility of Google porting Java to the platform.

Re:AT&T?

[KSobby]

All AT&T said was that they didn't want to favor Google over other providers. We have to assume that they meant Apple. And why would they? They have a sweet deal with Apple. How is this in anyway hypocritical or evil? AT&T favors Apple, so they don't join.

People just look for any reason to be mad at someone.

Re:We already have fifty! Finish one!

[LingNoi]

Wait I read this wrong. It's not an "Open Phone" at all.

This phone is going to be like the Motorola A1200 Linux phone I already have.

The new G-system will be based on Linux, a 15-year-old computer operating system that is available free over the Internet. Google's version will be overlaid with Java, a popular computer language.

It's just a DRM'd Linux Kernel with their proprietary java OS running on top. This phone is no different apart from now they'll give you more information on how to write programs for it. Big wow...

Gillis says Google plans to basically give away the software developer "tools," used by programmers to write new applications. "If you're a developer, you'll be able to develop (applications) for the new Google Phone very quickly."

I can develop applications for my Motorola phone too. What the hell is new here?

Thus opening the third layer of the Internet

[christian.einfeldt]

Code, content, physical layer. Those are the three layers that Larry Lessig uses to describe the Internet. His concern, as expressed in The Future of Ideas, is that our common global culture could be locked down if we don't work hard to keep the Internet open. So Free Software, Creative Commons, and now this Google initiative are going to start to move us away from our dependence on Microsoft, ATT, and Warner Brothers / Disney. Google isn't perfect, but I say this is a step in the right direction. Don't underestimate the importance of having devices with open code at the fringes of the Internet. Microsoft wants to force you to have non-Free software to access the Internet. This effort by Google is one step away from that kind of lock-down. You go, Googlers!

Re:Need Women's Opinions

[somersault]

I'm a man, you insensitive clod!

Re:AT&T?

[digitig]

AT&T... [is] noticeably absent from the coalition not wanting to support a device that favors Google over other providers. WHAT?! They support devices that favor Apple over other providers. Does anyone else see this hypocracy? Not as hypocrisy, no. If they said that all coalitions should be provider-neutral it would be hypocrisy. If they just say that this coalition conflicts with their existing deals then it's not hypocrisy at all.

Re:AT&T?

[elrous0]

Why is it that, every time I see a true Apple fanboy post here, I always get an image of James Earl Jones in "Conan the Barbarian," beckoning one of his followers to come to him by walking off a cliff?

Re:We already have fifty! Finish one!

[kebes]

The article seems rather confused on the subject of open-ness. They say:

The finished product, expected within months, will unabashedly favor Google applications and services. "What's being developed is unlikely to be easily transportable to Yahoo (YHOO) and other (service) providers," says Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation

But then they state:

Consumers are potentially the biggest beneficiaries. Currently, many cellphone carriers limit the services and applications that their customers can use.

Ummmm.... it sounds like this new partnership is offering something that will, again, limit the services and applications that customers can use. Yes, it's another player in the market, and that kind of competition is a good thing... but having a phone providing Google-only services certainly doesn't qualify as "open" in my book.

I understand that they intend to make it easy for third party developers to make apps for this thing, but the above quote suggests that some components (in particular the Google apps) will be integrated at a level that third party apps won't be able to modify.

Again, I'm excited about the possibility of a new phone challenging the status quo in the cellphone market, but this effort hardly seems to be the drive towards openness that OpenMoko (and the now discontinued Greenphone) is driving towards.

WIFI

[halfmanhalfpint]

So when Google gets into WIFI hotspots will they call them G-spots?

Re:What version of Java?

[eric2hill]

It gets better! Sun also has the Sun SPOT embedded development kit. Hopefully Google and Sun will collaborate and come up with the G-SPOT.

Why will this fail? Partners!

[mveloso]

I'm surprised that google is going the partner route. One thing that means is that the initiative is almost guaranteed to fail.

Why?

Because partners have their own agenda as to why they're partnering with Google.

Most carriers have long, and somewhat decent working relationships with their platform vendors. Apple comes out, and whacks all those relationships with a stick by producing a device that's arguably far superior to any US phone.

What are the other carriers to do? The phone OS's functionality is basically specified by the carrier, who picks and chooses various features depending on the phone's price point, how the phone will fit into the carrier's current phone mix, and the competition (not necessarily in that order). Google comes out with something that's "open" , and while it may be interesting, from a carrier point of view, that interest doesn't necessarily mean that it's going anywhere. Given how big Google is, the carriers may be on board just to sink the gPhone ship (welcome to corporate america).

Only time will tell. Will the gPhone be substantially better than Symbian etc?

Re:What version of Java?

[wmacgyver]

It's not that Sun is depreciating JavaME. But that JavaME and JavaSE will merge. More detail on this from James Golsing's blog entry.

Re:What version of Java?

[aichpvee]

Will this be called JavaXP?

Re:We already have fifty! Finish one!

[sciurus0]

Keep in mind that the quote about favoring Google applications and services is from the LiMo foundation, which is trying to produce their own Linux-based cellphone platform. The Open Handset Alliance claims the exact opposite: "Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services. With devices built on the Android Platform, users will be able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favorite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos."