Top501 IT: T-Mobile’s G1 vs. The iPhone: Game On!
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By now, most people should know that the first company releasing a smartphone running Google’s Android operating system is HTC. But there are other phone makers in Google’s Open Handset Alliance, and one of these, Motorola, is supposedly putting a great deal of effort into Android. Desktop operating systems are bought on the basis of the available applications, and the Open Handset Alliance (nominal owner of Android) is betting that mobile phones are headed the same way. A geek like me might replace something like the phone application, but I doubt that will benefit the majority of users. What’s more, Android phones should be highly profitable to HTC with gross margins starting at 30% and climbing higher as the firm spreads developmental costs across multiple models. The G1 doesn’t require a desktop software porgram similar to iTunes to add content to your phone. The improved resolution will translate into slightly better pictures that will be larger in file size. One big variable is 3G coverage and how comprehensive T-Mobile’s network is. Examples include replacement home screens, better email clients and additional synchronisation capabilities. The folks at Dell have come up with software for an electronic privacy screen to keep prying eyes off your laptop screen. In money terms, producing that many devices would make the Taiwan-based phone maker NT$7 billion richer in Q4 2008, and NT$18 billion next year. Just as summer inevitably brings a wave of new movies, it just wouldn t be Christmas without a bunch of new cell phones. A flurry of new studies and product releases last week seems to point to one thing: we’re about to enter the perfect storm for mobile marketing.
Motorola is one of the original members of the
If you’re hungering for an Android ‘phone but don’t fancy the look of T-Mobile’s offering even assuming you can
Rumors emerged in August that Google’s Android mobile phone platform - Striving to provide developers with useful information as more and more mobile phone users are expected to download free applications for devices such as the Apple iPhone ( News - Alert ) and Google Android-based HTC Dream or T-Mobile G1, a San Francisco-based company today said it’s offering a free platform to measure app performance.
There was no “boom!” no “one more thing!” And as a result, many (including us) felt a bit underwhelmed, and were quick to interpret the device’s While phones like the hugely popular
Everyone who gave the G1 a quick run-through last week was in reality testing a product still in beta. Because as we ve said repeatedly, Android is now in the hands of its developers (from within Google itself as well as third-parties), who will have unprecedented access to all parts of a mobile phone and a centralized distribution network (Android Market) in order to do things that have only been teased until now. It s all banking on the Market, and its ability to attract grade-A content that will provide even novice cellphone users with many opportunities to greatly customize their phones. To do this Android will need one thing: critical mass, on both the developer and consumer side, in that order with each reinforcing the other. Its pre-release may be sold-out, but on October 22 there probably won’t be campers and local news crews stretched for miles outside of the T-Mobile store. That’s because Google knows who they need to go after first the developers. Silicon Alley Insider says Like the iPhone, the G1 will provide a platform for third-party applications. Google calls it the Android Market Google co-founder Sergey Brin referred to it as the App Store, the name of Apple s software store, during his brief appearance Tuesday where users will be able to download a host of programs. One such program displayed Tuesday was ShopSavvy, which integrates the phone s 3 megapixel camera to take pictures of bar codes on products on store shelves for comparison shopping.
There’s been enough written about the iPhone so I don’t need to rehash the device’s popularity and features. Now that Google’s gotten into the game with the G1 Android Phone (Carrier: T-Mobile): Featuring a touch screen (lacking the iPhone s pinch-and-stretch feature) as well as a full QWERTY keyboard, the G1manufactured by HTC for T-Mobile is the first handset to support Google s much anticipated Android operating system. Still unknown: Whether Google’s (GOOG) Android ‘GPhone’ smartphone operating system an impressive technical achievement will become a commercial success. U.S. carrier partner T-Mobile seems to think it could be: T-Mobile is planning to order between 1.5 million and 2 million units of the first Android-powered phone, the HTC ‘G1′, “including 400,000 to 500,000 to be sold in the fourth quarter of this year,” Taiwanese news site
The Dream phone (G1) was introduced by T-Mobile in September and is manufactured by HTC Corporation. This is the first handset powered by the Android software platform developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance ( News - Alert ). Selling mobile applications can be profitable, but the Android Marketplace is only dealing in freebies at launch - so Handango is offering a more familiar route to market that could be essential for the future of Google’s platform. Mobile-phone-super-OS Android should realise its first physical embodiment towards the end of this month, with T-Mobile (temporarily) claiming that pre-orders of the G1 handset have already sold out and Google parading the Android Marketplace as the one-stop shop for (free) applications. Not all developers will be happy to give their creations away, so the news that mobile software retailer Handango will be listing Android applications is a welcome alternative which demonstrates the advantages of an open platform - particularly for ISVs with the quaint idea of making money from their efforts.
One thing that’s fairly evident, though, is that an upgrade path will have to be fairly regimented (closer to Ubuntu s strict twice-yearly schedule, rather than the release whenever we feel like it model found in other smaller projects) in order to keep all of the members of the huge Open Handset Alliance all on the same page. There will be no folks still waiting for their carrier to release Windows Mobile 6.1, years after it was made available. Android will not and cannot operate like this to keep the Market thriving, all of the developers and users will need to be on the same (regular) release schedule. While they’re taking care of the problems of being open source, they’re also taking care of the same problems that a paid platform like Windows Mobile has. Google has their eyes on the long haul with Android. Which is why reactions to a somewhat scattered UI in the very first implementation is not something they’re worried about too much. This is a platform about further reducing the mobile carriers to raw pipes of data, and giving full control to the consumer. I’m excited to add system-level features to my phone for free, and not just apps that are only allowed to bounce around on the surface. These are the benefits that an open platform will allow developers to provide to Android users, and the benefits that Google hopes all mobile phone customers will come to expect from their phones as a result. This is all banking on the platform being successful, of course, which is obviously up in the air this early on. Would Google mount such a huge undertaking as Android if they were only expecting to be a different flavor of Windows Mobile? That seems hard to believe.
