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Nexus One a Failed Experiment In Online Sales
shmG writes "The demise of the Google Nexus One phone is fairly straightforward: a lack of sales killed the product. While it will continue to sell through Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea and a few others, the experiment of Google indicates that selling a phone direct to consumers online is dead. 'The bottom line is people like to look at phones in the store. Google has a lot to learn about phone sales, this is one lesson they learned.'"
The reason why the Nexus One failed is because it was so damned expensive out of pocket.
Anyone else think that the Nexus One was a project designed to push Android adoption, and that Google's support for the hardware fell off because the rest of the Android hardware market bulked up sooner than they expected? it's an idea i've considered.
I never saw the Nexus One promoted, nor a link to the store anywhere (except perhaps on Slashdot.) Google has used their pageviews to promote other products and services, for example their ads for Chrome.
Could it be the reason Nexus One didn't succeed was simply a lack of promotion?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Really, did they learn their lesson? If it was a lack of physical presence, then why didn't they distribute the phones to commercial sellers? I mean, if this was the sole and only flaw of the phone, what prevented them from selling it this way?
95%+ of the population doesn't have a problem with being locked into a contract for two years in order to save a few hundred on a phone, especially since no provider gives any significant plan discounts to those who "bring their own device" in the USA.
So a non-subsidized phone is dead in the water from the beginning unless it offers something that's so unique as to be worth the price. (For me, if the N1 had a physical keyboard, I would have paid the money for it. Once they released the version that supported AT&T 3G, it was the only device that had a recent Android release on AT&T. However, it had no keyboard.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
However i usually buy them from companies focusing on HW.
I doubt it had to do with it being available online. I think, rather, that the whole "let's share green pixels or whatnot that made the screen blurry on text and such made it's way around enough that people just didn't want it. Everywhere I looked at comparisons between the nexus 1 and other phones pointed out the blurry OLED screen issue as well as the greenish hue to images.
In Australia, we couldn't even buy the phone from Google, only having to wait months for it to be on offer through Vodaphone Australia instead. However, we've moved onto other phones in the meantime.
This is about the billionth time I've heard that Google failed at this, and not one of them has a quote from Google about it.
They are assuming that Google's intention was to revolutionize phone sales. Perhaps they had other goals, instead? Perhaps they were successful and no longer need to sell them directly. Perhaps they failed and are stopping.
We Don't Know.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The reason it failed is likely a lack of marketing. That, and it was rather expensive. And it wasn't even possible to use it in some places because you need to buy a phone from your operator, right?
Anyway, hasn't this exact story been posted several times on Slashdot? This is definitely not the first "Nexus One failed" post. Why do we keep discussing it? Time to move on, perhaps?
Clever signature text goes here.
That's a whole lot of confusions, based on one case study. I'm not saying they're wrong, just that we need more data for these findings to be convincing. I'm always dubious of analysts selling opinions as facts. This is editorial, not news.
I guess that depends on what Google hoped to accomplish. From a pure sales perspective, the Nexus One didn't make a big dent in the market. But with Android, Google is trying something that Microsoft tried with WinMo, and failed at; one of the many reasons was stagnant, crappy and divergent hardware. I've never believed the purpose of the N1 was to sell a lot of phones... that was obvious from the selection of T-Mobile as the carrier... the purpose was to drive Android forward and keep it from falling into one of the traps WinMo fell into.
So if you compare pre--N1 Android phones to phones in the post-N1 era, the difference is startling. Nexus One may have failed in sales, but it succeeded in pushing the ecosystem forward. And I suspect that's all Google ever really wanted.
In the US, maybe. In most other countries, not quite. E.g. in Russia you can get as much as 15% off the retail price, so most expensive and cutting-edge hardware is bought online. Last time I checked, Nexus one was both expensive and cutting-edge :)
The bottom line is people like to look at phones in the store.
Not true. I'm sure we can all think of at least one, if not a couple of examples that prove this to be utterly false.
The lesson Google should have learned, but apparently didn't, is that people trust hardware from a hardware company but are far less likely to trust hardware from a software company (*). Look no further than the company Google has been waging war with the longest - Microsoft. They have had one "success" in transitioning to hardware in the XBox (quoting "success" because that's highly debatable, I realize) and a large number of high profile failures (or outright flops...). The effort of transitioning from software to hardware is difficult and Google ran, face first, into a very steep learning curve.
*Yes, I know that the phone wasn't actually made by Google but that is certainly the perception amongst the vast majority of consumers.
I gotta tell ya, I loved my Nexus One buying experience! I really like looking at specs on hardware, making my decisions, and then buying online. I suppose that the process itself isn't any different than doing that in a store. But I prefer my shopping online. I did do the T-Mobile subsidy, but I still bought from Google. At the time, the hardware specs were far above any other handset being offered and that was enough for me to buy. Seeing a lesser model in a store but being able to have it in my hands that moment, wouldn't have given me enough warm fuzzies to buy it in a store. I personally liked Googles method and would purchase it again if there was an upgraded model in the future.
This seems like the wrong point to come away with from the Nexus Experiment. You don't see Amazon, or even any other carrier, ending their cell phone sales online. The Nexus failure seems to be a lack of marketing and direction. It's a hell of a device for an entusiast and developer, if it were presented that way, or even sold as an unlocked dev phone (Which is still fucking isn't!) it would have done well. I just got mine a couple weeks ago, and I love it. And am ridiculously glad I got it in before they closed.
I was hoping the direct model would work, even planning on purchasing one myself. The fatal flaw of the Nexus one for me was the bad screen.
Which is why most (all?) carriers sell phones online. I think Apple manages to sell a few iPhones online as well.
Both linked phrases point to the same article.
wtf?
From TFA, supposedly talking about the buying-a-phone-online experience:
...smartphones are not right yet for web access
wtf?
Another questionable comment from TFA:
[The Nexus One] also could not differentiate itself from other smartphones.
Maybe not to dumb people, but the N1 is a boon to anyone who wants to run the latest version of Android OS without waiting ages for MotoGalaxySenseBlurX to catch up.
