Slashdot Mirror
Google's Nexus One Phone Launches
The press conference at the Googleplex is over and Google's Nexus One phone has launched (official Google blog announcement). The NY Times confirms the bare details: manufactured by HTC; $529 unlocked, $179 with 2-year T-Mobile contract; coming to Verizon in the US, and Vodaphone in Europe, in "Spring 2010." The Times notes one desirable feature: "[Google] has also voice-enabled all text boxes in the device, so a user can speak into the device to, for instance, compose an e-mail, rather than type the text of the email." Walt Mossberg points out one limitation: "On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps. On the $199 iPhone, nearly all of the 16 gigabytes of memory can be used for apps." No answers yet to the obvious questions: can it tether on T-Mobile? Will it allow VoIP?
Me Thinks
It seems like this is just another HTC (?) made device... Beside the tts capacity, does anyone know what really sets this thing apart from the Droid\G1\etc??? This may finally be the spark I need to leave ATT, so what makes this thing so great??
I know that Verizon and T-Mobile phones use SIM cards, so theoretically you could unlock those phones and switch networks, but why won't there be a Sprint version?
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but it seems either A) shortsighted of Google to ignore the largest cellular network, or B) stupid of Sprint to pass up such a kickass phone...
I know it's not the N1, but I can say that the Droid has a SIP application which works..pretty well.
At home, all my calls go out over the copper line ( through my asterisk box ).
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Since T-Mobile already allows VOIP without any problems on their existing phones and data plans, and since the Android app store has at least two good SIP applications why would there be any question if VOIP is allowed or not?
Google might be trying to pass this off as "just a showcase", but their other "partners", including Motorola, gave Google a lot of information that is now being used against them.
And yes, I told you so!
I wonder if comping to Verizon "Spring 2010" means that it supports both GSM and CDMA (and so the unlocked one would work now), or if we're talking seperate CDMA hardware in the Spring (less appealing).
I don't know what the hiccup is in offered dual-mode devices. The BlackBerry Storm actually manged to do that - it's a shame it sucked at everything else, but if they got that right then it can't be too hard :).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Mod me as troll if you want, but its not surprising that Mossberg rushes to defend an Apple product in the face of a new competitor. He also neglects to point out in his comparison that the 16 GB of storage on the iPhone is typically filled with music, leaving much less than that for applications.
It's ironic to me that the company known for such a lean web page has such a huge footprint on their demo page. Sucker hung my computer for nearly 5 minutes.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Since it seems Google is perfectly willing to allow unlocked phones, wouldn't it be more cost effective to buy a locked phone, break the contract (~$150???) and then "jailbreak" the phone?
I noticed in the Q&A that they will be working on a world phone Android model in the near future (both GSM/CDMA). This will be a great feature for people who travel internationally, or to be able to switch networks at home.
For this current model, I think the voice feature will be the most significant: every text field is voice enabled, making the touchscreen-only keyboard a bit less painful.
No LTE. Less space than a drobo. Meh.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Before I found out it would be essentially another "buy into a contract or pay a half a grand for it" phone. You could get a completely unlocked G1 as well if you wanted to pay a much higher price and go through the dev phone procurement process. Also it's Edge only on AT&T, so not truly carrier agnostic.
The Google site for it earlier couldn't even sell you the T-mobile plan, so it was grayed out, same for the Verison and Vodaphone options which aren't available yet.
So essentially , it's a new phone on T-mobile.
I remember when it was a supposed to be a phone you could just get a data only plan for and use VOIP and Google voice on for a reasonable price. Apparently that was the flash and hype.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
190 megabytes should be enough for anybody.
Good alternative to those who do not want iPhone or Droid. You can buy this phone unlocked and get TMobile plan for unlimited minutes for 50 bucks or unlimited everything for 80 bucks. Works out much cheaper compared to both Verizon Droid or ATT iPhone.
For normal activities (surfing, vids, nav, etc) 1ghz is overkill. The biggest beneficiary of all that CPU and GPU power is gaming. But without multitouch, gaming will be terribly restricted. So WTF am I supposed to play on this thing -- 3D, HD whack-a-mole?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Like other Android phones, there is no multitouch implemented in the touchscreen interface.
For those who use their smartphones for gaming, this really limits the ability of the phone of as a gaming platform (with respect to touchscreen controls). Gaming on the iPhone has really been taking off, although I still think hardware buttons work best for fast-paced and twitch gaming.
I'm pretty underwhelmed by the announcement.
I have an iPhone, I live in NYC, and my network is terrible. That's exactly the kind of problem markets are supposed to solve, right? I should ditch AT&T and go with a competitor.
The problem is that my phone cost $300, the Apple Care costs $70 (and you need it because the battery is sealed into the phone, and won't last 2 years), and there's a $175 early termination fee. So walking away is pretty expensive.
This Google phone will have essentially the same deal. You'll still be tied to a carrier, and it will be expensive to walk away. Maybe Verizon or T-Mobile will be a lot better than AT&T. Or maybe when many millions of people buy these data hungry phones in a short period of time, their networks will sink just like AT&T's has.
We need to commoditize wireless bandwidth. We want a universe in which we buy our phones directly, we own them, and we can choose which networks to plug them into. And if a network is bad, we have to be free to walk.
These walled gardens are always going to give us crummy throughput, unreliable service, and restrictions on the apps we can run. Just swapping one corporation (T-Mobile) for another (AT&T) isn't going to fix anything. Maybe they'll be marginally better. But without a real market operating, and the ability for us to move around in response to the quality of service we receive, we'll never get a good wireless network.
You are actually trying to spin this release as Google hurting Motorola???
LOL! Troll harder dimwit...
Well damn, I was thinking this phone would be great, but only 190 MB for apps? That's extremely limiting. Since it has a MicroSD slot, why not let the users decide how much space they want to use for apps and how much they want to use for files?
Maybe someone can find a way to mod the OS to get around this limitation....
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Google checkout wants to charge me $48.93 for sales tax on the unlocked Nexus One. Why? do they have a presence in my state (AR)?
according to the nexus one specs, the UMTS Band (2100/AWS/900) will not support ATT network 3G but does work on T-Mobiles 3G network. T-Mobile 3G and voice coverage is one of worst in US.
Get a fucking clue retard.
Even the damn year old G1 has 'teh multitouch'...
