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Is Anyone Buying T-Mobile's Googlephone?
Hugh Pickens writes "Laura Holson writes in the NY Times that she 'wandered down to the T-Mobile store at Ninth Ave. and 43rd St. in New York City to see what kind of crowds — if any — were lining up to buy the new T-Mobile G1 which went on sale Wednesday' and saw no lines out the door, no crowding at the counter, and a complete lack of crowds. The iPhone appears to still be the gold standard and Etan Horowitz writes that the G1 'doesn't do a great job showcasing its potential. It isn't as intuitive as the iPhone, and it may take average users a while to figure out basic and advanced shortcuts and features' and 'may appeal more to techies who value open-source products and don't mind a somewhat steep learning curve.' Part of the reason for slow interest may also be that T-Mobile's 3G high-speed data network won't be up and running in many cities until the end of the year."
Probably because T-Mobile and Google don't have the Apple hype-machine/blogosphere/rumor sites going insane over unreleased products?
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I pre-ordered my G1 and I love it. It's a marriage of a Blackberry and the iPhone and while it's true that there are some differences and a few quirks at first...you get over them real quick. It really is pretty easy to use.
I've started playing with the SDK too and they have it integrated nicely with Eclipse and it's really a very nice set up.
I'm a big fan.
I don't care how good the phone is. T-Mobile's coverage is too sparse to make it attractive.
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Most cell phone users don't know how to use their cameras, or calendar functions, or pair a device to their phones with bluetooth. How many iPhone users have I met who didn't know that their phones had Wifi, or thought that "Wifi" meant their cellular data plans?
I'm not going to base my opinion of a new device on how many people who don't even know how to use their dumb phones get excited about it.
Check out this story where Neil Gaiman tries to buy one. Indeed it literally doesn't seem to be selling. As in: you cannot obtain one even if you wanted to.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
My co-worker and I shot out to the T-Mobile store on 6th ave and 46th street (or around there somehwere) in Manhattan yesterday and although the place wasn't crowded, every person in there was buying one (about 4).
We got a unit at work to play with a couple months ago and I was pretty impressed with it even though it was a little buggy (touchscreen doesn't always register and sometimes registers in the wrong spots) and flimsy feeling. the problem is the hardware feels like a shitty toy. The screen is great, but the keypad and trackball don't feel nice and the sliding mechanism doesn't feel solid. Handling it, I feel like I'm gonna break it.
The thing about the iPhone is that it's not only has a very shiny UI, but the hardware is made of metal and feels sturdy and reliable. It doesn't feel like a toy like the G1 does.
I'm waiting for an android phone that's compatible with the AT&T network to be released before I make the switch. I haven't been fully satisfied with the iPhone (mostly, I don't like the calendaring application AT ALL), but it beats the AT&T Tilt and the blackjack2 in terms of usability, in my opinion.
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1. People don't even know if they'll have jobs next week, would they really be taking on an expensive new phone and plan?
2. There's no absolute media saturation and frenzy over the G1. Apple is very adept at building their marketing campaigns into beasts like self-sustaining fusion reactions that produce more energy than they consume, like firestorms sucking all the oxygen out of the city. Media that doesn't even want to report on tech will end up reporting on the craze surrounding the tech.
3. The G1, while building on the success of Google, isn't coming with quite the same mac/ipod buzz that the iPhone had going with it. Again, this goes back to 2, Apple is building upon the wave of successful hype of previous products.
I hear that RIM is trying to improve upon their berries given all of this competition from Apple and Google. To that I say GREAT! The more competition the better. The last berry I used was a hell of a product but RIM has been floundering for a while now. I want to see them recapture the mojo instead of flaming out like Palm.
Personally, I don't know which phone I'll end up getting. I'm no longer working in a capacity that requires a company phone so I'm not likely to have another berry unless I change jobs. The iPhone is incredibly seductive but the data plan sucks and I don't like it being closed-architecture. I don't yet know enough about the G1 to know whether it'll be a good fit but I like what I've seen so far.
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The NY Times is a "rag"? Where do you get your news? Smoke signals?
It isn't available here in Finland, so... Yeah.
But well, I've never understood that culture in USA... Comparing products based on the day that they come out. Just like with movie theatres there, the most used way to determine if movie is successfull seems to be how well it sells during the first weekend: Before anyone has had the chance to see it and tell others if it is good or not.