The article makes a lot of false assumptions about what the phone was in Google's eyes in order to arrive at the conclusion that it was a failed experiment. So...wtf?
but they have been conditioned by expert marketing to view what they can afford by monthly costs. A phone contract looks less painful when you say $50 a month instead of $600 a year. People are made poor by the multitude of 'monthlies' they pay for. For many the cost difference between a contract and no contract is a wash.
Lets not forget one other issue besides price, better phones were not far behind coming out, not only technically better but marketed better.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I am betting that at least part of the lack of sales has to do with the economy. I myself wanted one but didn't get it because of that. It is hard to assume that direct phone sales are dead when you only have one example of it in the US....
Honestly those who are still crying for a keyboard are idiots who haven't tried the Nexus One. I can type 10 times faster since there is no physical resistance to my fingers, no extra energy on pressing a button down, and this particular difference is reflected in a huge speed increase. Even if I mistype it, Nexus One corrects it by considering statistically the correct word. Even if I mistype in purpose, it corrects 100% of vernacular usage. I am so fucking glad it doesn't have a fucking keyboard.
How many iPhones, HTC EVOs and other early adopter phones are purchased without ever touching one? I bet it is the majority. The inability to touch and hold the phone wasn't the problem, the problem was that we live under a cell phone system is is based on phone subsidization and multi-year contracts. If a phone could be purchased at full price and a phone service could be paired with it that didn't carry a subsidization premium, they might have done much better. Bottom line is that Americans don't like paying a premium for a phone unless it is made by Apple.
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
If the Nexus One truly "failed", which is debatable since it essentially is sold out in the US so they sold what they made, then it wasn't because it was sold online or because people want to touch the phone before buying. There are plenty of places to buy phones online. I have bought almost all of my phones online. The problem is that it was too expensive because they were only subsidized by T-Mobile, and only if you signed on for a really expensive monthly plan. People these days are used to getting phones for free or almost for free. Also, the biggest selling point of the Nexus One, in my opinion, was the fact that it is controlled entirely by Google. Thus you get updates first without having to wait for the carriers to get around to them, and you get the openness that is Google. That selling point really only hits home with the geeky users that want a customized experience along with a simple physical design. I think the Nexus One is one of the best phones out there right now, but I know that it's not for everyone and the fact that it's so expensive really limits it's audience even more. Thus, I first don't think it's a failure, but even if you believe that, the failure wasn't because it was sold only online.
They used the Nexus One as an experiment to see how consumers reacted to buying smart phones directly and found that they preferred buying from carriers.
The experiment was a success as they now have an answer with data to back it up: consumers prefer buying from carriers.
Grand idea, but it will be cool to find one in a file cabinet in a decade, a collectors item to be sure.
There are many reasons, like it was expensive, and contracts based. But the principal reason is the lack of support. When there is no customer service number to call ( at-least in the beginning), you are doomed. It was a major strategic blunder to rely on the e-mail as a form of customer service and not setup any adequate support framework. A half-baked and naive idea.
I don't think I'm alone in buying 4 different generations of iPhone, sight unseen. Perhaps it's not the "seeing in the store" that's the issue.
...lack of Verizon support. In a lot of places, at least here on the east coast, Verizon is the only carrier with near-universal coverage. It doesn't matter how cool a phone is if it drops calls all the time and has crappy data speeds.
You hit the nail on the head.
What Google's exercise shows is that unless you get cooperation with the wireless carriers to subsidize your phone, it's not going to sell. The article says that the phone cost $529. There is no way I would spend that much money on a telephone.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
especially since no provider gives any significant plan discounts to those who "bring their own device" in the USA.
My Android bill is $29 a month from Page Plus Cellular. Of course the carriers who sell expensive phones want you in the contract, so they would never offer you a good price if you bring your own phone in.
Their job is to fuck you, but not hard enough for you to switch to another company. Providing you with good cell service at a good price is quite secondary.
If I had a dime for everything that would "never work online" that has since gone online, I'd be a rich man. Shoes, clothes, and jewelery, all are sold online and they were supposed to be too tactile too. I remember a company that refused to let me build their website in 1997 because a consultant told them that the Internet was too insecure for "real business." He laughed when I predicted that one day he would bank online and convinced them to private label a dial in BBS instead. I built their website a year later. BTW I pre-ordered my Motorola Droid sight unseen so I could get it on the release date.
To be more precise, it seem to be that the problem stems from how the subsidizing is done in the USA :
- Carrier get exclusitive arrangement on certain model.
- Said model is only available at their (physical or online) store
- The only way to get a subsidised phone is through these stores.
This pretty much fucks up the market, because you don't get a free choice of service provider and phone. You pick one and you'll be restricted for the other.
And a phone without an exclusivity contract has just no choice.
Contrast the situation in several European country (including Switzerland, for a precise example) :
- Service providers don't give a damn about exclusive phone models. They compete purely on services and data plans.
- Phones are available in various shops depending on what the store's suppliers has, not who has signed an exclusive contact with whom.
- Thus most major phone companies (Nokia, Motorola, SonyEricsson, Samsung) are available in most shops (mostly in brick and mortar shops)
- Some shops could even import less known brands (Palm, Google, the first Android based HTCs, etc.) (mostly imported in computer-parts shop and other shops for technically savvy people).
- Subsidising is done at the shop level : You subscribe to or extend a contract with the service provider of your choosing available in said shop, and the provider will give a rebate that you can redeem on any phone of your choosing (as long as the phone is also in this shop's catalog)..
- Phone and service aren't linked. Service providers don't give a damn on which phone you used their rebate, as long as you sign a contact with them.
- You can actually use the Phone with a different SIM or even offer it as a present to your significant other, etc. (no SIM lock).
- As long as you keep the contact for said duration the provider is happy, they'll only get annoyed if you cancel the contract prematurely (you'll have to reimburse a part of the phone depending on how early you cancel).
Results :
- Phones from big companies have all their chance.
- Phones from less known companies can still get sold in some quantities through smaller shop specialising into import from those compagnies.
- Service provider have to concentrate on providing good services, because that's the only criterium they compete on.
