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Dvorak Says gPhone is Doomed
drewmoney writes "Speaking with his usual frustrated crankiness John Dvorak rants his way through an article explaining why the gPhone will never work. 'First of all, it wants to put Google search on a phone. It wants to do this because it is obvious to the folks at Google that people need to do Web searches from their phone, so they can, uh, get directions to the restaurant? Of course, they can simply use the phone itself to call the restaurant and ask! I've actually used various phones with Web capability. They never work right. They take forever to navigate. It's hard to read the screens ... I also hope that people note the fact that the public has not been flocking to smartphones of any sort.' "
So it's a guaranteed success then?
Man, ever since he came out with that keyboard, he's a know it all.
His first arguement is that the gPhone is like Itanium, with wide industry support. Well, that depends on a few things:
1) will it arrive years late?
2) will it perform as promised or be lackluster?
3) will it shoot google's existing product lineup in the foot?
I don't think these three will occur.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Internet navigation works perfectly fine on my Nokia N73ME, is easy and readability is good. I use it all the time for directions, because spoken instructions aren't the same as having a damn map on your screen. Before my Mobile Opera Trial run out, it was even easier.
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right? So "public has not been flocking to smartphones" - yeah if you live under a rock somewhere that may be true...
The iphone's screen isn't hard to read. just because Google wants to make a phone doesn't mean it has to be the same crap we have right now. In fact, I'd say Google has the innovation potential to make a really great phone the likes we haven't seen yet.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Stop pissing all over someone else's attempt to build something, and go make something new yourself.
Damned armchair inventors, entrepreneurs, and capitalists.
hrumph.
And the worms ate into his brain.
I see that one of the tags for this story is "noob". And it occurs to me; we need a disparaging name for someone who is just no longer in the loop. noob doesn't do it because that implies that the person is just new to the game but may get there with time. Dvorak often seems like someone who was there but isn't with it anymore.
I also hope that people note the fact that the public has not been flocking to smartphones of any sort...
I don't know, but I think there's over a million iPhone owners who might disagree with you, Mr. Dvorak. That said, I suspect there's more than just iPhone owners who would also disagree with him but that's par for the course.
Ever since I got my Samsung i607 (Blackjack), I've used Google search through the internet maybe 2-3 times per day minimum. With 3G, or even EDGE, it's reasonably fast... and very helpful in a lot of various circumstances.
If Google can streamline the internet experience, as well as create a Linux-based platform where I could sync my PIM functions with Google services and Thunderbird/Evolution via the internet, with little difficulty, I'd jump on it in a second, and so would thousands of other people. Tens of thousands more would follow because they'd want the latest gadget.
So John says nobody is flocking to smart-phones, ergo Google is d00med to failure. Gosh. Maybe it's because the other smartphones didn't have something Google's will. I seem to recall many phones which played music and did a variety of other tasks not going anywhere until Apple launched the iPhone.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
smack this guy in the head with a heavy blunt object and get it over with already. There is a good reason that people don't flock to smart phones in their droves. The north american cellular market is so manipulated that it really can't be called a market. When you can get a GSM smartphone that you can transfer from one carrier to the next as you see fit, it will be worth spending 300+ dollars on a PDA. So long as you can get a 0$ phone for the same contract (more or less) there is no perceived value in getting a smart phone. What a putz.
If the gPhone fails, it will be for the same reason that any phone fails, CARRIERS in North America SUCK. I personally use the SideKick, and for several years now have yet to see anyone say that it is a waste, and not cool. Many of my friends have smart phones and use the PDA functions regularly. When carriers start marketing them to the average joe (see the new sidekick) it will begin to be more common than it already is. There will always be people that buy cheap, utilitarian devices only. See the throw away cameras in the grocery store still? Why? That is how people spend money.
Yes, there is a reason for search other than getting directions... I can disply a MAP also. I have used it to look up exotic drink mixes when a bartender did not know the recipe (no comments on that one) as well as many other uses that don't even touch on the value of a qwerty keyboard when replying to an SMS or email.
Sorry to Dvorak fans, but this guy is a putz.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Phoogle would be a big success.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
...well, do *you* have the number? I don't. Oh man, I wish we could google it and then call them! [1]
oh, right.
Thanks Dvorak, you missed the point.
[1] If you haven't tried 1-800-GOOG-411 ; it's pretty awesome for getting said phone numbers, and automatically connecting you if you like. Tied in to a phone with Google Maps and GPS/e911? Beauty and ease. My only concern is how Google will monetize the cell phone space; even sponsored text ads would be seriously annoying being read to you by a machine voice, slowly, on Goog411, and would take up even more valuable screenestate on a phone.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
We can do better flamebaits and trolls than John. And we have a better handle on tech issues. I am sure even the most flamebait/troll modded asinine juvenile here has better grasp of tech issues than John. Given the pagerank of /. the flames here have wider readership than his articles. So why bother reading what he is blabbering about?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
i jest
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Some people love attention and once they get it will rattle off whatever is on their minds. Other people (media) will actually record these ramblings and present them as news in the hopes others will read their content, then flip to the ads and give business to one of their advertisers.
Worst of all, onece it makes it to slashdot, someone will do this:
In Soviet Russia phone dooms YOU!
And hopefully that's were it all ends, but you never know, it may be picked up by 60 minutes or 20/20 and go on from there.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Thats funny, I've actually stopped into Apple stores to look up movies and restaurants on an iPhone.
Go figure.
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right?