Your expectations for cost are unrealistic, although it would help a lot if the US would ban bundling of plans with phones. The real cost of phones is now routinely subsidised by cellphone plans, preventing real competition on either cost.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I don't think App storage is as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Yes, you can root your phone to store apps on the SD card, but in my experience, you don't need to. I don't have hard numbers, but it seems like Android apps clock in at a much smaller size than iPhone apps. Most of the apps I download tend to be between 100k to 700k, with some apps at a meg or two. As I said, I don't know how that exactly compares to iPhone apps, but I'm more than an "average" user of my phone and I've yet to run into a space limitation because of the apps I have installed.
Actually, it's vodafone.
The demo page of the voicemail app is extremely shiny. Google voice transcription of the voicemail shown in real-time with playing the voicemail.
Then again I can't remember the last time I got a voice mail, so who actually cares.
Would this work with T-Mobile's $39.99 Total Internet plan?
If so - I would consider carrying an N1 around for web access, and still hold on to my $0.10-per-minute prepaid phone for the times that I need voice. VOIP would be another option for voice, if latency is not too bad.
Is anyone else sick of this contract subsidizing excuse? Yes, I realize you can't sell a phone like this for $25, but all these phones have an insane price if you buy them out of contract. I have a hard time believing these things cost anywhere near $500 to build. For example, the ipod touch starts at $200, which is obviously sold for a profit. Meanwhile, the iphone (a pretty damn similar device), is $500. Its not like you get a reduced monthly price if you bring your own phone.
I really wonder why Android OS so disdains opening up external/more memory for the storage of apps. It seems like this would be such a strong selling point. Since they are adhering to that "policy" so closely, I suppose there is some strong reasoning behind it (security "sandboxing" of some sort?). In my opinion, this prejudices consumers toward the iPhone and also impels people more toward rooting their devices to get that, obviously strongly desired, app-space control.
I have the G1, with which I am wholly satisfied, and not all that hungry to "trade-up" from, especially with the "super non-wowing power" of such limited app storage space, on "groundbreaking" devices. I mean, 190MB of total app space, given the average smartphone app size, I guess isn't an absolute deal breaker, but why the cap man?
This seems like it is limiting the impact of the Android Market and Android developers to reach end users as well. This seems like a real strategic weak point to me; seem so to anyone else?
If you love the Android, set it free; if it comes back it was meant to be...(If it comes back as an evil, hacked, perversion of its former self...also, probably, meant to be...)
"I'm pretty underwhelmed by the announcement."
Golly, who didn't see that coming?! Go away you fucking hipster loser. No one gives a fuck what some idiot with an iPhone has to say.
It would seem that many people outside of the US, including Canada and Germany, upon visiting www.google.com/phone have been receiving an error message saying "Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country."
I guess it doesn't go on sale in those countries until some undisclosed date.
AT&T isn't a member of the Open Handset Alliance. T-mobile is.
for $500, I'd expect something that at least attempts to compete with iPhone.
With the space limitation for applications it seems that this phone is worthless on any network outside of T-mobile. Verizon and AT&T offer phones with less limitations. The only upside is the price savings potential when switching to T-mobile and taking full advantage of voip services.
In a way its like the phone price is subsidizing the price of the contract, rather than the contract allowing you to buy the phone at a cheaper price.
Oh, and it's worth pointing out (as AT&T insists in their commercials against Verizon) that 2G should be good enough for anybody, and the Nexus One will work on AT&T's 2G network that they think is so awesome.
I hate to say this, but between my iPhone and my WinMo, I think I like my WinMo phone the best.
Don't get me wrong, it sucks. The UI is terrible. And it crashes. A lot.
However:
- Want to thether for free even though your carrier wants you to pay extra? There's a WinMo app for that.
- Want to thether for free via your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot so that everyone in your carpool can access the interenet at once? There's a WinMo app for that, too.
- Hell, I can even run two programs at once and mount my phone as a disk drive and fill it up with whatever I damn well please.
Seems like pretty basic/essential functionality to me.
The "Activate my phone" link brings me back to google.com/phone. Is this yet another lame phone that needs activation (whatever that means) or do they mean activation of the SIM? I certainly hope it's the latter, as there is no sane reason why one would have to "activate" a phone.
tence in the subject and continue it in the body.
After top posters, who are the most annoying thing on the internet?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
according to the nexus one specs, the UMTS Band (2100/AWS/900) will not support ATT network 3G but does work on T-Mobiles 3G network. T-Mobile 3G and voice coverage is one of worst in US.
as far as i know, no smartphone covers both AT&T and T-Mo's 3g network. no existing android phone does, and the iphone doesn't. blackberry sells two different hardware versions of it's phone models, one to cover each band.
it's not some insidious plan, it's the economics of supporting two different 3g networks.
The radio doesn't support AT&T's 3G frequency bands, nor Rogers (Canada)'s 3G bands. So that makes it not exactly carrier-neutral in the U.S. and Canada.
Shouldn't you apply the kindle type of demands to this phone?
I refuse to use this device unless I can run Duke Nukem Forever on it!
I refuse to use any toilet that won't run quake, so why should I use a phone that won't?
If it won't directly connect to the Microlasion Frock phone service (with possibly 3 active users), what good is it?
After I use up my minutes, can I sell them to someone else?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Nitpickers Unite!
The name of the company is in actual fact Vodafone and not Vodaphone!
Now my only hope is that I have not made any embarrassing spelling mistakes myself.
Google wants $530 for their phone, you can't play with it in a store to see how it is and the website in typical Google fashion has a bare minimum of information. i can see the fanboys buying these, but the general public wants to see what they are buying first.
Banning bundling would be harsh for users who "can't afford" to pay full price up front, and would rather spread the real cost of the phone across the length of the contract. This scheme greatly increases sales in markets where consumers are focused on short-term benefits (at the cost of long-term payment/debt).
Making an unbundled option mandatory would be a better goal. Good luck getting either option legislated, though.
Google wants a plethora of devices, the Google phone seems to be the first attempt to try and create an unlocked phone marketplace, which will help their cause. This new phone is a small attempt to start doing that. Maybe so the wireless carriers cannot easily block Google's advertising.
More evidence that this is about advertising is Apple's purchase of mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
See here for lengthy back-and-forth with two guys who've had the phone in their hands since late last month.
If you read the whole thing, they've got benchmarks and such. It's really long though.