- No phone company can hope to get away with shitty service just because the sell some magic Jesus-phone. If the service sucks, the users will simply get the phone with another service provider.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
TMobile's unlimited everything no-contract plan was $20/month cheaper than the subsidized plans, making the unsubsidized N1 cheaper than one under contract over 2 years.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
The demise of the Google Nexus One phone is fairly straightforward: a lack of sales killed the product.
“The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn't have to do a second one." Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO [1]
Google has tried to paint the Nexus One experiment as a success because it helped build market presence for Android, its operating system.
Clearly false, Google has painted the Nexus One as a success because it has dramatically pushed phone hardware forward. Whether phones as powerful as the EVO 4G and Droid X would be available without the Nexus One, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.
"I don't think they will (produce another phone)," Dulaney said. "Maybe when the market matures, like it did with personal computers, maybe then you'll see people buying phones off the internet. But right now people want to go in and see the devices."
Google's CEO announced that they wouldn't be producing a "Nexus Two" three motherfucking weeks ago. Thanks for the completely unnecessary speculation, though. "I called up the board and said: 'Ok, it worked. Congratulations - we're stopping.'" [2]
[1][2] Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7864223/Googles-Eric-Schmidt-You-can-trust-us-with-your-data.html
Just because you don't know about the discounted plans doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means you're ignorant.
Look, I was up for a new phone this summer (AT&T isn't going to cut me a break on my rates, so I'm going to get a new fucking phone every 18 months, even if that means I immediately flip it on eBay). WinMo is no longer viable - there are android and iphone apps for everything the WinMos had a lock on two years ago, and I wanted a finger interface. W7 will not be ready in time.
I considered both android and iPhone, and did a bunch of research on them. For all the limitations of the iPhone, none of them mattered to me that much. I would miss tethering, but I only used it 4-6 times per year. The Nexus One was intriguing, but - by Android users own admissions it fell short. The touchscreen was inferior to the iPhone (a big point of contention with my old WM, and one of the things I really liked on my wife's iPhone). A standout feature was the notification light...but it didn't work as planned, and Google appeared to have abandoned ever making work. And, honestly, I couldn't play with one before stroking a check for $600.
I got an iPhone 3, liked it, and upgraded to a 4 for the speed and camera (which is very good, btw). Sold the 3 for within $20 of what I paid. Now, I'm not very happy with the 4, or Apple in general, since the 4.0.1 update bricked my phone and Apple had no answer on how to fix it. Thank goodness for mac hackers or I'd be at an AT&T store asking them to replace my !@#$ @#$#% phone with something that worked. I shouldn't have to troll the mac equivalent of XDA to get my never-jailbroken, never-hacked iPhone to do a simple update.
I'm still in the market, but AT&T android handsets are crippled, the new Moto android handsets are hobbled and Verizon wants $30 more poer month for their service (which is no better than AT&T near me), and everyone else coverage makes AT&T's map look continuous. The Nexus was nice, but now it's gone, and there's no push to get a better android phone, just a fatter spec sheet. I was hoping a N-2 might be in the offing, and a real phone shootout would ensue in my house. Guess not.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Maybe Google would've done better with it (or could do better with it NOW) if they scaled back their expectations massively and made it the ADP3? I mean, the ADP2 (unlocked MyTouch) is getting woefully outdated in terms of modern Android development. Plus, the N1 already IS largely an ADP (not entirely, but largely).
They really should get a Froyo-capable and higher-powered ADP3 for developers soon anyway, come to think of it. A lower-production line of N1s could do the trick nicely.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
The "customer" for the Nexus One was not just the cellular phone user, it was every HW manufacturer. For manufacturers it showed what Android could do. If you look at all the phones released prior to the Nexus One, the hardware specifications were very similar in terms of performance, which let's be honest, was not super awesome. Once the Nexus One came out, the specs for subsequent phones jumped to match it and surpass it, and adoption of Android phones exploded. It's not clear that jump would have happened if not for the Nexus One. With approximately 135000 sold by March, let's assume a total inventory of 150000 phones. At an estimated $175 manufacturing cost, that's $26.25 million. Given the massive explosion of phones and subsequent sales (and search revenue!) The cost of the Nexus One is nothing compared to Apple's advertising budget ($500 million in 2009). Even if you were generous and assumed Google spent $50M on the Nexus One as a whole, that's still only 10%. Sounds like Google made a smart move to me.
I began considering the Nexus when Google first introduced it. Like most others, I was unsure because of the $529 price tag. My wife and daughter were also in the market for new phones. Having already owned an HTC G1, the question of Android performance was never an issue (I paid full price for that phone, too).
The issue for me was contracts. My contract with T-Mobile had expired, and I wasn't willing to lock into another one. T-Mobile had also just introduced some new no-contract plans, so I did some math.
I ran the numbers for getting a two-year contract with two new MyTouch 3Gs at the $149 subsidized price. I wanted an unlimited everything plan. Then I looked at the same idea, only I'd buy the MyTouch phones at retail ($399 each). with their no-contract Even More Plus plan. Over the course of the same two years, I would pay $500 *less* for the phones and the service, without a lock-in. Not only that, T-Mobile made me a great offer: if I purchased the phones in a retail store, I could pay $20 down on each, plus the sales tax (about $50 total for both phones), and then pay the phones off at $20 per month each, added to my bill, with no interest. I could pay off the phones at any time.
That $500 savings justified the cost of the Nexus. The girls love their MyTouch devices, and the Nexus is probably the best phone I've ever owned. I've already rooted and modded it. Buying it unlocked was a plus, especially when I traveled to Europe a few weeks ago: slip in a local SIM and off I went.
Perhaps I'm fortunate in that buying the phone at full price is something I can do, but the sales model is something that makes sense. I can see this becoming more common in the future: manufacturers create the devices, make them workable on multiple carriers (especially for data between AT&T and T-Mobile in the US), sell them unlocked and let people just pick a carrier and buy a plan.
Then again, I know what I want. I don't necessarily need to touch something to see it's value.
Joe Dougherty, Florida, USA
The words I thought I brought, I left behind. So, never mind.