I wouldn't think much based on just these days. Also, the "Steeper learning curve" and "Shortcuts might take some time to get used to..."... WTF? Does ANYONE think of those things when buying a phone? "I would buy that but the learning curve is too steep..."? I would understand if it was "The user interface is horrible" but this?
I won't be buying one, because any phone from T-Mobile is no longer in the running for me. They are my current provider, but (unlike every other provider) their service area near me has been shrinking rather than growing. Places I had service last year are now consistently "emergency call only" areas. We're talking about a good quarter of the state. On top of that, they had the nerve to send me advertising text messages telling me how they've expanded their coverage. I am currently contract free, so if another provider comes out with a good Android phone, I'll look into it, but who cares how good it is if it has no service.
Battery life doesn't seem to be stellar, but the great aps and easy installation make up for it.
Love the smooth keyboard -- which includes a number bar!
The integrated GPS is kick ass.
The only downside is that the network is a little spotty -- but I knew that when I got it.
Prior to the G1, the only options were to continue pining for an Iphone to replace my Blackberry or pay the termination fee with my existing carrier and then switch. Now I'm glad I made the switch and didn't blow the money on terminating my existing T-mobile service.
Apple has the perception in the eyes of the public of making exciting and innovative products. Part of that could be because it is true and part of it is because of marketing. So when Apple decides to enter a new industry, people get excited.
Now Google may be known for innovating and be a household name, but was the android phone marketed as being connected to Google? Not only than, but Google didn't design the physical phone, just the platform.
Or, to think of it another way, the major selling point for Android is that it is an open source platform for handheld devices. Does the general public get excited over open source? The reason for the lack of excitement over the first Android phone is pretty obvious when you think about it.
Google didn't hype the G1 for months, unlike Apple. And, Google didn't have a launching pad product, aka the iPod.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Of course not, if you ordered one a couple of months ago you would already have it. Instead of madly lining up at some retail shop to buy your new piece of hip candy (and then still have to take the damn thing home to activate it), you can order it and wait for it to be delivered to your door.
Apple does make good products, but they also are very adept at engineering a crowd to harness for marketing purposes.
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I'd say this is pretty good: http://www.iphonestalk.com/googles-android-based-phone-pre-orders-hit-15-million-should-the-iphone-be-afraid/ I think it took Apple much longer to sell 1 million of the first gen iPhones
I was in line during the day of the pre-release, where the only place you could get one in the world was at the T-Mobile store in the SoMa area of San Francisco. The release was set at 6:00pm on Tuesday, October 21, 2008.
When I got there at 6:10pm, the line only extended down the block. It took me approximately two hours before I got to the front of the line. In the mean time, I held a few conversations with the others by me, and it appears that the consensus was: there's not enough apps for the G1 right now - maybe it'll take off in a year or so, but there will be better phones for the platform by then.
I met a large number of *NIX users there who might have very well been other slashdotters. It appears to be that the G1 is in a niche market right now. People don't seem to care that it can be modified, but rather that it has less features and apps compared to the iPhone. Instead, most of the people in line wanted one because of its relatively cheap cost and stability.
Also, the lack of lines may be attributed to how well T-Mobile has handled the release compared to Apple. People were processed in less than three minutes, and there were eight CS reps working at the same time. In fact, the line moved at approximately the speed of a security screening. If the process was done similarly at other stores, there wouldn't have been much of an opportunity for a line to form.
Pros of the G1:
1. Usable QWERTY keyboard - texting heaven
2. 3G speeds in my area are ~900kbps
3. The browser feels faster
4. I can upgrade/replace the battery
5. I can put in an 2/4/8/16 gig micro SD
6. Speaker sounds louder
7. Free wifi at T-mobile hotspots
8. Voice activated dialing works decently
9. It's from T-Mobile and I don't have to deal with the evil pricks that are ATT/Cingular (was an ATT customer for almost 7 years)
Cons:
1. The battery life sucks at the moment
2. Dearth of apps (naturally)
3. The phone gets warm after a few minutes of usage
4. Not a con for me but no stereo bluetooth
5. Complete lack of accessories from T-mobile
6. Gmail goes down, you might have issues from the tight integration (forgot pattern to unlock phone? input your gmail info)
7. The phone has a cheap plastic feel and doesn't feel as solid as the iphone (especially when opening the back panel).
8. 3G coverage is spotty
Both weigh and measure about the same (comparison with a first gen iphone). Both are quad-band.
