There’s been unprecedented hype over Google’s forthcoming Nexus One, the phone to shake up the mobile industry? I doubt it but it could give Apple some much needed competition. But why is the Google phone getting so much hype, some people have simply described it as any other HTC phone, yes it is built by HTC, but it’s because it has Google’s full backing that it seems to be creating most of the hype.
Take the rumored upcoming tablet from Apple for example, never before have I heard so many outrageous claims, so many rumored release dates heard from ” Inside and Reliable Sources ” and seen so many mock ups of a device that nobody knows for sure even exists yet. If this “Tablet” was rumored to be coming from a manufacturer like Panasonic, I can guarantee that it would barely get a quarter the hype the ” Apple Tablet ” is getting. My point being its largely based on the company and people backing a product that get’s it noticed.
What seems to be making the Google phone stand out from others is not just it’s impressive specifications, but the fact that it will be sold, or at least rumored to be sold, directly by Google unlocked and sim free. But what does this really mean? Well for a start it will eliminate exclusivity amongst mobile phone carriers, while they may try and win you over by offering cheaper packages or offer to subsidize the phone when you sign up for a 2 year contract, but at the end of the day you can buy the phone unlocked and use it on whatever network you want.
The only downside to Google selling the Nexus One themselves is that it will limit the market somewhat to who they can sell. Unless some mobile phone carriers get on board and offer the device at a subsidized price it will become one of the most expensive smartphones out on the market ($530 or €370). Now this may not necessarily be a bad thing, look at how well the iPhone did when it was first launched, but on the other hand, how much better did it do once carriers started offering it unsubsidized? It emerged today that T-Mobile appear to be offering this sort of package, selling you the Nexus One for $180 on a 2 year contract of $79.99 a month.
But I don’t think Google are trying to get in on the mobile phone hardware market as such, they could be trying to create a flagship product for the Android operating system which I think is what their more interested in. VOIP is probably another area they are very interested in, with Google Voice increasing in popularity and showing the capabilities that Google can offer in VOIP services, the Nexus One could see them trying to sway the consumer away from network carriers and onto the internet. However I don’t think this will happen immediately as the infrastructure for data networks to handle mass VOIP sessions just isn’t there. What we need is 4G, and we need it implemented well and make it available to the mass market for VOIP to really take off.
So will the Nexus One revolutionize the smartphone market? Probably not, but did we think the iPhone would to the extent it did? You may still think the iPhone has the upper edge, but we recently published an article on how the Android market place was beginning to take off , so while it may not match Apples, it’s a start and probably the closest competitor.
Will it knock the iPhone off the podium? No, not in the immediate future anyway, but what I think what Google are aiming at here is to get the android Operating System out there and have the majority of the market share, perhaps they may be aiming to deliver mobile advertising? I can’t say for sure but I’d be interested to hear what you guys have to say.
Let us know in the comments what you think the Nexus One means for Google and the smartphone industry