The fact that nobody wanted to buy a phone (other than geeks) from a search engine company. Lets face it, that is how the majority of consumers see Google, as a web page they search from and that's it. Even though the phone was made by a reputable company it was sold as the "Google Nexus One". Would you go out and buy a "Asus Mirage" a (fictional) car built by Ford for Asus? Probably not...
At that pricepoint or locked into a contract as such, I think the program was a smashing success.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Now, when the Motorola Droid was released, I bought it on opening day -- I didn't even see the phone until the sales rep took my phone out of the box to activate it. I bought my last 2 phones online and didn't see them in person until they arrived. I'm definitely in the target market of the Nexus One, but my decision to not buy the phone had nothing to do with whether or not I could see it first.
Or Google's first phone, which they sold in stores, thru T-Mobile, under contract, like the iPhone. The Nexus One appeared as follow up to the G1 and basically set the bar for Android 2.0 devices. Considering Google sold every unit of the Nexus One and pushed the bar further for Android devices, I think it was a success...they weren't looking to take on Apple in units sold, just in phones running their OS and the Nexus One set the standard by which Android 2.0 devices were measured.
I've been an avid iPhone user for the past few years. Was just about to grab the iPhone 4 up in Canada when it's release next week but I already had iOS 4 (mildly jailbroken) on my 3g and in all honesty, I wasn't overly impressed. While it did implement the much need multi-tasking I always felt locked and when I did fiddle with other jailbroken apps (OS 3 + 4) I found the performance went to hell.
So a few weeks back I saw the Nexus One won't be offered anymore and I did a bit of investigating and realized just how open Android really is. So I ordered the phone on Monday after hearing the last shipment is abound and when I went to check the status this morning it appears they're already all gone.
That being said, I am not hating on the iPhone at all, and I will miss my iPhone. But I'm willing to forgo the well thought out "eco system" with Apple to something a bit more robust and open. I like to fiddle, jailbreaking allowed me that, but I still felt locked in.
Also our phone plans in Canada absolutely suck, I'm locked into my contract with Rogers until mid next year so I could buy the iPhone at $300 and I'm certain they'll say I can't get an early upgrade (couldn't do it with the 3GS!!). So 300 vs 550 unlocked and I can leave Rogers whenever I want(after my damn contract is up :) ) is money well spent.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like other projects, Google throws things at the wall to see what sticks. I'm sure the idea going around last year (remember, the Nexus One was a little bit after the Droid, so the idea of a 'Droid success' had not yet been covered in the press) was 'mimic Apple, they have the hot ticket'. Microsoft is doing this right now to the point that it's almost ridiculous.
So for Google, Nexus One had its day and that's it - many others are succeeding with Android now and since Google gets all search revenue from it, it's win/win for them. And lets be honest, this was a geek phone, nothing else, so I'm sure the sales numbers weren't that spectacular.
1. while google did advertise online, through their services, that was about it. if you frequented tech sites you might have known about it, otherwise no.
2. the perceived price is massive compared to amy other phone. US culture perceives cell phones to be around $200 max. the N1's $530 price tag produce an incredible sticker shock for the average person.
If the lesson here is "People like to see the phones in a store" then Radio Shack, for instance, should take note. I need to be able to use the phone before I buy it to see if it's any good. If all you've got are dummy mock-ups, that doesn't do me any good.
Bow-ties are cool.
T-Mobile does give a plan discount for customers who bring their own phones to the network.
It's labelled "Preview"
The Nexus One was a success. It showed what is possible with the android OS. Without it, we wouldn't have the latest crop of super phones like the EVO 4G, Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant and Captivate in the USA), and Droid X. The Nexus One is simply obsolete ever since the Droid X and Galaxy S came out. For $499, the Galaxy S is the most advanced phone in the world. Why would anyone pay $539 for a Nexus One at this point?
BTW, T-Mobile charges $20 less if you buy the phone outright. You can also pay off the Phone purchase over time, up to 20 months. So buying a phone is actually CHEAPER that getting one "free" with a 2 year contract. Do the math.
I am so glad Google has decided that this failed experiment was indeed an ultimate and humiliating failure. The best phones come from the service providers. After they have stripped the phone of features they do not want on their network. Change the hardware to make it slightly cheaper and all around hack the ROM until it is unusable is far greater than receiving a phone from the manufacturer unchanged and unscathed. Its high time we rise up and tell Google and other Doo Gooder companies that we love having our service providers anally rape us, our children, and future generations till the end of time. I welcome our new overlords, Rogers, Bell, AT&T, Verizon etc... *bent over*
you know you can fry stuff putting things into things that dont like the things you put into it...
I have used T-Mobile prepaid since 2004 in Illinois and California. My only coverage problems have been in deep mountain areas where often no GSM towers exist or once in a while a competitor tower exists and I cannot roam. A basic T-Mobile prepaid SIM is so cheap (about $10 USD) that you could just get one and test coverage yourself, if you can scrounge up an old GSM phone for testing. Then, if you like it, go ahead and get the phone of your dreams and either keep using that SIM or go for a different post-paid package. The only hazard here is if you want to check 3G service coverage, in which case you need to trust maps or find someone who already has it...
So, you don't actually need to go to a store to get a new phone or SIM as they will ship it to you. Most tech support is via phone/web anyway so I think the network coverage and pricing in your area should matter more than the presence of a storefront!
Maybe the problem is easier than you realize.
Maybe, JUST MAYBE, even though it ran 'Linux', it is entirely possible, that no one really wanted it.
Maybe, and I realize I'm going out on a limb here, but MAYBE the general population of the world doesn't want a fanboy phone, they want a good phone.
While you can rant all day long about why you think Android is Gods gift to the world, most people don't feel that way. Android is not something that gives the general public any warm tingly feelings.
I know its hard to talk about, but MAYBE its that the product wasn't what the market wanted. Crazy thought I know, but consider it for a minute.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
All this said, I haven't bought a phone offline since my StarTac...
And I'd say 80% of the people I know bought their last 2-3 phones either online or during travels to foreign destinations (Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong). I suspect the lack of sales had a number of factors, including misfocus of the target market, targetting the wrong (ir insufficient) region, fragmentation and confusion between all the android devices (ans smart phones in general), and finally there are still a number of people on the fence about the OS due to the inconsistent internal rules and interfaces in the systems. Personally, I think the User Experience team really needs to get involved with inputs on the UI and maybe even targeting (as of yet they've been kept away from the project.)