September 29, 2008 (Computerworld) The first cell phone based on the Google -driven Android mobile platform features an iPhone -like touch screen, a full slide-out keyboard and a bevy of built-in Google applications. The new cell phone announced by Google Inc. and T-Mobile USA last week resembles an Apple Inc. iPhone, but it’s the first phone to use Google’s mobile software and features a hidden keyboard. The G 1 shows that T-Mobile has embraced Google’s vision for Internet-style openness on mobile devices, Golvin said. He said customers can download and run almost any program they want without a T-Mobile “stamp of approval.” “That’s fairly disruptive from a market perspective,” he said. “All of T-Mobile’s competitors in the U. S. haven’t really opened up completely to do everything you want on the Internet, with the exception of the iPhone and even there you’ve got some restrictions with the Apple Store.” Google’s Brin said the first application he created for the G 1 involved using its built-in accelerometer. Tossing his phone in the air at the Manhattan event, he said the program monitors how long it takes the G 1 to be caught or hit the floor. “We did not include that one,” he said. “It’s just very exciting for me as a computer geek to be able to have a phone that I can play with and modify and innovate upon just like I have with computers.” Information for this article was provided by Peter Svensson of The Associated Press. Besides providing access to Google search, mapping, e-mail and YouTube video services, the G 1 also will connect to Android Market, where customers can download a variety of applications and games from third-party developers. The phone promises to be a signature handset for T-Mobile, as Apple’s iPhone has become for Dallas-based AT&T Inc. T-Mobile, the U. S. arm of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG, is planning its largest marketing campaign to promote the phone.
The executive, who asked not to be identified, said that future Android phones likely will be more business-focused. “It will be similar to the iPhone, which started more for consumers and spilled over to the enterprise,” said the executive, whose company is already running a business application on the iPhone. Jorge Mata, CIO at the Los Angeles Community College District, a federation of nine schools with a total of 140,000 students and 10,000 workers, said the G1 is a “strong first salvo” for Google in what he described as a ” Clash of the Titans scenario” with Apple and other cell phone vendors. T-Mobile and Google have made it clear that the G1 is “not really for the business user,” said Kevin Burden, an analyst at ABI Research in Oyster Bay, N.Y. But in the future, other carriers could easily offer Android phones with added features, including Exchange, Burden said. Google, like Apple showed last year, could develop a product with a set of features that appeals to an increasing need to be always connected, always online, always at work and always entertained. Google s first phone, called Google G1, was developed in partnership with wireless carrier T-Mobile and handsetmaker HTC. It will go on sale at T-Mobile on Oct. 22 for $179 with a two-year contract.
The data plan for the phone will cost $25 a month on top of the calling service, at the low end of the range for data plans at U.S. wireless carriers. Android, the free software powering the G1, is a crucial building block in Google’s efforts to make its search engine and other services as accessible on cell phones as they already are on personal computers. The company believes it eventually might make more money selling ads that get shown on mobile devices than on PCs, a channel that will generate about $20 billion in revenue this year. Both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also are investing heavily in the mobile market in hopes of preventing Google from extending the dominance it enjoys in searches initiated on PCs. It s also an example of how major tech firms are willing to work with Google to develop a new suite of services for mobile phones. It s important that Google has achieved this milestone (announcing an Android product) because now people can see how it will play in the marketplace, said Charles Golvin of Forrester Research. That is significant but a small step in a long-term strategy for Google. That strategy is to be on as many mobile devices as possible, whether it s through the Android platform or through the several mobile programs it already offers. In an interview, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Google’s aims are broader than mobile advertising. “Generally, we think if there are great (operating systems) out there that let people have great devices and great applications, people use the Internet on their phones much more,” Brin said at the launch event in New York. “And whenever people use the Internet more, they end up using our services, and ultimately, that’s good for our business.
T-Mobile, which launched the new device along with Google Inc. and hardware maker HTC Corp., acknowledged that the phone is geared more toward consumers than to corporate users. The lack of support for Exchange or another robust e-mail system will limit the G1’s usefulness to all but the smallest businesses, said Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates LLC in Northboro, Mass. “You can’t use Gmail in the enterprise,” he said, referring to Google’s e-mail application. Motorola may hope that by teaming with Android the integration between hardware and software will improve. Motorola already has its hands on the Google Android cookie jar, being one of the original members of the Open Handset Alliance, along with HTC, which made the hardware for the The handset, codenamed “Tube,” will reportedly be unveiled at a media event in London. Other handset makers that have introduced touch-screen handsets in the aftermath of the iPhone release include LG, Samsung and T-Mobile, which announced the first phone to come with Google’s Android operating system, the touch-screen G1, earlier this week. T-Mobile’s G1 is the first cell phone to use the Android operating system. Its designer, Google Inc., expects developers to write applications for it. T-Mobile this week unveiled the first phone to use the open-source Android operating system developed by Google and its partners.
