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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?
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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
That will, likely, change though, going forward, don't you think? And when (if) it does change, it shouldn't instantly outclass a field of pretty usable devices. Don't get me wrong, I mean, I actually hope Android developers continue to write minuscule, beautiful code, that sips space and resources, into perpetuity; really I do...But I wouldn't wager on it.
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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
Its not like you get a reduced monthly price if you bring your own phone.
you do on t-mobile, albeit not as large as you might expect.
the whole subsidized phone paradigm has more to do with limiting competition among carriers. as it stands, carriers compete on the new cool phones they have this week. once they get you on the shiny new phone, you are stuck with them and they don't have to compete on the things that really matter like service, customer service, lack of restrictions, etc. much cheaper for them. the best example of this is the iphone. just look at all the people paying their $80+ per month bill for terrible service because they just have to own an iphone.
whether consciously or not, google is potentially breaking this scheme by offering a desirable higher-end smartphone, unlocked. personally, after being bound to AT&T's crappy service for almost 2 years now i will never buy a subsidized phone again.
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
But wait, aren't there also some phones out there that cost under $100 unlocked? Licensing is surely a part of it, but there must be more to this story, like having little competition so far, and charging what the market can bear. I would agree with GP logic and guess that $300 could be a realistic price for a device like iPhone or Nexus One, possibly with a few tradeoffs.
Maybe someone like Samsung will bring it to us - they have an $165 (unlocked) Corby touchphone with a proprietary OS, and some $450-500 Android phones. They might build something in between.
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.
If you care about opensource, then you should be getting a Nokia N900, not Google's half proprietary system.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.