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
There are three possibilities here.
The Nexus One did *exactly* what it was intended to do: be a showcase. Now that Incredible and Droid X are out (an other phones in the pipeline), the torch has been passed to real handset companies, effectively locked into Android, which was the goal.
Another possibility is Google got a taste of the required support world for actual concrete consumer product. No more of this perpetual beta. Even crappy support that current carriers have is hard and expensive (especially compared with the "no support" beta deployment Google is used to).
Third, the US market isn't ready for unsubsidized phones.
My bet would be heavily on the first one, with the second two being smaller, but not totally insignificant factors.
How much data do you have?
What carrier are they reselling?
I live in mainland Europe (Eurozone) and every time I tried to buy a Nexus One the Google website brushed me off. After many months the HTC Desire was finally launched. To get one of those I need to order from the UK (not in the Eurozone) and pay a lot more than a US customer would.
Google is wrong. You just need to make it slightly cheaper, or more feature full, and actually available. I wanted to buy a Nexus One and ended up buying an iPhone because I couldn't get it anywhere. Sure, having the carrier do customer support is nice, since you can handle manufacturing issues more easily. Google could use some support centers physically closer to the consumer, or expediently handle returns. However I do not need to go to a store to try it out. I have actually tried a friend's HTC Desire for a while. The Desire only was available months after I bought my iPhone 3GS.
The most data I see I 50MB/month, is this for real?
That is about a day for me.
If you ask me, the slum is AT&T. It is kinda like Wal-Mart, crappy service, most products are the same cost as any other retailer in their segment. T-Mobile is Costco. Great service, not found in as many places, but in all the major metro areas, and a lot of midsize ones too.
T-Mobile contract plans cost $20 per month more than non-contract plans. I have a Nexus One and I'm on one of those plans.
in the us may be.
in europe it is very different. i haven't bought a subsidised phone since the n70 in 2005. the crapware loaded on that by vodafone that was unremoveable made be buy all phones after that sim free.
wasn't much of a change for me as i use all my phones on prepay so the price went up around 100. i even bought an iphone 3g on prepay. 630 if i remember rightly. when i go to a linux potd meeting i reckon 90% of the mobiles there are sim free. less hassle. you're dealing with fewer companies to get your device.
when nokia announced the n97 and it was looking initially like it would cost 700 most of my friends and mates were still interested. most didn't end up buying it as it was junk when it was released.
so i spent 400 on my htc hero and spend about 5 a month on credit. most of my data is on wifi when i'm at work, home or most of the locations i meet up with others so i only pay for a tiny amount of data.
the nexus one to me was of no interest as i want my next android phone to have a real keyboard (the htc hero was the cheapest android device i could find to test how i would like android). just a pity that motorola removed themselves from that list with the efuse debacle. htc removed themselves when they started paying ms royalties for every android device sold.
I've got a 4 line family plan (Even More Plus 750 min/mo unlimited nights/weekends/tmobile subscribers), and a home phone on T-Mobile. Even More Plus are all non-contract plans. You pay full price for your phone or bring a phone with you. If you buy from T-Mobile, you can spread the payments interest free over 20 months. I'm saving at least $40/mo on the cell portion compared to AT&T, and saving $15/mo on the landline compared to other big VOIP providers.
You asked about price the parent was paying. It is more relevant what is currently available from T-Mobile and other companies. If you were asking about service, anecdotes are more relevant. I love T-Mobile. But if I was starting from scratch and not wanting a family plan right now, I'd go with Credo Mobile.
Sorry for the uppercase, but this is infuriating: the Google online store was actively refusing to sell the damn phone to more than 95% of the world population!
There are tutorials all over the internet in all kind of languages with complicated and costly (more than US$ 100 on top of the official price) procedures to buy the Nexus One outside the US.
The thing has been available in Europe only after six months and has been frequently sold out for weeks in both stores and online stores. See e.g. the difficulties to buy it in the UK, France, Italy, eastern Europe, etc. from May to the beginning of July.
I've been trying to buy it (from Italy) for months and I've finally found one only three weeks ago thanks to a post on a forum that tipped the right store that had one available.
So before jumping to wrong conclusion, please try to avoid blocking more than 95% of the world population from your store (no jokes about starving African kids, please: Africa is less than 15% of the world population, and not everyone there is busy dying anyway). And keep in mind that people from Europe and some Asian countries get much better than the average American what these thing can do (the first thing I did with mine is installing bash and Python; and, yes, a powerful always-on pocket computer with GPS, constant internet access, camera and all kind of sensors can be programmed to do lots of new unusual useful things).
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
"The bottom line is people like to look at phones in the store." I don't really agree with this lots of people buy blackberrys and Iphones off web sites. I think it was the phone more then the marketing.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
t-m-o-b-i-l-e.c-o-m
Even More Plus...
In related news, Steve Jobs will be holding a press conference on an aircraft carrier to announce "Mission Accomplished".
is one where you learn nothing.
This was a completely successful experiment.
The product, on the other hand...
What kind of discount? Can you do it without contract?
Lots of people mentioning T-Mobile here and NOT giving details.
t-mobile has this thing called a "website" which lists all of their calling plan options (including no-contract plans).
--
codk
I thought the idea was that it was Google's reference phone, vanilla Android with no carrier or manufacturer add-ons. Calling it a failed experiment in online sales completely misses the point.
Come on people, this article quotes shills at Gartner and MS Research. The only statement attributed to Google is:
Fud and fluff, move along.
BZZT! wrong, T-mobile offers significant discounts for just that.
People will go to a store if:
1. They don't know what phone they want.
2. They aren't really sure about a device.
3. They can't find any reviews.
Even more, like what? No service whatsoever in many areas? T-Mo phones typically get no service at all within 20 miles of where I work/live (AT&T and VZW both provide 3G service, T-Mobile SIMs sometimes work but usually just report "no signal". Putting a T-Mo SIM into an unlocked phone causes that phone's IMEI to be blacklisted by the local towers for about 15 minutes, even if you put an AT&T SIM back in.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
As others have pointed out, the lack of marketing was the cause. Given the sales the Nexus One did get, I'd say the sales were pretty good considering they essentially only marketed to the tech elite.