“Motorola has long been an advocate of open software for mobile platforms. Today, we’re excited to continue this support by joining Google and others in the announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and Android platform. Motorola is a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, which developed the latest buzz, Google’s Android. Therefore, it is well positioned to come up with an Android handset. It already has products on several platforms: its own Linux-based MOTOMAGX, Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1, Qualcomm’s BREW, Symbian, and the Symbian-based UIQ. Motorola clearly needs to focus, as it has been losing market share and slipped from the No.2 to the No.3 position, with 10% share in the global handset market. “We’re excited about the innovation possibilities on Android, and look forward to delivering great products in partnership with Google and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA),” a Motorola spokesperson said, in a statement to BetaNews.
Now that HTC and T-Mobile are about to release the G1 phone, Motorola has confirmed to BetaNews that it will actually dive into the Android waters. In a statement to BetaNews this morning, Motorola confirmed industry speculation that it is working on products for the Google-spearheaded Android platform. A Motorola spokesperson refrained from commenting on published reports that the company is boosting its Android team from 50 to 350 developers. While HTC’s “Dream” phone is one and the same as the Android-based G1 phone that T-Mobile rolled out last week, Motorola and the other handset partners in the OHA have held back from making Android product announcements.
T-Mobile USA is releasing the G1 in the United States on Oct. 22, and HTC expects to sell between 400,000 and 500,000 units in the fourth quarter. Though HTC’s sales projections are well below those of Apple’s iPhone 3G, a main competitor, it has been rumored that Motorola may be launching Android phones in the near future, further boosting the OS’s market presence. The G1 is expected to be available Oct. 22 and is being seen by many in the industry as representing
By every demonstration I have seen and the reviews that I have read, the indications are clear that the Android software is smartly-built, innovative technology, and the Google applications on board are awesome. Other words I have heard to describe it: stable, fast, easy to use, clean, fun. All that is great but at every step and in every way, this phone was pitched and launched as a competitor to the iPhone. Is this an answer to the iPhone? At this point, no. It isn’t even strong enough to be a serious competitor. The devil is in the details: music from Amazon…? No Outlook or other enterprise email access. (I read that Motorola has GoodMail programmers working on apps for this phone. The phone’s release date depends on how soon the Federal Communications Commission certifies that the Google software and the HTC phone meet network standards. Executives at all three companies are hoping to announce the phone in September because they would benefit from holiday season sales.” Other winners included a taxi location app, a price comparison app, and a settings manager than changes your settings based on your location.” Google has also started talking about their plans for Android Market, which is similar to the App store used for the iPhone.
The iPhone has created a flurry of activity in the handset market; more handset makers are moving towards the
Here is a look at how G1 and the iPhone compare to one another. In contrast to Apple that built its own phone, operating system, and content ecosystem, the G1 is The G1, along with 3G support, also offers Wi-Fi, GPS, a full QWERTY keyboard and a host of other features. It also enables access to the Android Market, the open-source Linux mobile operating system’s application platform where third-party developers can create and offer applications to be downloaded to the device. The potential universe of T-Mobile G1 applications is huge. It’s too early to know whether mobile application developers will flock to the Android platform. At least for now Apple has the upper hand when it comes to the device.
According to Taiwanese news site All eyes are on Google and their first mobile phone. HTC, the company that actually makes these babies, is expecting to produce 2 million T-Mobile G1 units. T-Mobile says that there is overwhelming demand for the first Google Android phone and the company is offering up more T-Mobile G1 for pre-order. Apparently, T-Mobile USA has stopped taking orders for T-Mobile G1, the first phone based on Android software. Last week, the carrier said that customers who preorder the device will find it at their doorstep as early as Oct. 22. Supposedly, T-Mobile has run out of its first batch of units within a week of the G1 announcement. This could be an indication of demand to come for the G1 phone.
As it turns out, it won’t be a legitimate G-phone; just Google’s software, called Android, running on a HTC phone with T-Mobile as the carrier. It is scheduled to be available this month, but watch out for delays as the developers get their act together. Google’s phone goes on sale on Oct. 22. Selling 400,000 to 500,000 phones in 71 days would be about half the rate at which Apple sold its first iPhone in the summer of 2007 1 million shipped in 74 days. That’s a solid pace, and if T-Mobile can hit the 1 million mark in early 2009, that’s a real commercial market that Android developers can get excited about. T-Mobile USA showed off the G1, a phone that, like Apple Inc.’ s iPhone, has a large touch screen. It also packs a trackball, a slide-out keyboard and easy access to Google’s e-mail and mapping programs. Gartenberg, who was at the New York press event, handled the G1 and called it a very nice device. There are a lot of things in here that are very cool, he said. That includes the iPhone-like feel of the touch screen, but also the slide-out QWERTY keypad. That should appeal to people who prefer typing out messages on physical keys, such as business users. Gartenberg doesn t think this first version of the Google phone will appeal to businesses. Due out in November, the Storm will be the first Blackberry to feature a touch screen. This on is aimed primarily at the consumer market (the iPhone beater ), but the Storm will be a big test for RIM. RIM s strength has been the combination of good hardware design (everyone loves that keyboard) coupled with a superb user interface. This is RIM s opportunity to demonstrate that they can translate their legendary design expertise onto a new platform with a new user interface. We can assume the hardware will be sturdy, but the big question will be whether they can either emulate or improve upon the iPhone user interface while holding on to the security and management features that have made Blackberry a stalwart in the enterprise market. A touch screen device will fill a hole in their consumer product line, and possibly take some of the iPhone pressure off the IT departments.” Gadget geeks and financial analysts were relatively impressed with the G1 as a first attempt by HTC using a brand-new operating system. The candy-bar design is much thicker than an iPhone because it has both a touch screen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard two features that many power users insist upon.