I got a G1 on launch day, I've been a T-Mobile customer for over 7 years now; however I called T-Mobile to see if they could upgrade my dated G1 to a Nexus One (I'm not due for an upgrade until the end of July, but T-Mobile is famous for cutting loyal customers a break when it comes to that) and they said that unfortunately the phone is being sold through Google and it's out of their hands. I was pretty psyched about getting one, but there is no way I'm paying $530 for a phone; bottom line, right now I'm an unhappy Android User, Google Customer, T-Mobile Customer, and geek. Instead I could have been $180 lighter and happy on all counts. I guess I'm skipping the Nexus One and upgrading to whatever the next "must-have" is later in the year.
Oh, and it's worth pointing out (as AT&T insists in their commercials against Verizon) that 2G should be good enough for anybody, and the Nexus One will work on AT&T's 2G network that they think is so awesome.
Not good enough for anybody, just good enough for those used to other provider's "3G" speeds, which aren't much better than AT&T's 2G speeds. If you're already used to AT&T's 3G speeds, this will be a noticeable step down.
E pluribus unum
If Android can tether, I don't see why it wouldn't work on T-Mobile. I bought a Nokia N900 and tether seems to work without a problem. As long as you have an app that can do it, you should be set.
Looks like an interesting phone. I'll stay with the N900 for now. I've loved the ability to ssh to my phone, run apt-get, apt-cache search etc.
TMobile US, and the majority of the world, put their 3G networks in the 1700/2100MHz bands. AT&T, either due to limitations on the 2100 band when they first did their rollout, or just because they're AT&T, use the 1900MHz band instead.
In this case, I'm siding with TMobile, as I prefer cellular devices that work in the majority of the world. Besides, I've seen (very nebulous) rumor that AT&T will be transitioning in some 2100MHz band usage in places as part of their 4G plans.
Will it blend?
Word of warning to anyone considering jumping from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint to T-Mobile: Be damn sure that the areas you need to travel in are actually covered by T-Mobile.
As an ex T-Mobile customer who traveled in semi-rural areas around the country, I can say that there are large stretches of the US with no T-Mobile coverage - AT ALL. Not slow data, not voice-only, not "roaming" or "partner" coverage. NO coverage. Just a big old, "NO SERVICE" message. Good luck calling AAA to come change a tire. Or to call family to let them know you've hit a deer and will be late. You know, the things that cell phones were actually invented to do.
T-Mobile. Awesome customer service, great prices, and decently neat phones (even more so with the Nexus). Just no coverage.
Throughout the Google event they seemed to drone on about choice. But the reality is that there isn't much choice. Sprint/Verizon are on CDMA, Tmobile/ATT use different 3G frequencies. Right now your phone will work on t-mobile, that's it (with 3G). if you want to switch to AT&T, you don't get 3G speeds. So there's no choice there....
What about verizon? Google indicated a CDMA phone will be coming. If you want to go to t-mobile, guess what they don't use CDMA. Will they pull the same thing with CDMA and somehow make one model for Verizon only and when Sprint comes out, one for Sprint?
Basically Google is no better than the cell phone companies. To disrupt the market they really need a phone that works across carriers. Otherwise buying subsidized hardware is better since you'll need a new phone. If I could use the phone on verizon, t-mobile, att then I would go out and easily spend the $500 for that freedom. But you can't. In fact, t-mobile is the number 3 carrier and their network is more lacking than either ATT or Verizon. So if the phone worked on ATT and Verizon I would still go for it. I like T-mobile as a company. Their service plans/customer service/etc. seem more consumer friendly than ATT or Verizon, but when their network for voice doesn't support everywhere I go, then they are not a viable alternative.
Also, in Europe unlocked phones work because you get a discount if you bring your own hardware. If I pay $20 less per month then over two years I save $480 which almost entirely pays for the phone. But without a discount, it doesn't make sense. And with ATT/Verizon you don't get a discount for bringing your own hardware. In fact I'm surprised the DOJ doesn't investigate that..... Well not surprised but they should. In particular by not offering a discount to people bringing their own equipment, it ruins the value proposition for unlocked phones completely. Even if you didn't make up the full value of an unlocked phone (say subsidized cost + 480
Also ATT would have made the most sense since they don't have any android phones (and the rep seemed quite upset at me when I asked if he knew when they might have some, indicating ATT would never support android...which is probably false). I would think with ATT Google would not have been competing with any of their peers, while on T-Mobile they will compete with HTC and on Verizon they will compete with Motorola and eventually HTC. It's very curious. Also making a phone that supported T-Mobile and ATT would have enabled competition between ATT/T-Mobile. T-Mobile is already pretty good, but ATT could do well with more competition.
Also interesting is that in the transcript I saw, I didn't see a question about why not ATT. The press seems to obsess about "iPhone killers". And yet this phone is not even on AT&T, so it doesn't compete with the existing network of iPhone users. I am surprised no one asked why not ATT. Are the Google questions canned to provide the best possible "choice".
Anyway the holy grail of choice would be a phone that is $500 or less that support CDMA and GSM on Verizon/T-Mobile/ATT/Sprint. Then at the very least networks will have to compete when people's contracts are up (assuming the phone must be unlocked at the end of the term). Even more of a holy grail would be if providers were required to return the subsidized price of a phone to consumers who bring their own hardware, by indicating the part of the monthly bill used by the subsidy or something. Then even Joe the Plumber would start to get the idea that a subsidized phone is not free....
I noticed on the tech specs page that Nexus One supports Ogg Vorbis audio. Do other Android phones support Ogg Vorbis playback? I mean, it would seem like that would be a feature of the base Android platform, but IIRC, when the G1 launched, Ogg support wasn't included? I know - it's been over a year since the G1 launched, and a lot has changed in newer versions of Android. Still, have any of the other *currently released* Android phones come with Ogg decoder?
Here's how it works: You have 512mb of memory on the device. The Android system (which includes the OS, a cache partition and all the wallpapers, sounds, live backgrounds, etc.. that come with the device) seems to take up around 320mb in this version. You have 190mb left. The android system will start alerting you when you have 10mb of storage left. You will have around 180mb for apps. If you take into account that each app is usually under 1mb, you should be able to fit over 200 apps without using apps2sd. Most people will not come close to that number of installed apps. I don't think I passed that number in total app downloads in the 7 months that I own a G1. You probably don't even have 200 different applications installed on your home computer. The problem with storing apps on the SDcard is usually the speed of your memory card. Most SDcards sold are class 2, and that's just too slow to run apps smoothly. Usually people would get a class 6 card and format it to ext4 for optimal speed. 190mb may not be enough for everybody, but it's pretty damn good for now.