I was actually planning to get a Nexus Two to replace my original iPhone within a year, but since they're abandoning this approach, I guess I'll have to go with an HTC of some sort. The carrier lock-in is a real pain in the ass to get the phone you want though. I think Google could have had something good if they just stuck with it, and marketed it properly. I definitely think Google's more open approach is the way to go, and I'm sorry to see it go.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Am I the only one who is concerned that Google abandoning the Nexus One might spell future trouble for the Android platform? They already said they have no plans for a successor, so the Nexus One will for all means remains the only device that gets new Android versions as soon as Google finishes them. If there is no officially "Google-blessed" other phone in the future with the same capability, this could be bad news not only for developers, who will then lose a valuable testing hardware for new Android versions.
I also believe that the Nexus One was a pretty significant kick in the butt for handset makers and carriers as an Android showcase, not only for new Android versions, but also as some sort of a gold standard hardware-wise which gives them a spec target they should aspire to. It enabled us to tell handset makers and carriers "...see, new Android versions on the Nexus One bring pretty nice improvements, we want those in all the other Android phones as well" and "...see, the Nexus One has pretty decent specs, all Android devices should have least something comparable to this under the hood". This put mindshare pressure on them to make better Android devices and equip them with the latest Android versions.
But now, with the Nexus One being slowly phased out and no spiritual successor on the horizon, I fear that Android device makers will be even more lazy in adopting the latest new Android versions. They are already lagging, but until now, there always was at least the Nexus One to show what we were missing, so the handset makers had some pressure to bring newer Android versions even to older devices. But now? What incentive should OEMs have now to make new Android versions available, the Nexus One was the only one to get them on time and the only one which was even promised to get any update at all.If we now try to put mindshare pressure on them, they can all say "well, we would love to, but this is a lot of work and there is no other phone with the brand new Android version anyway, so who cares?". Look at the slow pace of getting Froyo to Android devices and then tell me you are not even a little bit concerned this might happen...
And without something like a regularly updated hardware gold standard like the Nexus One was, maybe Android device makers will try to bring out more cheap Android devices with subpar hardware, which will give you a pretty crappy Android experience. I think this is what is happening in the Android tablet space at the moment: There is no "gold standard" Android tablet, so a lot of the Android tablets seem to be quickly cobbled together, with crappy specs, which slow them down and make for a poor tablet experience. I have no trust in handset makers that they will not try to make somethink similar in the smartphone area.
Lastly, I think the dreaded fragmentation problem could become much worse if Google no longer has a gold standard device like the Nexus One. Android 3.0 and beyond seem to bring quite significant changes to the Android UI and with the Nexus One, you would get at least one device with the pure, unaltered Android UI experience. But without that, things like Sense UI or Motoblur could become even more prominent and dilute Android, especially when the pressure to provide new Android versions goes down without something like the Nexus One. Also, handset makers could try to hang on to old Android versions they have already tested and deployed much longer, which would mean the new features introduced in new Android versions could be delayed, since none of the device makers bothers to catch up.
Sure, the community can alleviate some of those concerns with custom firmware and stuff. But without a successor to the Nexus One, I fear the need for tinkering will become bigger and bigger and would put a serious damper on the mass appeal and the future growth of the Android platform. I think it is no coincidence that all other smartphone makers either design their own hardware or otherwise put pretty strict definitions even on their hardware (like Microsoft will do with WP7), I think in significant part because of some of the concerns I am having.
What Google has to learn is more basic than that. What Google fails to learn is if you're going to sell something to someone, they expect you to support it with a real person.
I have a Nexus One and I love the phone, but I hate every once of Google's piss poor attempt at supporting it. Asking other Nexus One owners for help is not my idea of company support.
Who cares? I got my Samsung Captivate from AT&T for a mere $99 on Sunday (plus the obligatory 2 year renewal). Beats the multi-hundred dollar price of the Nexus One, and people smarter than me have already figured out how to root it and sideload apps.
I've had it only three days and I LOVE THIS PHONE. Go Android! :)
Necron69
T-Mobile in the USA provides a contract-less plan that is identical to their contract plans but $20 cheaper per month. The $20 savings over the course of a 2-year contract = $480.
Thus, if you count the subsidy savings with T-Mobile that you're not paying with the contract-less plan, the Nexus One actually costs $530 - $480 = $50. Cheaper than any other subsidized smart phone.
There was a large upfront cost for this phone, but over the term of the 2-year contract it's cheaper than any phone you could get through the carrier.
Android is immature and unstable, and run battery life far too fast. Many features are not polished to a usable and convenient level.
This is why the Nexus One failed.
People say this about T-Mobile. Then again people complain about dropped calls on AT&T in large areas like SFO, NYC, and LAX.
If you have T-Mo reception issues in your area, you shouldn't use them. But for many people, we get fine reception, better pricing, and excellent customer service from T-Mo. After my last fiasco with Houston Cellular AKA Cingular AKA AT&T, I'd never go back.
I can't remember the last time I had reception issues in a large city with T-Mo. I've traveled all over Texas, and even in rural areas reception is usually reasonable. The only 2 times T-Mo hasn't had reception was in rural Illinois and rural New Mexico.
If your IMEI is being blocked by towers just for having a T-Mo SIM in it, even after it is removed, then it isn't T-Mo's fault. Take it up with that tower's owner. I'm not suggesting you test this, but if this block also blocks access to 911 emergency calls, then perhaps you could get their attention very quickly by notifying the FCC.
I do buy phones online.
First, I read the reviews so I don't buy junk but don't depend on opinions of people too much.
Then I visit my local vendor. I ask them to show me the phone. I look it over, see if I like it. Then I ask for the price, then smile and "thanks for your time, but sorry, not at that price".
Then I look up a good offer online and buy.
Getting the phone in my hands is an essential step. No photo or review does justice. But it doesn't mean I have to buy it where I look at it.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
If you had said "no provider except Tmobile (which isn't acceptable in my area) ..." then I would have read on without commenting. But saying no provider does this is patently inaccurate.