“There’s about 3 billion mobile phones with about a billion new ones every year,” Page said. Describing the G 1 as a powerful computer, he said that “when you think about that in terms of access to the Internet, being able to really use the Web, to use the applications we all make and really work hard on, I think that’s a tremendous, tremendous opportunity.” The G 1, made by Taiwan’s HTC Corp., features a 3-megapixel camera, a trackball for onehanded use and a high-resolution touch screen that slides to reveal a full keyboard. Samsung’s new breed of camera phone is slated to be released with Scanbuy barcode-reading software built in, allowing consumers to scan barcodes in stores and receive up-to-the-nanosecond information about the product, including reviews, prices at other stores, even promotional spiffs. This isn’t an entirely new idea (a year ago Motorola’s statement today fell short of confirming published reports, beginning with yesterday’s report in TechCrunch, that Motorola is now in the process of beefing up the Android development team by some accounts, as much as seven-fold. Some observers are now touting Android as a salve to the financial pains Motorola has sustained in its inability to find a successor to its previously successful RAZR phone. Last April, Motorola reorganized its mobile phone arm into product teams one for lower-end, voice-only phones, and the other for feature and smart phones that each combine hardware and software specialists.
Motorola plans to leverage the Android platform to enable seamless, connected services and rich consumer experiences in future Motorola products,” according to Zander. Motorola began moving into the Linux phone market early this year with the announcement of the Motorola U9, a phone supporting the Linux Mobile Foundation (LiMo) platform. It continues to sell phones phones such as the Motorola Q which use Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform. Motorola rival Nokia is now rumored to be exploring Android, despite its acquisition of mobile OS maker Symbian earlier this year, In buying Symbian, Nokia also turned over Symbian development to a multi-vendor group called the Symbian Foundation. In embracing Google’s open Android platform for cell phones, T-Mobile can reinvent itself as an ideal mobile carrier. As the first U.S. carrier to release a handset that runs Google’s ( GOOG ) open Android platform, T-Mobile is trying to break with the past and seize the opportunity to emerge as a consumer hero among carriers.
The G 1 is not for mainstream audiences but is meant for a certain type of customer valuable to T-Mobile, said Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin. That customer is “very similar to an iPhone adopter, but who is even more of someone for whom the Internet on the go is a vital piece of their lives,” he said. Golvin said the G 1 is a welldesigned device, but it is “not going to cause a stampede of users from Verizon and Sprint and AT&T over to T-Mobile.” Other carriers, including AT&T, have plans for handsets that run Android. Google sees selling ads on mobile devices as potentially even more valuable than its current focus on office- and home-bound computers using the Internet. The touch-screen device, developed by Google, T-Mobile and HTC to The Android team brought forward a design that, while based on Linux, is
I think that Android s apps will be broader and more diverse, simply because Google and T-Mobile will not put restrictions on what people can and cannot publish as an application, unlike Apple, who has on several occasions removed apps due to inappropriateness, copyright infringement and direct competition with an Apple application, said Woodall, an iPhone user of 10 months. Nokia takes the opposite approach: when the competition demonstrated threaded messaging, Nokia Labs banged out a patch to add the functionality to S60 phones within weeks. The most popular applications for S60 are almost all enhancements - not applications as Apple understands them - but essential to the success of the Symbian platform, and Android. That’s not to say that money can’t be made from iPhone applications - one developer has reportedly made $250,000 in a couple of months from his puzzle game Trism, but trivial games won’t sell the platform. T-Mobile has already made plans to use Android as well. Xconomy has a related interview with a member of the MIT team that
The ability to add third-party applications to the G1 from the Android Marketplace is one of the most appealing aspects of the phone (as it is with the iPhone). The application pictured in this slide is a special version of Google Street View for Android. When you move your phone, the Street View scene moves with you. Other Android apps, such as one called Locale, use GPS technology to switch your G1’s ringer to vibrate in a movie theater. Another app, BioWallet, turns the G1’s camera into an iris scanner to help you lock down any sensitive information you might put on the phone. Just like the iPhone, the G1 has an accelerometer that detects the phone’s movement and changes the display accordingly when you’re using apps such as Street View.