I did get one yesterday. I knew I wanted one, just did not know when.
Stopped(on a whim) in at the local store waited an hour and was out the door with one.
There was not iphone rush but I did not thing the hype was a big.
I had very specific needs that the iphone did not do well(ssh, vnc, real keyboard)
Also, know that I usually take the wait and see approach to tech and not an early adopter.
I am very tech savvy
So far I am very pleased. It is mostly intuitive. I am find the menu key/scroll/click awkward.
Can't yet comment about the "Store" but code.google has meet my immediate needs with little fuss.
Still missing backup(pc or sdcard) and sync(to pc not google). This should be easy and obvious it is not so I am still working on it.
Also missing is one touch wifi and bluetooth see palm, they are buried in the settings menu.
Battery life is short in data mode, get a car charge, and one the desk at work.
Some interface tuning is definitely needed.
Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. He didn't call them part of the driveby media, though, so I'll go with Fox.
A better name would probably help, too.
Customer: "What do you have to compete against the sexiness of the iPhone?" ...
T-Mobile: "We have just the thing... a GOO-Phone!"
Customer:
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Not sure what they mean about a non-intuitive interface. What more freakin' intuitive than a physical keyboard?
Is "pinching" intuitive before somebody shows it to you. But I guess it's just an article of faith that anything not done by Apple must, by definition, be less intuitive than the Apple version.
On the useless but cool front - I made a skype-out call from the G1 over my wifi network today. Try that with an iPhone. Granted, it's a phone, so sure, what's the point. But it's good to know that even if I terminate my cell plan, the phone isn't a useless brick.
It can be used to call. But, the data side is still the old, slow technology.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Id totally buy one, but I'm an ATT customer, and they havn't released one for ATT yet. Ill gladly swap my sim into one if i could find an unlocked one.
T-Mobile also is doing its best to put little barbs in people's way. I'm out of contract and checked what it would take for me to get a G1. I can get it for the same price as a new customer, which is good, but T-Mobile tossed silly things like "transaction fees" into the cart when I got closer to the checkout point. While it's a minuscule amount in the big picture, it really did piss me off as a completely fake charge.
Not to mention the on-hold time with their customer service and totally useless voice response system.
Probably because T-Mobile and Google don't have the Apple hype-machine/blogosphere/rumor sites going insane over unreleased products?
Er...or it could be that the G1 just isn't innovative or unique.
Seriously, what's unique about it?
Apple slowly wedged their foot in the door with iTunes and Quicktime and has built upon each success. Meanwhile, Google has been the 500lb gorilla, but given away every product they offer (and made it work on every other cell phone) and there's no compelling reason to buy a Google phone.
Please help metamoderate.
The iPhone is Apple's one and only phone and it's on one provider. The G1 is the first phone with Google's Android operating system. In a few months there will probably better Android phones. If Google thinks it has a something really great here, they might as well let the hype build slowly. In fact, they probably want to rely on the phone companies to hype their phones.
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I think what your trying to say is Apple has a reputation for 'cool' innovation. They don't do mondain and they don't do what's been done before.
Google to the common folk is a search engine, albeit an awesome one but still it's just a search engine.
When I watched the add I could see it quite easy for someone to think the phone was just another iPhone look alike with access to google.
Like everybody else, I ordered one in advance. That's why there are no lines at the store. Big selling points were 1) I can write my own software for it, and 2) Built in GPS. Of course, buying one is an act of faith in that I'm assuming they will make software upgrades available later to fix little flaws like the lack of support for the stereo bluetooth profile. Of course, I probably won't get mine until November 8, but I don't think those extra 2 weeks will make much of a difference.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Actually, I think we're just seeing that Google's product launches tend to have similar paths whether they are software or hardware. (I know the G1 phone isn't technically a Google product, but realistically, yes, it is.)
Google products tend to launch with rough edges, but with enough "Wow!" to generate buzz and interest. Initial comments tend to range from "Hey, that's cool!" to "Eh, [such and such] does that too, and Google's has less features." Over time, they tend to steadily polish up and turn into really stellar product offerings farther down the road. Look at Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Calendar, GMail, Google Reader, and so on.