Google reported they sold 100,000 of these phones in three months, which was their break even mark which was easily passed. That's impressive for any new phone release, and for one without any marketing/advertising program that's incredible.
It was, of course, an experiment in a alternate sales method, a very clever one indeed. Google is not out of pocket in the excercise and now has meaningful real-world data to use.
What's even better for them is the method appears to have failed, at least if their competitors are as stupid as bloggers, they won't try it themselves. So unless the definition of failure has been updated to anything that doesn't dethrone the iPhone then the Nexus One is a kick ass bit of kit that's done very well.
I would not be suprised if Google tries again, but this time with a full-on hype machine, now that they've shown this kind of thing to work. Why yes, I'll be sure to link back to this post in a suitably haughty fashion declaring I predicted this before.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I know quite a few people with a Nexus One, and wonder how many were actually sold. Does anyone have the real figures? Based on my sample size, they can't be that low. In addition it has more activitiy on xda-developers than most other phones.
Thanks for the anecdote.
I might be taking a road trip from California to New York this summer to see my dad, and was wondering how my T-Mobile service would be. I have an unlocked Touch Pro 2, and was considering getting an At&T SIM for the trip.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I paid $500 for a Nokia n900 and get about $20 off my monthly t-mobile payment vs. what I would have paid with a subsidized phone. It evens out in the length of the two-year contract for a subsidized phone. And meanwhile I can plug in foreign SIMs when I go overseas, so I don't have to carry a separate unlocked phone. And could I really have resisted a phone that can run a full Debian distribution in a chroot while it also runs its own, mostly Open Source, non-Java, platform?
But I'm not the normal consumer, am I?
Bruce Perens.
I think Nexus One wasn't a failure at all. It may have been unsuccessful in the market, but I'm pretty sure it's purpose was to provide competition so that other phone manufacturers would get off their lazy asses and make phones that didn't just barely cover the minimum spec for Android. When the Nexus One came out, suddenly you had high end hardware coming for Android, instead of just the crappy G1 and Hero. After Nexus One's specs were announced, you had a whole gamut of high performance hardware announced and produced. Left to their own devise the hardware manufacturers seemed happy to relegate Android to the Windows Mobile hell of bare minimum specs.
I think that's iPhone's biggest strength is that its specs are great, and theoretically any machine running their iOS should be have fairly high performance (not necessarily true as anyone who tried iOS 4 on a 3GS will tell you). I think Microsoft is doing the right thing by specifying a very high level minimum spec for WP7. It's clear they're going straight for iOS's jugular and not messing around with low- and mid- level smartphones. I think they've learned a lot spending all that time in Windows Mobile limbo.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
...I want to start failing.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Just one geek's perspective here, but the Nexus One wasn't attractive enough for me.
I'm switching away from Verizon to T-mobile so that I can choose what phone hardware I run (actually, I'm about to throw in the SIM card once I can find where I put the envelope). I picked up a G1 for cheap on eBay and I'm excited to be running a mostly-free phone.
Of course, the software on the G1 isn't completely free. And neither is the software running on the Nexus One. Given that the latter was going to cost several times the cost of the former, I figured I'd just go the cheaper route.
Android is an okay OS in my book, but I'm still hoping for a phone running a more mainstream Linux-based OS like MeeGo. Sure, the n900 is about as close as anyone's gotten, but the n900 is still about... $400? Maybe more? And, again, there are still closed drivers and other components required for all of the parts to work properly. So the n900 isn't attractive enough, either.
But MeeGo development is chugging along quite nicely, and Android development isn't stopping anytime soon. For now, I'm going to try installing the Replicant builds on my G1 and see how close we've gotten to a fully-FOSS phone.
coding is life
Horse shit.
I'm sure Google has learned plenty from this experiment.
An experiment is only a failure if you are unable to collect the relevant data.
Form a hypothesis.
Design an experiment.
Run the experiment.
Collect the data.
Apply said data to the hypothesis.
Learn.
That's how these "experiment" things work.
It just didn't provide a conclusion consistent with the hypothesis.
Does anyone have sales figures on the n900? I thought it was continuing to sell pretty well given the size of the target audience. Had it been available for Verizon, I would have purchased it over the incredible.
I've used T-Mobile (through roaming, but they didn't charge extra for it) in tiny, almost-unknown towns in rural northern CA (Somes Bar). I suppose it's still "near an ocean" (2 hour drive), but the population count is like 43 or something.
Of course, I didn't have texts or voicemail (and this wasn't a smartphone, but I'm guessing I wouldn't have had data) but the phone itself still worked.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
So when Google puts out a phone that costs more than similar phones, with a $350 cancelation fee, people wonder what Google is up to. We are told that the Apple iPhone costs $200 to build, so why is Google trying to make a huge profit on a product that is supposed to introduce a new concept in communications to themasses and solidify Googles ad market in the mobile sphere?
Even so, why is Google saying the phone that promoted is not a Google phone? Why are they not providing support. it is like a bank that mails an offer to it's customers, such as credit insurance, and then says that it never made the offer, a third party is responsible. This is the definition of a scam. And that is what the Nexus One was. A flat attempt to scam users.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The experiment was a huge success. That's what I like about Google, they're not afraid to take risks and try things out.
Google tried to directly sell an unlocked phone, badly. They failed and now they say "you can't do that, it doesn't work". Well, they did not try hard enough.
Of course you need retail partners so people can try and see and touch the thing. And you need to have some clear payment options to pay over two years to ease the financial pain.
The phone had virtually no in-store presence, and the staff at the two (corporate) T-Mobile stores I tried basically said that since they don't have one to show and cannot give accurate advice on it, there was no reason for anyone to buy one.
Also, apart from the Blackberries they sell and a few other random (non-smart) phones, none of them offer UMA, which is a deal-breaker for me. Without the UMA option, my signal strength in the two places I use it most (at home and at work) is essentially zero. So, I'm a long-time (going on 10 years now) T-Mobile customer (and was a VoiceStream one before Deutche Telecom bought them and renamed them T-Mobile) kept in place by "Golden Handcuffs", namely a plan they do not offer anyone but that is too good to pass up.. I pay $45/month for 1000 Minutes/Unlimited Texts/Unlimited Data (Via the Blackberry data plan) and free nights and weekends.
it's also because it not only had to compete with iphones & winmo.. it also had to compete with all the other android phones. iphones dont have any other ios competitors.
it just was never The Android phone to get.