Was the company going into the hardware business? What will an Android phone look like? Will it out-cool Apple ’s (AAPL) iPhone? And so on. The average consumer, who has been preoccupied with the iPhone, and to some degree the BlackBerry, when it comes to the mobile Internet, just couldn’t seem to get his head around Android, which was actually a work in progress until now. Two million units doesn’t seem much when compared with Apple’s original plans to sell 10 million iPhones. It is important to note that the G1 is the first Android-powered phone on the market and something tells us we’ll see more smartphones powered by Google’s mobile OS released in the coming months. There are just enough geeks out there that look forward to a “project” phone that has no Microsoft or Apple smell. The G1 smells like good Open Source, despite its tight ties to Google Services. To the company whose motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” I would say, “You first.” No enterprise email capability is probably the best evidence that it was rushed out the door… I mean, they can’t be serious about pushing a Google Apps-only strategy on enterprise email users and think that this will fly at all, let alone be a viable long term solution. If it would have launched the phone a year ago, it could have gotten away with this, but now, with Apple and every other smartphone supporting Exchange email, it is a gaping hole as conspicuous in its absence as a missing nose. For all of the hullabaloo about Android’s impact on Apple, Google’s efforts appear to be targeted directly at Microsoft’s Exchange, a multifaceted e-mail server software, says Pablo Perez-Fernandez, a wireless analyst for Global Crown Capital, a San Francisco boutique investment firm. “The tight integration of Google’s mobile applications and business services, such as maps, Gmail, calendar and search, essentially eliminates the need for an Exchange server for a wide range of companies,” Perez-Fernandez says. Google is hoping there’ll be a range of Android handsets over the next few years, driven by the breadth of applications available on the platform. This premise comes from the desktop world, where we all use Windows because it runs the software we want - try changing and you find that the driver for your Twiddler won’t work, or your Wavefinder is now reduced to being a designer lamp.
Given that As a competing platform for reaching a large number of mobile phone users, Android ( News - Alert ) is likely to attract significant attention from third-party developers. The Android OS is designed to assure that Google will succeed as the medium for advertising moves from Internet to mobile. Finally a thought you absolutely have not heard anywhere else: Though Google is pushing this as an OS for smartphones, the new Google Internet smart search auto-complete functionality will certainly benefit users on a standard 12-button phone trying to do searches. 90+ percent of the phone market consists of those 12-button phones. While innovation has been stifled in the mobile space for a long time due to arcane (and usurious and ultimately self-defeating) telco rules and restrictions, Android means that anyone with a dream and a development kit can create new mobile applications for other Android phone users.
Linux Mobile please. I think that using or even pushing the ‘Android’ os to the phones such as the razor will definatly help push the services/offerings of the phone providers. Even if you can’t type as easy, or even have a touch screen on a razor, it will definatly help the users of such providers as metropcs. That currently have no’smart’ phones available to use on their service. Even though I have heard of some people changing firmware on some of the smart phones to work on these smaller providers, the functionality is very limited. While Android needs acceptance from U.S. telecom carriers to take off, the platform’s biggest market could be in Asia, especially in countries like India where phones are unlocked and users have the choice to switch devices easily. With no sign of carrier support in India or Korea, it is clear that service providers in those countries are adopting a wait-and-watch stance. T-Mobile’s G1, which is based on the Google-driven Android platform, is geared more toward consumers than to corporate users. Big companies need to stay current on devices like the G1, if only so they can respond to employees who bring them to work, said a networking executive at a major U.S. corporation. Applications will be essential to deliver on the mobile Internet’s promised experience. If T-Mobile reflects the spirit of the Android platform and the Internet by allowing consumers the freedom and flexibility to do what they want, its service will embody an emerging trend customers have grown to want: Openness. The T-Mobile G1 is our opportunity in the U.S. to accelerate the mass adoption of the mobile Web, by unleashing Google innovation with a unique software experience that mobilizes the Google services hundreds of millions of consumers rely on every day, said Cole Brodman, chief technology and innovation officer, in the T-Mobile press release. The T-Mobile G1 will be released Oct. 22 in stores across the country, the company announced last week. Google also made its debut as a cell phone software provider linked with T-Mobile.
“Now, HTC Dream G1 has got some leaked images which have been floating around the Internet before the launch date,” the post says. “In the picture, the HTC Dream G1 handset seems to have a pretty unique design, which its bottom has a slight tilt and a trackball is found there too. This adds extra length which tends to make it easily to poke out while it’s in the pocket.” A T-Mobile spokesperson who preferred to remain nameless said that such comments are rumors that prompt no comment from the company. The spokesperson said the only details released about the new phone have to do with the timing of its launch. Brant Castellow, a regional sales executive at Correlagen Diagnostics Inc. who also handles IT tasks for the Waltham, Mass. -based genetic testing company, uses an iPhone 3G for various business functions. He plans to check out the G1, but he said his initial impression of the phone is that “it looks a little quirky and is not that sophisticated.” Some IT managers are preparing to support the G1 within their organizations, anticipating that end users will buy the new phone themselves and then want to use it for business purposes. Whether the G1 will offer native encryption or other basic security capabilities “remains an unanswered question,” Gold added. Locking the phone to T-Mobile “is a problem, absolutely,” especially for potential business users, he said. In a recent survey of 290 North American businesses that Gold conducted, only 8% of the respondents reported that they use T-Mobile as a carrier.
Just as the Apple iPhone is bolted in the U.S. to the AT&T network, the Simply put, it will not be in the spot light long enough to impact the market like the iPhone has. According to each of the phone s wireless carrier s Web sites, both phones have a touch screen, Web browser, music player, e-mail, GPS, customizable home screen and the ability to connect to Wi-Fi and EDGE. Both have digital cameras, but G1 s is 3 mega pixels while the iPhone has only a 2 mega pixel. Like the iPhone, the G1 has a high-resolution screen, making it easier to browse Web sites that haven’t been specifically adapted for a cell phone.