Where's the source for this 190MB limitation? That sounds ridiculous, and the article didn't cite where the information came from. I'm skeptical.
I have no problem with carriers offering bundled phones. But I would like to see fair prices for those of us who would prefer to buy an unlocked phone elsewhere. They need to break apart the service cost and the phone cost in their plans. AFAIK, only T-Mobile has reasonable service only plans.
"On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps"
Until it is rooted. apps2sd, my friend. Then memory is limited mostly by your wallet.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
They don't need to ban subsidizing. Just mark the subsidized portion on the Bill and if I bring my own hardware then don't charge me the subsidy. I think the average person might even start to think more of buying unlocked phones if they saw how much of their bill was a subsidy. But in reality there's nothing wrong with subsidizing phones, as long as you give me a discount for not taking your subsidized phone.
The technology exists to either completely destroy, or at least severely reduce, the mobile paradigm that exists today. Eventually wireless internet will be ubiquitous, or near enough for most purposes. The actual bandwidth needed to send a voice communication is not all that extreme (Ass-pulled number: 200kbs?). As advances in technology lead us to faster and more widespread coverage, is it not conceivable that all phones could simply use a VOIP system for communication?
Such a system will never happen, or will be many many years in the future though, despite the fact that the knowledge and tech is already there (maybe the infrastructure isn't). The mobile carriers in the US are too focused on charging for set amounts of minutes and will be loathe to give up their cash cow. I can never see Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or anybody voluntarily releasing any kind of phone that will allow you to make all the calls you want as long as you have internet access. Tethering technology for phones has been here for years and yet such things are not commonplace. I owned a Razr v3 way back when they were the new hot thing, and Sprint wanted me to pay some ridiculous monthly fee to tether it, despite selling me unlimited data for 15 bucks a month. The phone could do it, my laptop could do it, but sprint had some lock on the actual software of the phone preventing me from doing it and wanted to sell me the ability to do something with my own stuff. Imagine if you bought a monitor and half of it was blank unless you paid the manufacturer a monthly fee. Its money grabbing extortion, nothing more.
Its always fun to be surrounded by the most amazing things ever seen on earth and know that the buggy whip manufacturers of the world are standing in the way of progress. Imagine where we could be in a world where technology is used to its fullest extent and people were less focused on the convenience of doing business as usual for profit.
People love their money too much and do not want progress. This is why change is almost always due to a revolutionary technology brought in by a newcomer, not motivated by an already established giant of industry.
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
What are the charging times and use-between-charges metrics for this phone? The only Android based phone I've seen is a friends that sometimes barely lasts a day without a recharge even if you don't use it at all for calls/data/anything during that time, and it was that bad from new. That would make that phone useless to me as I am sometimes a day or two between convenient power outlets during which time I need to use my phone... Also, can the battery be easily and cheaply replaced if it degrades, unlike the batteries in Apple's product line?
I don't necessarily understand with the obsession over how much coverage you have over the entire united states. Wouldn't it make sense to see if you have coverage where you are going to be using it? It is a fairly easy thing to check where a provider has coverage. I have friends that brag about being able to use their iphone more places in the world than any other provider, but in addition to not traveling much, they don't get coverage in their own home. Seems silly to me.
On the other hand inadequate network to support a providers customers in an area is a different issue. When I was with cingular in the 90's, always had problems with not being able to make a call because of "network busy, try again later" problem. I switched to MetroPCS in their first year and was very happy. They had extremely limited coverage when I joined, but it worked where they said it would work, and planned ahead when going to areas that had no coverage. Despite knowing this was going to be an issue, I figured it would be worth it for the price, but each year their coverage expanded at a much faster pace than they had said.
After 10 years with metroPCS switched to T-mobile very recently because 1) really wanted a droid and 2) wanted a cheap unlimited plan.
I just want to do business with a company that provides what they say they provide and charge what they say they are going to charge. Despite some drawbacks of t-mobile, I know what they are, and they seem least likely to be liars or cheaters. Amazing how difficult it is to find that in a cell phone plan.
The $179 subsidized price is only for new Tmobile customers.
Existing customers, even customers who have completed their latest 2-year contract, get a bait-and-switch handset price change to $279 halfway through the purchase process on the google/phone website.
"640k should be enough for anyone" - Bill Gates, 1981
"190M should be enough for anyone" - Sergei Brin, 2010
Be afraid, be very afraid
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
TMobile US, and the majority of the world, put their 3G networks in the 1700/2100MHz bands.
Not quite. T-Mobile US is using 1700/2100 MHz, but most of the world is using 1900/2100 MHz. When most of the world standardized on 1900/2100 MHz for 3G spectrum, the US had already handed out the 1900 MHz part to operators, so they could not give out additional paired 1900/2100 MHz licenses.
T-mobile allows you to buy phones with no contract, but you can still pay for the phone in monthly installments so it's pretty much the same monthly cost as with a subsidized phone if you go that route.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Phones are little computers, and there will always be a faster model with more features.
Big deal. It's about as interesting as video card wars.
Real news would be new service plans, increased competition in the wireless business, or legislation that changes the shape of my relationship with the phone company.
But I guess we take what we can get.
At Macworld, Apple will announce their "Bladerunner" line of wireless devices.
Too obvious?
Apple and Google are pushing HTML5 apps. Apple has always wanted apps to be HTML based and had to release their internal app API because HTML5 lagged. Google used webkit for the relatively free ride, because it makes perfect near and long-term sense.
Once that shift picks up momentum, it'll be a more entertaining game, since apps will be cross platform. And then, 10 years late, the 21st century will finally friggin' arrive.
Apple is pushing that direction hard, by making the native app approval process like being raped while getting a root canal without anesthetic.
Is there a limit on how much memory an HTML5 based webkit run app can consume? I'd bet not. And is their a limit on how much local caching a webkit app can use? I suspect the limited app space is to make room for webapps *and* encourage webapps.
Someone needs to setup a good webapp based storefront for webapps. Or maybe make a search engine that will bring you a list of readily usable webapps just by talking into a phone. I wonder who could possibly do that...?
Google gets Android on Motorola's hot new phone, piggybacks on Motorola's marketing to boost the popularity of their own OS, then kicks them to the curb with a phone with "better integration" of Android features without even giving Motorola more than a few months to establish their own niche. Then, once the other Android phones "go away", Google turns up the data mining and the carriers just throw their hands up and say "well, they're Google, you know".
Nice. Well, their killer app for this one is voice recognition...though most people have to search for quiet places just to make a phone call, let alone voice transcribe an email. And it's a killer feature that OS/2 users had in 1996 or so.