The online sales may have failed, but HTC and Google came out with a great piece of hardware. I've had mine for three months now, on AT&T, and wouldn't trade it for any other phones on the market; at least not yet.
It will be interesting to see if it will be the first phone to get Gingerbread (Android 3.0) like it did for Froyo (Android 2.2). The bump up to Froyo is fantastic.
The sad part is that we will see the end of open Android phones; the carriers really don't like people to root their phones and side load apps. Not sure how that effects development on those phones. Normal phone users could care less about that though, and frankly that is who they need to sell phones to.
Looking forward to what Google recommends for the next reference platform going forward past Gingerbread. I'm hoping that they have a dev version of one of the commercial phones that they will sell through dev channels; I'd pay the extra for an open version of the carriers phones.
Sean
Ditto, if it had a keyboard I would have bought it on day one. I agree though many many more people would have bought it had it been marketed. But this geek demands a keyboard and will stick with his G1 till someone better comes out.
Everything about this phone was great, and it shouldn't have died in the tree like it did. I was really excited to get one and even had a "free upgrade" through tmobile.
The reason it died is not because people didn't want to buy it online. Did you see how they were selling it online? It was just too damn confusing and this is coming from someone who has been developing confusing sites for 13 years. I couldn't understand if I was going to be buying the phone or signing up for new service. I couldn't tell exactly how much I was going to spend. I also couldn't tell if I would keep my old service. Finally after a few days I spoke with Tmobile, and it was going to cost me roughly $400 with my "free upgrade" plus my monthly bill would increase over $40.00 a month because of th service you had to get.
So no it wasn't any of their silly excuees as to why it didn't sell. Bad and confusing site design, price and forced "upgrades" were the reason. This and the fact that there were several other phones almost as good that were free (no upgrade, no out of pocket) compared to spending over 1200 freaking dollars over a 2 year period extra just to have a new fancy phone.
TruePunk | Games
...it was time to market. Yes, I could have bought it online for £450 but the contract deals are so much more appealing. The UK telcos simply didn't offer it on contract. And then along came the HTC Desire, effectively the same phone, same price, but available on contract. It cut the price down to £100 upfront on a two year contract for £15 a month fee.
The 10 or something past phones I bought here around, including the two I'm currently using, all beg to differ.
Of course, you *might* find some SIM-lock phone sold together with Prepaid SIM (as there's no monthly fee, SIM locking is the only way a provider can make sure that you don't simply throw away the SIM).
But almost all of the Phones are sold non locked and with a stock firmware (no branding or no disabled functions).
(That's also why here in Europe we've been able for a decade to beam photos/music/files/whatever to each other using first IR and then Bluetooth, when iPhone use their Bluetooth only for headsets and can't get files through anything else than syncing with a Steve Jobs-approved copy of iTunes)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Maybe they failed to make much of a splash in the USA, but I live in Germany and I don't know a single person who bought their phone in a store.
All purchases are made online; everyone buys a phone directly and goes with cheaper contracts.
The only people who have subsidized phones are the ones with secondary work phones and even the corporations are starting to re-think their approach.
If Google had conducted the experiment they really spoke of, things might have ended differently. But that's not what the Nexus One was.
First problem: price. Telecoms negotiate for their paid price on a cellphone as a percentage of the MSRP. They do this specifically to discourage unbundled sales of cellphones. Just do the math... an iPhone has roughly $35-$40 additional cost over an iPod Touch: cellular modem, microphone, camera, that's about it. MSRP on an iPhone runs $499-$699 depending on model (eg, how much memory)... over twice that of the comparable iPod Touch.
Why? Because Apple's customer isn't you or I, it's AT&T, and they still want to get a reasonable price from AT&T. So they have to jack up the MSRP of the phone model of their PDA/PMP to unreasonable levels. And that's why few people try to buy them unbundled, even where possible.
Google's experiment needed to fix this: sell the device at a reasonable price, based on comparisons to any other piece of CE gear. They didn't do that. The Nexus One was a follow-up to the Motorola Droid, and they priced it $30 below the Droid MSRP. Why in the world would they do that, one would ask (as I did, right after the N1 was released)... no obvious reason. Well, for a minute or two -- then we find out that T-Mobile will be carrying the N1 too. Thus, the same old, same old pricing structure. In short, while they were advocating direct unbundled sales, they didn't do anything to change the functional cellular model -- you can buy any number of unlocked phones directly from the vendors.
Then there's the second issue: network support. To handle GSM 2G worldwide, you need to support 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz cellular bands. Many phones manage that. But this is a smartphone, it needs 3G support. Which means supporting HSPA on 850MHz, 1700MHz, 1900MHz, and 2100MHz... just to handle AT&T and T-Mobile in the USA. The Nexus One was T-Mobile-only... no AT&T 3G. So this device didn't even properly function as an unbundled phone for US use.
The idea was sound. The implementation is why the Nexus One failed.
-Dave Haynie
When we were living in Southeast Asia, I was impressed by the fact that prepaid data plans cost the exact same amount as postpaid data plans if you used them full time. You could contact the customer service to enable unmetered data access for 24 hours, 7 days, or one month. And the amount debited from your prepaid balance was a prorated amount of the monthly data access charge that postpaid customers would get. No penalty for enabling smaller time periods nor for lacking a contract.
So once I had reliable Internet at home, I switched to a prepaid card and would only enable data for 24 hours if my home Internet was down. Previous to that, I was using tethered GPRS full time for Internet access at home, as it took a while to get ADSL installed to our premises.
In a millisecond world, the nexus was days away.
In a world were there are cell phone sellers on every street corner, the nexus was miles away.
In a world of $100 smarts phone, nexus was hundreds of dollars away.
I think part of the Nexus One was Google getting a more advanced developer phone out to people.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad