No, it's not the Droid phone that Verizon is selling. The reviews I've read of the Motorola Droid phone all say that its equal to the iPhone. Could the G-phone be the first smartphone to beat the iPhone?
The Google phone was out of date before it was even introduced so buy an Android and be glade you skipped that lemon. Ipods, though some what out of date, are also cool.
Google's going to learn a very difficult lesson very soon. They imagine themselves as Renaissance men, but in reality, they're dabblers - they do a lot of things, a few of them quite well, but they have a ton of projects that amount to little more than niche products that few will want - it's a side effect of the 20% time thing they have going - if they let their developers go hog wild a fifth of the time, they're going to end up with things like "Image Swirl" and "Fusion Tables." Microsoft, especially with their online products, lost their focus, and as a result, they ended up with a bunch of relatively useless services and code - I actually cheer on every service that has been canceled under the Windows Live umbrella, because it means more staff for things normal human beings actually use. This article also demonstrates how extremely out-of-touch tech news is with reality. There are comparatively few people who are willing to pay the premium for an unlocked phone just to - OOH, AHHH - be able to switch off between AT&T and TMobile. Further, next to no one cares that it's running a Linux-based OS, or that the source code for the OS is available. They only care about if they have programs that will run on it, and the Android software camp is still pretty spare, especially when compared to the App Store. Why? Because Android developers have to deal with massively different devices. Some might have a physical keyboard. Others might not. Some might have a video camera, others might have just a still camera. Some might have WiFi, some might not. Some might not even have a cellular connection in them! As much as a bunch of tape-glasses nerds might disagree, the iPhone's strength is in the fact that you are dealing with, essentially, the same footprint across a vast array of devices. And to top it all off, because you can essentially put Android on anything, that means any piece of shit hardware that falls off the barge from China could effectively carry the Google branding. This is exactly why Apple fought so hard to kill off the Mac clone market - substandard hardware makes the software that runs on it look substandard as well. Google needs, desperately, to sit back, relax, down a few beers, and decide what they're going to focus on - "everything" isn't a workable answer.
I'm contemplating changing my phone from Tmobile to someone else. So, I went into Verizon and tried both google phones they had. Then, I went into AT&T, and tried the Iphone. Guess which one could load a fully functional version of Google Adwords (ie let me change my bids, etc)? The Iphone. I kid you not.
I hated T-mobile simply because they constantly dropped calls and missed calls. I'm much happier with Verizon.
As an iPhne user, I do hope thet the G-phone is everything Google hopes it will be. To be honest, the iPhone is an awesome device and the service and tech support has been outstanding. Head and shoulders above all my old phones... I just think good competition is healthy. It spurs innovation. The 3GS is not much better than a 3G. The next iPhone needs to have something revolutionary... and not just another megapixel or two on the camera.
Google Phone. The specs are pretty impressive: Much more at the link. Methinks that Apple is going to need something spectacular if they're going to keep up.
I also think Google needs to slow down, but at the same time they are going to force Apple to create a better iPhone, which we all agree would be better for the consumer. Hopefully Android keeps growing and grabs a bigger market share as time goes by. To have this much competition while the mobile market is still relatively new is a great thing.
I'm posting this from my iPhone and I've actually had quite a bit of experience on both current Droid phones as well. The motorolla droid is close competition for the iPhone, better in some areas and lacking in others. The HTC droid OTOH sucks in almost every way. The iPhone is better for all media types and the OS is much cleaner and more refined. The Motorolla Droid has a better camera with a flash, more potential for app development, and a better built in GPS with voiced turn by turn directions. It really is a give and take. I hope the Google phone is better just so the next iPhone will have to step up its game.
The main reason that the Motorola Droid > HTC Hero (sprint) / Eris (verizon) is because the Droid is running on 2.0 and the Hero / Eris is running on 1.6. Of course there is the camera / hardware issue, but that is because the Hero / Eris came up long before the Droid. HTCs line up for the coming year looks great though. I freely admit that I am a huge fan of HTC phones. Having said that I would love to but won't / can't move to an Android based phone until Google allows for syncing with Outlook email / contacts / calendar. I am not ready to put so much of my companies data out there in the cloud by their forcing me to use Google Calendar and Contacts and gmail. Call me a dinosaur, but I prefer as much local control over my data as possible. That "I don't play well with others" is going to be what bites Google in the ass. Hell even Apple learned that lesson. So I hope that Google gets their heads out of their asses and changes on this. Once they do I will gladly jump to an Android powered phone.