I can forgive them for the app storage limit, though. Palm's webOS had the same problem, but they fixed that a release or so ago. Maybe Google will do the same. So I can forgive them until they fix that...unless, of course, their magical build of Android needs all those gigabytes for caching audio clips or graphics or something.
From an interview w/ Google: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/185944/what_the_nexus_one_isnt.html
The Nexus & Droid have me completely rethinking my approach to using a laptop. Do the Nexus and Droid have the ability to connect to a large screen and kbd/mouse for those times when I'd like do work with real documents and apps? -
it's true. the reason is that apps cannot be stored on the SD card, only on internal memory ... and there is only 512MB internal RAM ... which is used both as app storage and application runtime memory.
why can't apps be stored on the SD card? the reason has been that once an app is on the SD card, it can be pirated (more easily). there are obvious technical solutions to that. i don't know why the AOSP hasn't moved forward with solving this. it's been a problem ever since the G1 was released.
Personally, I am waiting for the Nexus Six. I hear they are killer!
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
"On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps. On the $199 iPhone, nearly all of the 16 gigabytes of memory can be used for apps." It's a bit disheartening to see garbage FUD like this make its way into a slashdot summary. It's been known for quite some time that the Android OS allow developers to store app resources on the SD card. A number of Android apps do this, already. An official update to make it easier for developers to do what they're already doing is in the works.
What it supports covers most of the world. Perhaps AT&T is the that should be changing to conform to standards.
Then how were they running Google Earth in the demo I wonder? This is a bummer, but maybe there are ways around it.
Uh, HTC manufactures a very wide variety of mobile devices including phones for manufacturers like Dell, HP, Fujitsu Siemens, etc.
Just because they make a device for Google doesn't mean that the device is similar to a device they make for someone else (or to sell under their own brand).
Yes, Android currently only lets you install application packages on internal memory. Application developers know this, so there's a major effort made to keep the application footprint small, and then have the applications download and store additional resources on the SD card, which has no such limitations. As an example, a game would store its levels/media on the SD card. Or in the case of an offline GPS app, the map data would be stored on the SD card.
With my Droid, I've yet to get anywhere close to this limitation, and I'm always on the hunt for neat apps on the market. I currently have 162MB free (I believe it originally had 250MB available).
Yes, it's not inconceivable that you'll run into this limitation, but at the same time, it doesn't come up all that often. Don't be concerned that your iPhone is using 3GB for app storage...on an Android device those apps would be putting 95% of their data on the SD card.
maybe it's pulling the data real time the same as google maps.
Wikipedia says the Nexus One phone's display is 800x480 (not 800x400) pixels when rotated to landscape, just like the display of the Pandora PDA. In a 720x480 pixel widescreen video following industry standards for SDTV and EDTV, the center 704x480 pixels (not counting the Nominal Analog Blanking area) have a 16:9 display aspect ratio, which implies a 40:33 pixel aspect ratio. To restore square pixels, the player ideally stretches the center 660 pixels of this image to cover the 800-pixel width of the screen. This cuts off 22 pixels (27 square pixels) from each side, but SDTV and EDTV are framed in a safe area: displays are allowed to cut off a bit of the edge.
He also neglects to point out in his comparison that the 16 GB of storage on the iPhone is typically filled with music, leaving much less than that for applications.
How do you know what is typical? I have 7.42GB taken up by apps currently on my phone, and I don't even have that many apps compared to a lot of people I know. Lots of games use large amounts of memory, and I think a fair chunk of that is used by two GPS apps I have with cached offline maps - AccuTerra and iTopoMaps.
But the real point is that if you need more space for apps, you can just slim down the number of songs or videos until you get the number of apps you want. As nice as it is to be able to expand via SD it's kind of pointless if said expansion doesn't really give you any more space for one key aspect of the device.
The main problem with the Android space limitation means that whole classes of applications will simply never be developed for Android, even if some users can hack around the restriction with an altered filesystem...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
verizon does not use SIM cards.
Of course Verizon doesn't use SIM because SIM is for GSM and Verizon is CDMA2000. But CDMA2000 still provides for a removable CSIM card; why don't Verizon and Sprint use it?
It doesn't even support multitouch
Neither does the Nintendo DS. Yet games like Meteos, Kirby Canvas Curse, and March of the Minis work fine without multitouch.
A toy that lets us develop our own datacenter management tools and deploy them to our employees without having to suck Apple's App Store dick.
How colorful. Your crude language leads one to wonder about the soundness of your argument - and sure enough, we find that Apple has an Enterprise program that lets you develop and deploy apps to employee phones, all without going through the app store.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I see this as room for an 'App Switcher App' basically allowing you to 'deep store' apps on the regular memory portion and transfer them back over when needed.
So something like the SD card button on Wii Menu 4?
Mod parent up. It is not difficult to develop any program you wish to your iPhone and deploy it outside of the App Store.
)9TSS
Ah, which explains AT&T using 1900MHz, since they were piggybacking their initial 3G rollout over their PCS spectrum. Fair enough.
In any case, it does 2100/1700(AWS)/900 for UTMS. Will it be able to use 3G in other countries or not? If so, the result is still the same: AT&T is the odd one out, not the other way around.
Basically, you buy/download the app from the app store, then first run of the app downloads all the graphical resources that would take up the bulk of the space and store them in the SD card.
Which can be expensive if you download the app over USB or Wi-Fi at home but then first-run it while on 3G, and it spends a sizable percent of your monthly transfer allowance downloading the resources.
[Android phones are a] toy that lets us develop our own datacenter management tools and deploy them to our employees without having to suck Apple's App Store dick.
Or you could join the Enterprise program, and develop/deploy to your employees as much as you'd like?
I'd bet joining the Enterprise program is part of what TooMuchToDo meant by fellating Apple. For one thing, it is not for small or medium business: this page states that your company needs at least 500 employees. For another, as far as I can tell, it just gives you a private category of the App Store.
Mod parent up. It is not difficult to develop any program you wish to your iPhone and deploy it outside of the App Store.
Do you mean ad hoc? What do you do if you have more than 99 employees but fewer than the 500 that the enterprise developer program requires?
we find that Apple has an Enterprise program that lets you develop and deploy apps to employee phones
Please see my reply to an Anonymous Coward who had posted the same thing in different words.
Banning bundling would be harsh for users who "can't afford" to pay full price up front, and would rather spread the real cost of the phone across the length of the contract.