I think compared to iPhone it will do poorly, but not because it isn t a good phone, but because in like two months another Android phone will be out, and the G1 will be old news, Woodall said. If you pre-order a G1 now through October 21st you will get your Android phone on November 10th. There are no guarantees with these delivery dates. That the T-Mobile G1 is an initial hot selling item was a safe bet. Would you be tempted by an Android ‘phone with a similar form factor to Motorola’s successful Razr series, or does the platform need a QWERTY keyboard as seen on the G1 in order to be fully utilised? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
The phone is handsome and is operated by a touch screen and a slide-out keypad. It runs on a software platform that Google developed called Android. China Mobile may become the first Asian carrier to distribute a phone based on Google’s Android software, according to numerous reports. Breaking into mobile phones is a huge opportunity for Google because the field is wide open, featuring an amalgam of carriers, software firms, handsetmakers and a cadre of third-party developers. In the next-generation mobile phone deployment environments, the reliability and security benefits provided by microkernel-based OKL4 are essential. The combination of open source software, third-party applications, and Internet connectivity represented by Android is indicative of this factor. OKL4 is strategically positioned as the optimal software architecture for next-generation mobile devices as it focuses on the specific requirements of mobile phones. It also uses proven high-performance microkernel technology, and builds on an open source code base which strengthens its position even more.
Devices work a heck of a lot better, and today’s mobile devices now come tricked out with GPS, Wi-Fi, cameras, and a host of other features that the old four-function flip phones of yore could only dream of. People are changing their use of mobile technology, too. Fully 17 percent of households are ditching their landlines for mobile phones, and Nielsen Mobile predicts that the number could jump to 20 percent by year’s end. While it’s not a big surprise to anyone that teens are leading the mobile revolution, I was amused by a recent Harris Interactive study found that nearly 60 percent of teens credited their mobile phone for improving their lives and that four out of five teens carry mobile devices (a 40 percent jump from 2004).
Wired is reporting that China Mobile, which has over 410 million subscribers, may jump first at the prospect of landing an Android phone in Asia having previously sought to get an HTC-made device into the market before the end of the year. Android hype reached fever pitch last week with “Companies could run on the G1 and Google Apps exclusively,” Perez-Fernandez says. While Google is a long way from knocking the Windows machine off its game, Perez-Fernandez thinks that Android “should be a big boost to HTC.” The analyst predicts that 650,000 units will get shipped worldwide during the fourth quarter, thanks to T-Mobile’s simultaneous launch of the G1 in Europe and another Android smartphone launch in Japan by NTT DoCoMo. His forecast calls for HTC to ship more than 3.7 million Android units in 2009. The geek community. It wasn’t a coincidence that at launch, Sergey Brin came on stage on Rollerblades bragging about his accelerometer phone-toss app that he wrote himself. This first release is all about getting developers into Android, and giving them a similar open dev environment that Larry and Sergey will be the first to tell you they couldn’t have built Google without. The iPhone didn’t get that until version 2.0, many firmware releases later and it’s still not nearly as open as Android will be. (The iPhone also couldn’t reliably hold a call without dropping for many until version 2.1, but that’s besides the point.)
NEW YORK The first phone that harnesses Google Inc.’ s ambition to make the Internet easy to use on the go was revealed last week, and it looks a lot like an iPhone. The result allows users to see images of locations and navigate the view by moving the phone. Another new Android tool developed by Amazon. com Inc. takes aim at the iPhone and Apple’s iTunes service. I don t know about you, but I don t plan to change my brand of gasoline when I buy a new car. We wait patiently for the day when this unholy alliance of handset manufacturers and cellular carriers is finally broken and the handset market can finally develop as it should. In the meantime, here s the Christmas handset lineup, the carriers who will be offering them, and their prospects in the enterprise. While Apple has shown itself to be even more draconian than the cellular carriers when it comes to controlling their customers, the iPhone is still setting the standard for Web-enabled handsets. Business users are pressuring their IT departments to support iPhones, but the lack of centrally-managed systems for device provisioning, software maintenance, and a fundamental inability to lock-down the configuration leaves the iPhone as a great choice for your kids but a lousy choice for your vice presidents. As for winning over other smartphone users, remember: There is substantial overlap between mobile users whose needs demand a keyboard and users who require enterprise email access. Those who have shunned the iPhone for this reason will simply await the new Blackberry models (which are reliable and sexy). In spite of these early issues, you really have to hand it to Google. Google gives away this OS for free, so long as they can serve ads through it. Google understands that there are more people in this country that are between 18 and 35 than there are over 65. This demographic wants to interact with the Internet in real time, always on, at their whim and leisure. They don’t want to carry a 13- or even 3-pound device around to do it. Google sees the potential and knows that serving this audience in the way this audience desires is the next great frontier for advertising. Enterprise deployment tools and support for exchange are needed to spur widespread corporate adoption of the G1, Mata said via e-mail. He added that for now, at least, the new phone “is not as sexy as the iPhone.” Mata said his team will begin supporting the G1 as soon as it’s available. The built-in QWERTY keyboard will make the phone useful for online discussions, he noted, and the G1 “seems to be a device that will evolve to meet the needs of our staff.” This version of this story appeared in Computerworld’s print edition. Unlike the iPhone, BlackBerry and most other high-end smart phones sold in the U.S., the G1 has a very limited ability to connect to corporate e-mail servers. That means the device’s initial market is likely to be consumers.