At last count 1.4 million bought at $400 or $600. And that is just the US.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Are you one of the same people who laud Blizzard for how they finally made an MMO right in WOW. It wasn't anything NEW....just making something OLD better.....I believe that is what Google hopes to do....
Layne
Wow, way to completely misread his comment. He was disparaging "armchair inventors," "armchair entrepreneurs" and "armchair capitalists," referring by all three to the GP. Fix your parser!
Limina.Log
See this within the totality of what Google's trying to do. Right now, the American cell market is locked down by the providers, such that most phones are tied to a contract. Americans can't just buy a new phone and swap their SIM cards particularly easily. And even then, it wouldn't get much since all the providers suck anyway.
This situation hampers Google. It's hard for them to develop for the mobile environment on another company's system because the stuff's locked down. So if they're going to do it, they pretty much have to do it themselves. Add in the spectre of broadband companies demanding ransom not to throttle Google's traffic (absent net neutrality legislation), and Google is at the mercy of other companies who are between them and their users.
So first, Google liberates the phone, and makes it an open platform, not locked down. Then Google buys a whole lot of 700MHz spectrum and builds a network that they can use, possibly for the phone but also new efforts. Probably wireless data, possibly a means of distributing other content as well. Also consider the portable data centers Google has been designing.
One could begin to see how Google might be on the verge of doing something very big. Google already has the content and useful applications for exploring the content. Now they need to be able to find better ways of getting that content to their users. Developing a phone, wireless capability, and backbone capacity would allow them to completely cut out the middleman.
Don't click the link to Dvorak's log--that is unless you WANT to make him more money for mouthing off. He gets paid to write flamebait to increase traffic the site.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
That is what Google has done (and succeeded wildly with) in a number of areas.
Search? - Already done, Google did it better. (Although they were closer to the frontier on this one)
Web-based email? - Done for years (including entries by Microsoft), then Google took the concept and tweaked it and refined it, now it's the leader in the market.
Web-based mapping? - Mapquest used to dominate, there were a few other entries into the market, now Google Maps dominates.
Admittedly in both the web-based email and web-based mapping markets, MS has shaped up their act a LOT, partly because Google has forced them to do so. As far as mobile local search, I actually prefer Windows Live Search Mobile to Google Maps Mobile on my AT&T Tilt. WLS Mobile *rocks*.
I suspect the same will happen with Android. They'll take the already reasonably well established concept of the smartphone (Symbian, Palm, Windows Mobile), and do what they've done in every market - simply *do it better*.
"It wants to do this because it is obvious to the folks at Google that people need to do Web searches from their phone, so they can, uh, get directions to the restaurant? Of course, they can simply use the phone itself to call the restaurant and ask! I've actually used various phones with Web capability."
1) How can you call the restaurant if you don't know their number? (hint: get the number from the Web, or a specialized local search such as Google Maps Mobile or Windows Live Search Mobile.)
2) What if you miss a turn? TomTom and Garmin mapping devices are selling like hotcakes for a reason... It's a lot easier to hit a few buttons on your GPS (or click "directions" in GMM or WLSM) than it is to write down and follow the restaurant's directions.
3) How do you determine the restaurant's existence in the first place? You've just flown into town on a business trip, you feel like pizza. Where's the nearest pizza place??? GMM or WLSM will tell you that, and I bet whatever localized search capability Google puts into Android will do it even better.
4) Dvorak needs to define "phones with Web capability" more precisely. Was he using a $20 Motorola C168i (it has a web browser, albeit an utterly awful and nearly useless one), a Windows Mobile device (Pocket IE is OK, Opera is much better), or an iPhone? Expect the Android experience to fall closer to the iPhone end of the spectrum.
"That was the problem with the Danger and its successor, the Hiptop handset. They were clunky."
Clunky or not, they're apparently selling well and a big attraction to T-Mobile. They definately haven't flopped, T-Mo just released not one but *two* new Sidekick variants.
"People have had eons to program for the Windows smartphones and nothing has come of it."
There seem to be plenty of applications for WM that I can download and/or buy. Yeah a lot of them are crap, but many are gems. See my above comments about GMM and WLSM - both kick ass. Now if only I could have WLSM's search capability combined with TomTom's user interface (TT's POI database and POI search capability sucks, but most other aspects of TT are amazing.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've been using Google Maps on an iPhone in the exact way that Dvorak says people don't use phones! You can put in "Pizza Hut near 666 River Styx Drive, 77666" and it'll give you the several nearest options. Press on the ">" and you get more info, including the phone number and an option to dial.
Even before the iPhone, I used Google SMS in pretty much the exact same way. (iPhone is better with the map, however!)
He gets paid to make ridiculous, outrageous and often times completely asinine claims based on speculation for the purpose of attracting viewers so ads can be sold.
In other words, he's somewhere between Fox News and World Wrestling Entertainment.
-kgj
-kgj
I think the real problem Google faces is that they aren't planning to make an actual device but merely define a platform for other device makers. The problem you run into is that you end up having to cripple yourself to make it work for the least powerful, smallest device and thus make it suck ass on a more powerful bigger device. Windows Mobile 6 proves this in spades.
The advantage Apple has with the iPhone is that they control the entire platform. They've got custom built hardware running a custom operating system with their custom software. It is all built from the ground up to work as an integrated phone, and thus it works pretty damn well. It also does a lot to mitigate some of the major form factor issues that make most smart phones a pain to use. But mostly it's good because it's all meant to work together.
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