Slashdot Mirror
Google Skunkworks Working on 'X Phone,' Reports WSJ
The Wall Street Journal says that Google is not quite content to be just a name printed on certain Android phones, and has set some of the cellphone engineers from Google-owned Motorola Mobility to work on a high-end project known internally as the 'X phone.' The rumored phone, says the article, "is due out sometime next year," and is meant as a technology flagship for Android phones, incorporating more innovative features than typical phones, such as advanced gesture recognition. Some of those features, like a flexible screen, have reportedly already been dropped from the design, though. If the X Phone materializes, a tablet is expected to follow.
It would be real news if they weren't working on a new phone.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Just the thing to call your former spouse on
If it's going to be anything at all like THIS X Phone then I want to pre-order RIGHT NOW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0RqPhr-hdA
And if Google's new phone is successful enough, Samsung and other phone makers can incorporate the design elements into their phones.
Thanks, we were going with the generic ugly slab approach but after reading your comment, we've decided to make it look good.
-- Google xphone team
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I'm pretty sure the only long term plan Google has it to own all the data. Phones and phone OSes are just ways of achieving that.
Maybe in addition to flexible screens, a brain scanner, and antigravity, this Nexus phone will finally feature the latest in high-bandwidth media transfer technology. An unnamed source tells me this wireless technology will take the revolutionary form of a small, fingernail-sized chip that can be easily inserted into and removed from the phone. Many gigabytes of data from the cloud can be stored on the chip and then transfered between the phone and other compatible devices such as phones, tablets, and notebooks. Some media sources have speculated that this pioneering technology may even allow users to access their media when an Internet connection is not available, although experts have cautioned that the technology to implement such a feature will not be available until 2015 at the earliest...
"The only 'intuitive' interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned." — Bruce Ediger
What you wish will never be. Unless you want to suck on your phone, of course. But other than that, there is no interface that won't "get in the way". Until you learn it. Then it will be sublimely easy to use. To you. Not necessarily to anyone else.
The best we user interface designers can do is to try to minimize the number of times you have to poke your finger at your phone to get it to do what you want. Unfortunately for us, we have to do that for 6 or 7 different usage patterns, so nobody is ever happy. Teenagers text exhaustively. Old people want to make phone calls. Geeks want to tether all the time. Somebody in there mostly uses their phone to play games. Somebody else mostly uses their phone as a camera. And everybody thinks every feature they use are the important features and none of the other features are important.
Do we try to make the phone learn you? As it turns out, that's even more obnoxious. About when you've learned where everything is, it adapts, and changes things. Trying to guess what you want is counterproductive, to say the least.
So.... we give you set up options. Move stuff, change stuff, rearrange stuff, until the stuff you use most often is easiest to get to. Or not. You could just leave it alone.
Anyway, quit complaining, or we'll make your next phone shaped like a boob. Intuitive.
It is inconceivable that Google can't release software and technical specs to the OEM and have these phones produced. The only thing I can think of is this is going to be another incompatible version of Android, i.e. most phones are not going to upgrade to it, so the best way to handle the PR is to make it sound like a new special version.
Apple really screwed the pooch by making smart phones look like computers, in terms of the ability to upgrade the software. It would have better to simply have the expectation of upgrading the phone every two years to get an upgrade, with simple updates given between those times. It would have made the carriers much more happy, knowing users would have to sign a new two year contract to get the latest software. Even better if updates were every 18 months so customers would just build up contracts. As it is, I my phone is two years old and still run current OS and has many of the current features. I will upgrade soon because it makes no sense not to if you are paying monthly tarrifs.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
But while Google is known for swift execution on the Web, its new hardware unit has run into hurdles associated with manufacturing and supply-chain management that have caused the company to rethink some initial plans for the X phone, such as using a bendable screen, these people added. The previously undisclosed development effort is a key facet of Google's strategy for boosting the minuscule market position of the cellphone pioneer, based partly on bolstering quality while reducing the quantity of Motorola products.
Motorola is primarily working on two fronts: devices that will be sold by carrier partner Verizon Wireless, such as the "Droid" line of smartphones, and the X phone, these people said. Motorola is also expected to work on an "X" tablet after the phone, the people added. Meanwhile, Google must manage complex relationships with smartphone makers that use its Android mobile-device software—particularly with Samsung Electronics Co., a Motorola rival that has become the No. 1 smartphone maker with Google's help."