This is done in plenty of markets by just using installment plans. You don't have to link it to the carrier contract.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
Why would that have anything to do with unbundling phone service? - Fine, pay a subsidization fee in addition to the plan fee. Make the phone companies itemize and split the cost of the phone that your paying each month, with the plan cost.
There's no reason they cannot do this, but they refuse to. Because primarily when your contract is over, your still paying 'subsidized' prices even though they aren't subsidizing anything on your end. They collect a LOT of extra money from people using this method.
This is like saying that since the majority of my HD will be filled with porn, it doesn't matter that a new HD only allows me to use 1% of it for programs. I DO need an OS to view my porn, where am I going to put that smartass?
I really do not get the 190mb limit, it seems truly insane. What if a user wants to install a large game? 190mb is an insanely small amount. I really got to wonder what the reasoning behind it is. When I first read it, I had to wonder if it was a misprint.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There's this thing called banks. Maybe you've heard of them.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
In any case, it does 2100/1700(AWS)/900 for UTMS. Will it be able to use 3G in other countries or not?
Yes, because "2100" refers to the 1900/2100 MHz pair used in most countries. I believe that some European operators started to use their 900 MHz GSM spectrum also with UMTS, I assume that is what the third ("900") band is for.
The Nexus One certainly is a beautifully designed phone, nice color choice and lines. First phone I've seen that surpasses the iPhone in looks, as subjective a statement that is to say. A nice thing is the ability to buy the phone straight up and not get locked into a 2 year prison term with a carrier.
T-Mobile just upgraded their 3G networks to HSPA 7.2Mbps and by mid 2010 will upgrade to HSPA+ 20Mbps. T-Mobile now currently has the fastest 3G network in the nation. Over 200+ Million people are covered.
Windows Mobile is having trouble figuring out what year this is. The next version isn't out until "late this year", and in Windows land that means maybe not until it's actually 2016.
And then there's the whole Danger fiasco.
Win Mo? You can keep it.
"Banning bundling would be harsh for users who "can't afford" to pay full price up front"
What happened to the concept of "saving before buying" and "living within your mean" ? Is that so old-fashioned ? We are talking about luxury items here, not el cheapo mobile.
A free-market solution would be to just use T-Mobile instead of trying to legislate a fix. If all the other carriers see enough people moving to pay-up-front T-Mobile plans, they'll make similar (or even better) plans. If not enough people do this, then there probably wasn't enough support for the idea to get a law passed, anyway.
Sorry, but that's a bunch of BS.
EVDO Rev A does 500-800kbps in practice, in real world tests, on Verizon or Sprint.
I have never, ever seen EDGE crack 200kbps on either AT&T or T-Mobile.
AT&T's HSDPA hits 1.5Mbps at times, but usually it hovers around 1Mbps.
Um, then you might want to make sure you're on wi-if for the first run. You went to the trouble of downloading at home, but can't be bothered to run it once there? Although, most of the apps I've used download it all as one chunk and then split the app and data during unpacking (i.e. so all the data is downloaded before the first run)
"On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps"
sigh. the phone comes with a 4GB removable (obviously) SD card (expandable to 32GB), and 512MB internal RAM. the SD card memory and the internal memory and separate and used for different purposes.
the internal RAM is used for storing and running apps. the SD card is used for storing data (app data, music files, video, pictures).
Go jailbreak your iphone if tethering/multiapp is such a deal breaker. You get stability + good UI + tethering + multi-app...and you can buy DRM-free music from the device itself. Best of all worlds.
It goes to show that the limitations are not with the iPhone itself but with the megalomania of AT&T (you can tether on European carriers) and Apple (multi-app could be a drain on battery life, so put it under options->advanced or something).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Sprint is either third or fourth largest in the US in terms of customers and covers both less people and less geographic area than AT&T or Verizon
Ironically, Sprint's also-ran status actually works out very well if you are a data-heavy user. My Sprint plan roams on Verizon for free, and the handoff between networks is transparent. Because of the low contention rates for EVDO-a on Sprint (compared to, say, AT&T), I've been enjoying bandwidth around 2-3x what I see similar smartphones on AT&T and TMobile attain (Except for the newer 4G experimental zones). I've actually tethered the phone, on occasion, for several days and used it to download GB+ torrents. The video streaming also works nicely. I get unlimited data, texts, and a voice plan for $30/month, all-in. Yes, it's one of the old SERO plans, and with plans like this I think can see how Sprint manages to not extract nearly as much profit as AT&T and Verizon.
Da Blog
In the Bay Area (where Google is located), $530 is almost pocket change.
You can easily spend 6x as much a month to rent a studio apartment or about as much buying a week of groceries at "Whole Foods" (aka "Whole Paycheck").
Still... wait for v2.0 I'm guessing. There might actually be some apps out for it by then, too - which is what makes the iphone great. Spec wise its nothing flash. It has its faults, hardware wise. But the apps, and the APIs for using the GPS, touch, etc are great.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a failure of US carriers to create a common frequency and the failure of the US govt to ensure one was created. Don't blame this on the phone.
In other nations where the 2100 MHz network is accepted as standard (meaning every carrier runs a 2100 MHz network) this is not an issue, seeing as 2100 MHz is the worlds most popular 3G frequency why should the manufacturers put in obscure frequencies used by one carrier in one nation (AT&T's 1900 and 1700 MHz networks).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Processing power can be used for more then games. Multi-tasking is one of Androids strengths, more powerful office suites, graphical editors and other software that can do processing in the background, think Seti@android, Background SonicWall/Cisco VPN or a batch processing application.
PC's are used for so much more then gaming, I work in GIS and can instantly think of a few processing applications for a powerful phone, especially for field services where you can get some preliminary work done on the data in the field and then upload it to the servers at the office when you're in range (or Wifi). This will help cut down on heavy laptops which have only a few hours of battery life.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
...I'll wait for the Nexus Seven to come out.
I'll be here all day...
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
What happened to the concept of "saving before buying" and "living within your mean" ? Is that so old-fashioned ?
Those aren't the same concept. Living within your means is one thing, but saving before buying is overrated. (Know anyone who paid cash for a house? If so, did they die of old age a few years later, or were they just ridiculously wealthy?)
If know I'm going to have $530 ten months from now, why should I save $53 a month and buy the phone later, instead of buying it now and paying it off over time? Even if I have to pay $60 a month to cover interest, as long as I think it's worth $70 to enjoy the phone for those ten months, what's wrong with that?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Google is an international company based in California, HTC is an international company based in Taiwan. The Nexus One is intended to be sold internationally.