And while some of their software products go flop (Google Lively, anyone?), most of them tend to take that steady, measured approach to a solid, highly usable product. The G1 phone seems to be on that same path.
The iPhone is attractive to the general public.
Android phones are attractive to techies.
Its not exactly a big suprise that there aren't crowds waitting for them, the percentage of techies in the world is relatively low so theres no way its going to have any sort sales numbers like the iPhone.
Technies know about it, the rest of the world doesn't care, and won't care until its as sexy and user friendly as the iPhone. This isn't the year of the Android phone any more than its the year of the Linux desktop, and for the exact same reasons. The general public doesn't care about anything they have to offer and wants features that neither have to offer.
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People are writing it off as a failure because there aren't crowds and lines forming to buy it? Seriously?
Seems just about every product ever made would be an utter failure going by that metric.
Maybe not
The iPhone is NOT any more intuitive than any other phone. It is not intuitive to use two fingers spreading in and out to zoom in and out. It is not intuitive to change the screen orientation by rotating it if it only works when holding the unit somewhat vertical. (That drove my daughter nuts until I explained how gravity works with the phone.)
The iPod is NOT any more intuitive than any other music player. It is not intuitive to have to return to the now-playing screen to change the volume. It is not intuitive to run your finger around a circle to change volume or select items. And not being able to edit play lists is just inexcusable.
The Apple was NOT any more intuitive than any other computer. Dragging the CD to the trashcan to eject it was not intuitive. People exposed to Windows did not deal well with the lack of right click and that silly Apple key until shown what they were for.
Intuitive means directly apprehended or instinctive. Something is not intuitive if basic features require demonstration or having to read the manual. Apple products have some cool features that once exposed to can make them easier to use. That isn't intuitive, it's user friendly.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Check out this story where Neil Gaiman tries to buy one [neilgaiman.com]. Indeed it literally doesn't seem to be selling. As in: you cannot obtain one even if you wanted to.
He was turned away because the vendor was in an area where TMobile decided there wasn't strong enough coverage.
Yes, he's able to fire up Gmail in the store, but that doesn't mean coverage is good enough for their metrics, or the G1 might have a worse antenna. Or maybe Google said "we don't want you to sell this phone where people won't be able to get adequate speed."
Company decides where to market phone for best reception, film at 11.
Please help metamoderate.
Yeah, that is exactly what Ballmer said about the iPhone.
Interestingly enough, after saying Apple had no chance competing with the millions of WinMo phones, he said Zune would have no trouble competing with hundreds of millions of iPods.
IANYL, IANAL, TINLA, IANAMD, IANAP,
And they've been taking preorders for weeks now?
I bought one using our corporate discount - 15% off, with a $179 and one year, no activation fee contract. Between the handset savings, the one year contract (a big plus IMO, since I can get a subsidized phone next year), and the cheaper data plan - it's several hundred dollars cheaper than the iPhone.
I'll have it tomorrow. Sure, I'll miss a day, but I also won't have to wait outside online in the cold hoping for admiration from the sheeple surrounding me.
A coworker of mine had hers delivered on Tuesday. I played with it and liked it. She hated it from the get go. Why? She has long fingernails. She can't use the capacitive touchscreen with her nails and its difficult to tap accurately with nails blocking your view. Likewise, the keys on the keyboard are nearly flush so she can't type very well on it since she can't feel the keys well with her fingers. I'd gladly take it off her hands, but T-Mobile has no 3G here.
Because false hype makes the product better.
It did with the iPhone. False hype led to the jailbreaking effort and eventually got Apple to do something they originally didn't want to do: "Mere mortals" developing native ABI applications for the iPhone. It turned the iPhone into a developer platform instead of a toy.
+++ATH0
The G1 doesn't work as a phone. Why would people buy it? T-Mobile excluded UMA aka t-mobile at home from the G1, effectively making it a paperweight in most suburbs. Combine that with the unattractive price point and the fact that many people who would be interested in this device are currently shackled to the iPhone and you've got a product nobody can use or wants to buy.
I would buy a G1 if they offered the following:
This would be similar to other T-Mobile pay-as-you-go plans. It would allow them to offer a much, much lower total cost of ownership over two years of use. I can't see any reason they couldn't make a modest profit under a plan like this. However, they won't offer this because they want to make a huge profit instead.