I ended up buying a 3GS and gavemy son the 3G iPhone. Now I'm hearing rumors of a 4G iPhone due by summer.
Eh, I wouldn't bet on a 4G iPhone unless Apple's saying "goodbye" to their exclusive deal with AT&T. AT&T's network is not up to 4G at this point, and won't be for another year or more (and then only in a few cities). I don't know where the other cellphone companies are ATM in regards to 4G tech, but AT&T's in no shape to handle it. Putting a 4G iPhone on AT&T right now would be like putting a Ferrari in a bumper car ride: You can use it, but you'll never be able to get the thing much above idle.
The 4G iPhone was rumored to be on Verizon's network in San Francisco a few months ago. It looks like AT&T's free ride is up. Of course, 4G is my term, not teirs. I belive the code used in the article I read was "iPhone 4,1." http://www.product-reviews.net/2009/11/29/iphone-4g-spotted-in-field-testing/ http://mashable.com/2009/10/19/4g-iphone-verizon/
Apple is going to say goodbye to AT&T anyways. It doesn't serve them to just sell the phone on one network.
I would switch carriers if it meant a 4G network and a re-enabled tethering feature like they have in Europe. I absolutely refuse to get an AT&T data card when I already paying them for unlimited data through my iphone. At one point the feature was accessible and then they did a firmware upgrade that disabled it because of AT&T. That is bad business in my opinion and I would pay the $200 fee to not be forced to use their service anymore if I were able to get that one feature back on a Verizon network.
These smartphones look neat, but I can't see spending more than 30-40 USD on one per month. Is it conceivable that they'll get that low in the near future? Or are they focused more on making them faster and slicker and tinier and more obscure apps rather than making them (and their plans) less expensive?
The plans aren't coming down too much. The data networks are expensive and they are trying to expand them and upgrade them all the time. So I imagine the chances of them lowering the price to use those networks aren't very good. $30-40 a month is good for just a voice and text plan. If you want full internet they are going to make you pay for it.
Nexus One has some good things and some bad. OLED screen is shit in sunlight or bright lights. I wonder how that will effect people. Also, why the tiny amount of built in memory. 512K of flash memory? I like the Mini SD port, but I would think a 4GB of memory would have given one a good backup.
I love my iPhone. I've been using Smartphones/PDA's for the better part of a decade and this is, by far, the best hand held device I've ever owned. But, the second it becomes available on Verizon's network, I'll be at my closest Verizon store beating the door down.
So far it's moving towards clusterfuck territory... Seems Google think when people buy phones they'll be happy with email and forums for customer service. Google, it would appear, thinks wrong. Unhappy customers make the most noise and news, and so far the 'superphone' is providing plenty of them.
Apple had large problems on its initial launch of the iPhone in the US. The servers couldn't handle the loads placed upon them from everyone trying to activate their phones at once.
^Thats a little different from not having a customer care line. Apple can have some really shitty customer care, but you can usually find someone to talk to and get some advice from. Googlephone? Email and forums, and maybe they'll get back to you in a couple of days. Teething troubles are to be expected, making life incredibly difficult for those people having the issues isn't.
Exactly. Google's playbook thus far has been to forgo having a human face for technical support, and it's going to bite them in the ass here. Apple simply added more servers and load balancers, and if anything, it was a sign of the phone's tremendous success. It was a technical issue. This is an organizational issue, and a serious one. If Google's going to enter the realm of consumer electronics, with both phones and netbooks with crippled-by-ideology OSes, they have to get human beings whose only job is to wear a headset and go through support scripts. Y'know, just like every other tech company that sells to the public. Nexus One has been, I think, a very nice demonstration of how inflated the ego of Google, as a company, has become. Apple was able to jump into the smartphone market like it did not only because they had retail channels and dedicated and established technical support, but because they also had a game-changing product. Nexus One is...well...an Android smartphone. It's powerful, and it's got a nice screen, and, uh, I guess a trackball for some reason? If anything, it'll only serve to dilute the Android marketplace further with yet another hardware configuration to target.
I get calls from my google adrep at least once a month. It might have to do with the fact that I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with them, but at the same time, we are small fries compared to bigger advertisers. What I'm getting at is that they are not unfamiliar with phone support, just very selective about how they offer it. And I don't blame them! Customers who require the most time are typically the ones you lose money on.