I can use the N1 on any Telco here in Australia as well as in Singapore, Malaysia and most of Europe because it uses the 2100 MHz frequency. The problem is that US telco's don't want to have a common frequency and why should HTC go to the extra expense of adding additional or more expensive transmitters to cater for a tiny percentage of the global market. If the US had a single common frequency then the N1 would most likely support it. This is not Google limiting your choice, this is the US telco's limiting your choice. Google and HTC made their decisions based on the global market, not the US market which means they chose to support the GSM 2100 and 900 MHz frequencies.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
lie to apple?
Use a Blackberry
That one takes the cake, in my opinion.
(not like it'll matter on T-Mobile's network-- I'm much more impressed with the call quality [than T-Mobile's when I was with them] on MetroPCS when I'm in an EVDO area (they have that for voice in the major markets-- just not data).
From previous reading, I thought the Nexus did not work with AT&T 3G frequencies - EDGE only on AT&T. Did the final announcement correct that?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, and how much must you pay for that freedom?
$500. Is that such a large burden to bear for a large company?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The google voice transcription ability varies widely depending on the quality of the audio. When my friend is using the handsfree and letting it fall freely onto her chest, it sounds muffled to me and the text transcription is terrible. Similarly, if her voice cuts out for a second (which T-Mobile does a lot-- even in the middle of a suburban midsized city), it gets confused as well.
However, my friends, who sound clearer to me on the phone, get much better txt transcriptions.
I'd bet joining the Enterprise program is part of what TooMuchToDo meant by fellating Apple. For one thing, it is not for small or medium business: this page states that your company needs at least 500 employees. For another, as far as I can tell, it just gives you a private category of the App Store.
First off, you are utterly wrong on the last point. The Enterprise program lets a company sign apps and distribute them to users via email and such - there is no app store involved, ever.
Secondly, yes you have to have 500 employees or more. Because if you are much smaller than that you can simply use a normal developer account, and distribute apps via ad-hoc builds for up to 99 different devices. There are no restrictions there either, and I have done this for small company clients before.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Please see my reply to an Anonymous Coward who had posted the same thing in different words.
Please read my correction to your post there.
For anyone reading, basically you can do app development for small companies too. You just use a normal developer account which any company can sign up for, and is even cheaper at $99/year.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't worry this is what they're planning... ;).
This is also what MetroPCS is planning, they want to deploy LTE ASAP and run everything over the data connection because, for calls at least, it drops their costs by something absurd like 90%. Who knows if it'll have unlimited data, I don't care, it'll probably be 10 or something GB, which will be enough (I frankly don't care if you want to torrent on your phone connection-- I don't want to subsidize that, not now at least
If we've purchased the hardware, we should not be required to join any sort of program (in your example, Apple's Enterprise program) to deploy apps to the phones.
Sorry, but that's simply incorrect.
There are countless examples of enterprise development needing to join all kinds of programs to realistically develop software, MSDN, Oracle support, etc. etc. To suddenly get airs over a (comparatively) small $99/$500 fee, looks a lot more to me like Apple Hater Syndrome than any kind of principle at work.
You own the hardware once the sale is made,
Then jailbreak the thing and do away with the Apple Dev Program requirement. The Apple tools are free to download and compiled apps can easily be placed on jailbroken phones/touches.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Which isn't a simple process
Actually, it is pretty simple. You generate an ad-hoc cert, build against it, and send someone the cert and ipa file and you are done.
If Apple pulls another Newton one day than you are screwed.
Except for the fact there are millions of devices out now so you'd have time to spare to port elsewhere if needed.
And the fact that realistically the iPhone is not going to be canceled whereas that was never clear with the Newton.
If you build against an Android device you have the more realistic worry that newer models will change the harware in some way that requires more testing (like different resolution).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do you mean ad hoc? What do you do if you have more than 99 employees but fewer than the 500 that the enterprise developer program requires?
In reality, how many devices are really going to be needed? Pretty much no company is going to have an app that requires every single employee to have a touch. For instance, I developed an app for one small company with perhaps 30 employees - of whom about five at any time needed to have use of the app.
If it actually were an issue, you could simply use a few small DBA shell businesses (no fee to create) to open up a few more dev accounts.
But realistically 100 units will be enough for most companies even larger than 500 employees.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ok so how to get one in Australia? The ones on eBay are rather overpriced :-(. It'd be nice if Google would just ship them here.
This is incorrect. The reason apps are stored in internal memory is to prevent users from removing apps when they remove the SD card. That's it. Piracy is *NOT* even a factor in this decision as you can move applications off the phone using a myriad of FTP and File Manager apps.
That said, I totally disagree with not letting the user choose where to store applications.
-- $G
was named NEXUS because it is the nexus between the evil empire and all of your stupidly controlled little brains. Jajaja better integrated search. Better integrated so they can monopolize u and made a meat ball out of all of you. Freeruner rules. Ahh i can even install android if i please. We hackers love to even have electronic diagrams. But that is us, the superior intelligence pf the planet :P. You are all doomed to be controlled.
The number of CDMA phones is more in Asia than NA, but the number of GSM phones is even great. For example, total number of mobile connections in India is 0.5 Billion
Number of mobile connections in china is close to a billion.
In India, GSM forms a sizable chunk, and traditionally CDMA operators like Reliance (86 million subscribers), Tata(50 million) have started offering GSM services, because most of the market is flooded with windows mobile running cheap chinese GSM phones. Even the nokia high end phones are mostly GSM only.
Till about a couple of years back, when GSM users were dabbling with fully functional mini computer like phones, CDMA was limited to Nokia 6265 at top end.
Since advanced CDMA phones are still not in vogue, these carriers are going GSM
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
So, how fast is the 3D? Can I run decent games on it? Are there any benchmarks?
Y
we're talking about what average joe user is capable of. not what a power user can do from the command line.
if i can install an app on the sdcard, then i can take that same sdcard and give it to my friend and let them run the app on it. or, i can install $1000 worth of apps on an SD card and make 100 copies of the SD card and give them to my friends. that's dead simple piracy and i don't need to know anything about how / where apps are installed to do it.
handling the sdcard being removed is simple, and there are lots of options. the easiest one is just to require the phone to be shut down, and force-shutdown if the card is removed otherwise. handling the sdcard copying is easy as well of course. again, i don't know why they haven't solved this yet.