Just as the iPhone is optimised for iTunes, the G1 is optimized for Google. Google has customized its services for the G1, going so far as embedding shortcuts for the Google home page, Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and other Google properties directly onto the phone’s desktop. The G1 also uses an “online presence” feature to let you know which contacts are available for a Google Chat or Talk session. On the back of the G1 is a 3.2-megapixel still camera (no video support); it’s a touch higher in quality than the iPhone’s 2-megapixel camera. Inevitably, users will compare the G1 to Apple Inc.’ s second-generation iPhone 3G, which includes Exchange support and other enterprise-friendly features. HTC is a former contract manufacturer that has aggressively entered the fray of branded handsets and which we spotlighted in a feature story (” Beating Apple’s New iPhone to the Punch,” June 23). RIM has been churning out new products with great features and looks to be targeting the consumer segment. It recently doubled its global smartphone market share to 17.4%. One key advantage RIM has over Apple is its positioning in the enterprise segment with its killer push mail application. Its operating system is No.2 worldwide with a 17.4% market share. This is another stock that has suffered a terrible drop. I am holding on, though.
HTC expects to sell between 1.5 million and 2 million phones powered by Google’s Android operating system by the end of 2009, according to a report in the Taiwan Economic News. HTC sources say they expect to sell 1.5- 2 million Google Android OS phones. It is also believed that Motorola is getting ready to launch its own Google Android OS phones. The official confirmation of Motorola’s plans for Android products should come as no surprise, really, since Motorola acted as one of the OHA’s founding members upon the organization’s launch back in November of 2007, along with fellow cell phone makers HTC, LG, and Samsung.
Motorola may be switching its tagline from “Hello Moto” to “Hello Android” as the struggling device maker may be latching on to the next big thing in mobility to boost poor sales. The Washington Post, citing an Android developer approached by a headhunter to join Motorola’s Android team, reported that Motorola is assembling a team of up to 350 Android developers to kick-start its mobile business. That will bulk up Motorola’s Android team from the 50 it has today working on the open-source Linux mobile operating system. Motorola is hoping to stem its recent
Motorola also happens to be a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, so we know it has more than a passing interest in the new mobile operating system from Google. China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo and Japanese telecom KDDI are all members of the Open Handset Alliance, which has made a big push for Android. The G1 will be the first to market running the Android platform. It won’t be the last. LG, Samsung, and other OEMs are members of the Open Handset Alliance, and are probably already working on Android handsets of their own.
Last week, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA announced that on Oct. 22 it will begin selling the first phone with the Android OS, the G1, which is manufactured by High Tech Computer of Taiwan (2498.Taiwan). With the first availability of an Android-based phone is only weeks away, it’s my guess that T-Mobile’s G1 phone will be the next big “must-have” gizmo for today’s techno geeks. The carrier, which promised delivery on the Oct. 22 launch date to customers placing advance orders, has sold through its initial allotment and has stopped taking advance orders.
HTC - a premier Taiwanese ODM who designs a large number of popular handsets which are sold rebranded by major carriers like: Orange, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, O2, Vodafone, AT&T, Alltel, Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility. (the T-Mobile G1 was originally conceived as the HTC Dream.) HTC, the hardware maker of the Google Android-based The company said it expects to sell half-a-million G1s through Christmas, and according to reports yesterday, T-Mobile will order as many as 2 million G1 units from HTC, maker of the device.
The device hits U.S. stores Oct. 22 and heads to Britain in November and other European countries early next year. The phone will be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third-generation wireless data network. T-Mobile said it will begin selling the G 1 on Oct. 22 for $179 with a two-year contract. The phone will be sold in TMobile stores only in 21 major U. S. cities where the company has its faster, third-generation wireless data network.
At $179, the G 1’s price is $20 less than the least expensive iPhone in the United States. The G 1, with its free An- droid operating system, is one of the most visible signs of Google’s push into the wireless world, a relatively untapped realm for the company’s lucrative online advertising business. To properly look at the Dream phone, it must be done in two distinct parts: The Google Android Operating System, and the actual telephone hardware. All the buzz in the market is the new Dream phone running the new Android OS from Google ( GOOG ). Just when I was about to start learning more about my new phone, the bailout talks started and you know that requires our utmost attention because it involves money. It’s not everyday that $700 billion is on the table, which can cause you to put down any gadget and jerk your knees. We can’t put our gadgets down for too long, because they keep beeping and popping up messages for all kinds of reasons. They need downloads, updates and syncing. Before you know it, it’s time to upgrade to something new. I had been waiting and waiting on Google to announce its phone or software or whatever they had up their sleeves.
It s about creating a critical-mass open-source ecosystem. Even if they fail to sell a ton of handsets, they’ve already put pressure on all the carriers and phone makers by the fact that they’ve created a free alternative that does not have to win to impact the players in this industry. Of course, all of these arguments can be debated, but there’s one thing that no no one can argue with: You don’t take Google lightly. In the meantime, a marketing a phone whose primary features are tied to data hungry Google applications through the carrier with the poorest 3G coverage epitomizes the fundamental disconnect between marketing and operations that has characterized the cellular industry.” And, finally, in mobile networks, open can mean using a phone and its applications on any carrier’s compatible network. Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in California’s Silicon Valley who has spent most of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future article topics. Reach her at
Some include ShopSavvy, a program that turns your phone into a barcode scanner able to read UPC codes and deliver instant price comparisons and PedNav, a location-aware application that helps you find nearby public transit options and walking routes. These mobile applications will be available through Android Market - a competitor to Apple’s App Store. “It’s not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and OS handcuffs. It’s about giving phone makers shackled to Symbian and Microsoft’s phone OS the chance to build with something different and better and free. At least that’s what
The number of iPhone mobile applications (accessible via Apple’s App Store) is growing every day. Apple’s total control over the iPhone can also be bad because Apple can choose to exert too much control over what applications run on the iPhone and bar those that it doesn’t like, “The key is going to be what app developers are going to do for it,” said Ross Rubin, an analyst with NPD Group. “They didn’t have a lot to show today.” Apple launched a similar store for the iPhone this year but keeps much tighter control over what applications are available. It has blocked programs that compete with its own.
