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Google Stops Selling Its Own Phone
Dave Knott notes that Google has announced it will close its online cell phone store and no longer sell the Nexus One smartphone directly to consumers. "While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not," wrote Andy Rubin, a Google vice president of engineering, on the official company blog. "It's remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it's clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from." From the Globe and Mail article: "At least one aspect of Google's attempt to disrupt the world of mobile communications — selling phones directly to customers — has failed. ... [T]he decision to design and sell the Nexus One was perhaps more potentially disruptive for carriers. ... Google plans to continue marketing the Nexus One through 'existing retail channels, essentially partnering with carriers around the world. The Nexus One web store, meanwhile, will essentially become a marketing portal 'to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.'"
Maybe it's just me but I see paying over 500 dollars for a cell phone no matter how cool, bending over.
Hence why most cell phones are leased, not sold (although that word isn't used, of course).
I still don't see the bending over bit. The cell phone costs a certain amount to produce, and the manufacturer asks that plus a reasonable profit. Sure there are cases where the manufacturing costs are less than half of the consumer price, but AFAIK Google One isn't one of those.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
While I it may be that their method of sale/distribution did not succeeded, the phone itself, and Android as an OS, is great. I've never owned a better phone.
There has been a lot of whining and griefing about the phone itself. I have no idea WTF all the complaints are about. I get great data and voice coverage (I hear TMobile isn't the best, but it satisfies me), and the only bug I've ever had is that the ringer sound will stop working about once a month -- I have to reboot.
This is really too bad. Up here in Canada, we're stuck with disgusting 3 year contracts (the 2 year ones have hardly any discount) with egregious profiteering (world's highest text msg prices for instance) and a culture of neglect after you've bought a phone from our oligopoly of carriers. The N1, expensive as it was, really was the best option for a good, unlocked, and free (as in freedom) smartphone. Any Android you get up here will assuredly be abandoned by the carriers - after all, new firmware means less sales according to the carrier. It really meant that the only consistently upgrade friendly Android phone was the N1.
Where I think Google failed was in not offering more choice like a certain fruit-labelled, obsessed-with-lock-in software maker. After all ~$500 for a phone, cheap though it may be over the long run, is a psychologically difficult barrier to overcome. I do believe, however, that having a few options that were cheaper (with appropriately pared down features) could have made it a more profitable venture. Sadly, I would have bought an N1 in the near future, but now it looks like I'll be sticking with my dumbphone.
Furthermore, trusting people to make buying decisions on long term fiscal calculations (without any assistance), might have been ambitious in retrospect. Maybe putting a cost calculator on the N1 website might have helped?
yes, this was the phone Google wanted HTC to make and most likely the phone they wanted others to make. Before the N1, all the other Android phones were underpowered ~600MHz ARM9 based instead of using any of the other ARM Cortex a8 chips which were available. It seemed to me that Google wanted to up the ante for what it meant to be an Android phone and from the number of kick butt Android phones on the market, the N1 did was it would appear it was supposed to do.
Apple will have to leapfrog what the N1 and others put out there and it's all good. It would have been nice if customers took to purchasing the N1 off contract to put pressure on the carriers to provide more options but we can't have it all at once.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Another advantage of one standard for phones: No need to have so many radio bands allocated. GSM has one band. AT&T'3 3G has another, T-Mobile's has another, CDMA has theirs. WiMax has one, same with LTE, and iDen. Having one standard means that a lot of the bands can be freed up for other uses.
You also have the ability for companies to share towers. This is what T-Mobile and AT&T did, pre-3G. This way, each phone company didn't have to have their own tower in each space for coverage, but could just lease from another provider.