The reason apps are stored in internal memory is to prevent users from removing apps when they remove the SD card.
Why? Couldn't the phone just pop up a message box asking for confirmation to terminate all running apps using the SD card, before unmounting it? That's what all other phone manufacturers do.
My guess is that they did not include this feature because they did not have the time to test all of its implications, and will later implement it in an OS update if people complain loudly enough about it. They've fixed a lot of glitches during the 1.6 -> 2.0 upgrade, and it took them just a few months. I think it's quite probable that they will fix this too.
I'm just curious, but is there an app available to block adverts yet? Since most of the latest mobiles are boasting the ability to browse the full internet, and data transfer on phones is not only slower than on desktops, but FAR more costly, blocking adverts would be a big win for users. I absolutely refuse to pay to download adverts at mobile internet rates and speeds, but as far as I am aware, blocking specific addresses to stop ads downloading is not possible on an un-jailbroken iPhone. Google's main source of revenue is ads, so it's doubtful they would want users blocking ads either, but an ad-blocking app seems fairly legitimate and safe; Google would have no reason to disallow such software from being made available on the app store other than obvious commercial interests.
Not really related, but I thought I'd mention this anyway, the iPhone limits what you can use as ringtones. The damn thing is designed to store a music library, but you are restricted from using files from this library for your ringtone. Is a song playing when a phone rings classed as a public performance and subject to different licensing? Note that I did just find a way to make one's own ringtone after a quick search, but it doesn't seem like it's something that anybody wants you do be doing. http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-use-itunes-to-create-a-ringtone-for-your-iphone/ Other phones I have used have also made custom ringtones difficult or impossible to install, despite allowing me the ability to copy music files onto them. It's this kind of deliberate limiting of functionality, not because the functionality would be difficult to add, be bad for consumers, or be dangerous; but simply because it would eat into someone's bottom line. I don't know why, perhaps because of Google's "Don't be evil" slogan, I get the impression that they won't limit the software by placing limitations on it like this, but I'd love to know if there is anything that should be possible, but isn't.
to get around this stupid limitation an app would need to come with a loader that would then download the remaining data to the SD card
I was going to rag on you for bitching about a surely temporary limitation from the maiden debut of a one-dot-zero product, but dang! 190 MBs?! WTF. Browser caches are bigger than that.
A more important question is, why must it use 190 megs of its storage for applications?
How about a plan that does not cost and arm and a leg. These devices are cool and can be a great way to stay connected; however, what do you do if you have a family who also wants to stay connected? There is no way I could justify the cost to get each member of my family one of these phones or the service plans that are needed. I have teenagers who want iphones, laptops, ipods, and they want to be able to send messages and surf the web (like other class mates). They also want cable TV, netflix, and a host of other services which are nothing more than applications running on the net. Honestly, in the USA, network connectivity sucks and it costs way too much!!!!
This guy hits it on the head:
http://williamfink.blogspot.com/
Former iPhone user here. My response:
Like Hell.
ATT 2G (what I had to use most of the time) is basically 2x dialup (neighborhood of 110kbps up/down) w/ 500ms ping times.
Verizon 3G (Droid) is roughly 1-2mbps down and 500-900 kbps up w/ 100-200 ms ping times most of the places I've traveled. And I'm only without 3G about 2% of the time.
If you think that's equivalent, I don't know what to say.
Well, then the carriers should provide a an option for this. If you want a $500 phone, then we can spread the payments over the 24 months, at approximately $20 per month.
This way consumers can actually compare features, plans, etc without having the "hidden" charges. Plus, the extra $20 per month probably won't be subject to the same amount of taxes as a voice plan.
I'm all for spreading the payments, but the true cost should not be hidden in a contract or monthly fees.
yep -- it's true. i've been a T-mobile customer for a long time -- i've even got their $50/mo unlimited talk/text "customer loyalty" plan and i still pay more than someone with good credit who buys the $179 commitment. but who knows who's eligible for that... the site told me $229.
i think i'll pass for now. i would pay $179 and get into a 2-year contract (maybe), but first i want to go to the store and play with the phone... and i can't do that because you can only buy it on the web.
Right now I own a Nokia E71 phone that I can tether by bluetooth or usb without any additional software. I can also turn it into a wifi hotsot with 3rd party software and I do use that feature to "fake" an iphone from my ipod. As I understand it the iPhone can't run the wifi at the same time as 3G so this is never going to happen on the current hardware. ... but the Symbian OS on my Nokia is terrible. It's like using windows 3.1 after having seen OS/2. It's a great phone but for anything else(email,music,web) I definitely reach for the ipod.
If my job did not require me to have internet access at a moment's notice I would get the iphone and solve my multi-device problem.
This assumes that carriers offer equivalent service quality in most markets. They don't.
Free market solutions only work in markets where there are enough competitors that collusion isn't likely.
Seems a good proxy service is worth its weight in gold. A Canadian friend of mine just ordered after using PROXZ. Order completed and shipped already to a U.S address. Unknown if he could have shipped to a Canadian address.
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
Everyone seems to have missed it... this is the first handheld with *512 MB RAM*. If only it had a keyboard, I'd be running KDE 4.3 on it nicely :)
So it's being advertised as open source. Where exactly is the source? I cant' find it.
Luke-Jr
Hi. Can anyone holding a Nexus One please tell me if my site http://www.concentrichron.com/ works on in, as I'd like to turn it into a live wallpaper. Thanks, Nigel.
It's not even worth the contract for new customers. T-Mobile offers "Even More" plans, which subsidize the phone price, and "Even More Plus" plans, which do not (these are only available to those who are not on a phone contract). Based on my conversations with T-Mobile customer service this morning, you could:
Pay $179 for the Nexus One phone, and be required to purchase the "Even More" plan with Unlimited Web, texting, and 500 Minutes of calling per month for $79.99 for a contract term of 24 months. Total cost: $179 + (24 months * $79.99) = $2,098.76.
Pay $529 for the Nexus One phone. Sign up for a T-Mobile "Even More Plus" plan with Unlimited Web and text, and 500 Minutes of calling per month, for $59.99/mo. Total Cost: $529 + (24 months * $59.99) = $1,968.76.
Essentially, you end up paying $659 for the phone over two years, rather than $529 up front. Or, you could look at it as financing the phone, with an interest rate of around 12% for two years. Maybe that's better than carrying it on a high-interest credit card, but it's still an abusive rate on top of the early termination fee they charge you if you want to leave.