The G1 won’t connect to Apple’s iTunes store, but one of the initial applications will be a music store from Amazon.com Inc., which will let users download songs directly to the phone. Andy Rubin, senior director of mobile platforms at Google, said users will be able to read Word documents, PDFs and Excel spreadsheets on the G1, which is slated for release in the U.S. on Oct. 22. The absence of Exchange support provides “a good opportunity for third parties” to develop applications that are compatible with the Microsoft technology, he said. The G1 has a slide out QWERTY keyboard with a full touchscreen that has pre-installed Google applications including Gmail, Google Search, Maps Street View, Calender and Gchat, according to the T-Mobile Web site. The T-Mobile G1 has a visual contact list that grabs contacts associated with your Gmail and Google Talk accounts and Google Calendar.
All direct dealers will be selling the T-Mobile G1 when the phone is officially released, Spencer said.
On the other side of the barricade, Nokia, who is not an OHA member, is said to already have an Android team mingling around. Nokia has recently bought the rest of the Symbian platform that it didn’t own already, as the How about putting the GoodMail programmers to work on making GoodMail for Android, and take advantage of Apple’s ( AAPL ) iPhone mis-step that I wrote about previously.) And, not only is there no enterprise email, but you must have a GMail account to get any email at all to the device? This is as heavy-handed as anything Microsoft ( MSFT ) has ever done. I’m no Apple fanboy; I develop for the iPhone, but I’ll also develop Android applications.
There also will be third-party applications available for the Android-powered phones, much like Apple’s iPhone. Helsinki - Nokia (NYSE: NOK) will introduce the company’s first touch-screen phone model to challenge the Apple iPhone next week, Reuters reports, citing two industry sources. The Google Inc. smart phone is now in competition with the 15-month-old Apple iPhone. With the obvious flaws, economic headwinds, and the strong competition (now even HP is getting in the smartphone game with an updated iPaq), there will be no joy from the initial sales results (my fearless prediction: less than 300,000 sold in the first 75 days, compared to 1 million iPhones over the same span). Put all this together and you get a much lower stock price. Longer term, this OS will be something special, the ad business will return, and Google is ever formidable in that they have the brains and the cash to compete in any space they choose. The first generation iPhone sold pretty well, but was only after the debut of tools like push email intended for business use that sales of the iPhone 3G soared. The most important concern for users is consistency of user interface, of operation consistency in how the device works for them.
“The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the ‘dream,’ will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. The company on Sept. 24 reversed that decision, a wise move if you ask me. In terms of price, the US$179 G1 has the edge over iPhone, which costs $244 with an unlimited data plan from AT&T. Both offer GPS and a large touch screen. The iPhone s 3G network is currently in Atlanta, Montgomery, Birmingham and Columbus, according to the AT&T Web site. For existing customers, the iPhone 8 GB costs $199 and $299 for the 16 GB, and the starting price for the G1 is $179, according to their corresponding Web sites.
The new Tube phone is based on Symbian. It has a one-touch interface versus the sleek two-touch interface in the iPhone, and costs €279 ($391) versus The Dream phone is large and clunky and the design is awful, and the product looks and feels rushed. The company is revealing it to an audience that mostly has already found a home in the iPhone, and the sole advantage of a keyboard will not bring them over to this phone.
The phone works with several Internet-based e-mail clients, but it is optimized for Google s Gmail. Other Google products prominent on the phone include Google Maps with Street View useful for pointing out landmarks for the directionally challenged and Google Talk, an instant messaging service for Gmail that can use location-based tools to pinpoint friends. The idea is if you use Google on a phone you are more likely to use other Google products, potentially generating more ad revenue for the search giant. Another phone is expected from Sprint, but a spokeswoman said Tuesday that nothing has been announced, even internally.
Motorola makes some fairly solid hardware; but their cellphone software has been marked by galling suckitude for some time. If they can use android to give their typically solid lower midrange hardware software with higher end features(real browser, email, not sucking, etc.) they could have a very promising product on their hands. As a pioneer in mobile Linux and a founder of OHA, Motorola believes Android is it promises to be one of the most powerful, flexible and customizable open platforms, enabling truly integrated mobile hardware, software and web experiences. Wang told
As computing migrates from the desktop to the palms of our hands, Google is going for the jugular. Google offers over the Internet free software applications similar to those found on Windows Office. Tying these applications to mobile handsets makes them all the more practical and attractive. Google is counting on the device unleashing the creativity of software developers, who are free to write applications for it. Thanks to Google’s recent Android Developer Challenge, the device will get off to a running start. Google told us that priority number one right now with Android is setting the standards by which the project will operate what makes a device Android 1.0 compatible, how often full system upgrades will be offered, and the like.
Android’s Apache license allows carriers and device manufacturers to control their code: Parts o
Will the Google phone hit the stores this year?
The News Prediction Game
Will the Google phone hit the stores this year?
The News Prediction Game![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](wp-content/uploads/268253.png?x-id=2ef94ac2-db20-4b81-80ae-36c0fdbe6a0c)
