God Phone Meets the Devil
News Analysis. Apple's mobile handset, which some people have called the Jesus or God Phone because of its popularity, has a new competitor: the T-Mobile G1, or what could be called the Devil phone. |
Google, HTC and T-Mobile launched the Android-based G1 today in New York. The phone goes on sale Oct. 22.
The Devil I refer to is in relationship to the iPhone, because the products are:
- Similarly hugely hyped
- Competing developer platforms
- Competing application marketplace platforms
- Tightly integrated with online services, like e-mail
- Mainly targeted at the same market segment: consumers
Wait, Google Does No Evil, Right?
But there's a question about who's really God or the Devil here. For some developers, the roles would be reversed. The iPhone platform is proprietary, and Apple exercises tight controls over what applications appear in its supporting App Store. It's Apple's way or no way. By comparison, the G1 runs Google's Android, which is open source. Philosophically, open source is about working toward the common good. The devil is in the details, as they say.
According to Biblical literature, the Devil was handsome before his fall. Apple's iPhone is beautiful for sure. By comparison, the G1 is austere, Spartan, like Google's search page. Nobody could honestly say that the G1 is handsome. By the measure of history, the Devil is more popular than God; the iPhone is sure to sell lots more handsets than the Android-based G1, at least in the early days.
The first Android phone is designed with two companies in mind: Apple and Google. Feature for feature, the G1 is clearly an iPhone competitor, from the touch-screen and Web services integration to the built-in application store. There's even music store integration via AmazonMP3; unlike Apple's iTunes, all tracks and albums are DRM-free MP3s. They can be moved to other devices.
Michael Gartenberg tweeted from the Google and T-Mobile launch event: "G1 Touchscreen, very iPhone like. Drag and drop to the home screen. One click ordering with Amazon, songs are 0.99 each." The former JupiterResearch research director now runs MobileDevicesToday.
The mind boggles: What if people could buy Amazon eBooks for G1 as well as for Kindle? If Amazon.com, Google and T-Mobile aren't talking about this, they should. Can people stream TV shows and movies from Amazon Video On Demand to G1? If not, the companies should make that happen. Soon.
More signs of a focus on Apple: the $179 pricing. The iPhone is an incredible value at $199, because it's really a pocket computer. In some ways, G1 is more for less. It's a pocket communicator/computer but with lower upfront hardware and ongoing data costs. And unlimited data plan is $25 per month, or $5 per month less than for an iPhone 3G. Unlimited data and texting is $35 a month, or $15 less than what iPhone 3G subscribers would pay AT&T for separate unlimited data and texting plans.
The iPhone's most compelling platform feature is the built-in App Store, which provides developers with an easy way to sell DRM-protected applications and get paid, too. But G1 will come with the Android Marketplace. The App Store is the early leader and will remain so for some time. It's the aw of numbers. Developers will pick the more popular platform, which is iPhone, like they favor Windows PCs over Macs. If G1 and successor Android phones sell well, the applications will come. Much will depend on how much more Google can be a team player than Apple.
What about the Google focus? The phone offers single sign-on to Google's plethora of online services, including Calendar, Contacts, Gmail, Google Talk, Maps Street View and YouTube. Suddenly, the hodgepodge of Google applications and services has a single point of connection and synchronization. If this mechanism works, and well, then the G1 and other Android-based phones will be powerful data and telephony devices out of the box.
As I've blogged before, sync is the killer application for the connected world. In 2007 I warned: "If Google gets synchronization right before Microsoft, it's game over." Ditto to Apple. Google's sync magic requires no PC.
It's an Epic Struggle
Right now, Apple and Google are competing to see who will control the next-generation computing platform. There's a role reversal rapidly coming, where the mobile replaces the PC as the primary device people use every day. For many teens using T-Mobile Sidekicks or businesspeople tapping BlackBerrys, the transition already is here.
Microsoft and Nokia are farther behind, which might seem ridiculous to say. Based on handset and mobile operating system shipments, Nokia dominates the cell phone market. But Nokia's competing smart phones and entertainment phones, like the E71 and N95, are pricey compared with the G1 or iPhone 3G; there is scant services integration; and its smart phones are for businesses. Microsoft is in far worse shape, even with the wide choice of handsets running Windows Mobile and new, exciting models like Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 soon coming to market. There's no application store, weak Windows Live services integration and a tired, Windows desktop-like user interface.
Where Google might be the Devil is the staggering amount of demographic data that the company could collect. Google's business is all about collecting information, around which it sells search keywords and contextual search advertising. Even anonymously collected data from phones would be hugely useful for Google's search business. Through the phone and that convenient single sign-on, Google will know where you are, where you eat, where you shop and much more. In aggregate, that data would be hugely useful for targeting advertising. Google can entice advertisers by promising more targeted, contextual search based on where you are right now.
Hypothetical: Jerry Johns is looking for a restaurant from his G1. He types in a search, but instead of a search page he gets a Google Map with pushpins for a dozen Thai restaurants within 10 miles. I haven't seen the G1, so I don't know how deep the services integration is. But that's how I'd do it, with preference given to eateries that had paid for placement or bought search keywords. As I wrote earlier, the devil is in the details.
Who will buy G1? I think it's no coincidence that the G1 draws as much from the T-Mobile Sidekick as the iPhone 3G or that the first wireless carrier also sells the Sidekick. Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms, co-founded Danger, which Microsoft bought in February. While the iPhone's touch keys are useful, many people find real keyboards easier for e-mail and texting. The G1, like some other HTC models, offers the convenience of a touch-screen and the utility of a keyboard. The G1 is a phone for anyone who wants to communicate, whether by voice or text, methinks.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com]
Related Posts:
- Apple's Arrogant App Store Developer Policies, Apple Watch, Sept. 14, 2008
- iPhone Storms Smart-Phone OS Market, Apple Watch, Sept. 11, 2008
- How Shiny Is Google Chrome?, Apple Watch, Sept. 2, 2008
- Chrome: The Google OS, Microsoft Watch, Sept. 2, 2008
- Does Android Dream of iPhone?, Apple Watch, Aug. 28, 2008
- iPhone 3G: Software + Hardware + Services, Apple Watch, July 22, 2008
- Windows 95, Only Better, Apple Watch, July 14, 2008
- Is This Any Way to Launch a Platform?, Apple Watch, July 14, 2008
- Android, 'Can You Hear Me Now?', Microsoft Watch, Nov. 27, 2007
- Android: What You Are to Google?, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 5, 2007
- Google Brings Mobile Software to Life as Android, Google Watch, Nov. 5, 2007
Comments (3)
Competition with Apple is good--it keeps everyone honest and responsive to customers.
For many, the addition of a real keyboard on the G1 makes it more desirable for heavy email usage than the iPhone.
There are two things that may keep the G1 from immediately being an iPhone "killer" however. The T-Mobile G1 "unlimited" data plan is actually capped at 1GB/month--above that and you get throttled down to 50Kbps! When away from Wi-Fi, exceeding 1GB a month on my iPhone is routine.
Also, I've heard the G1 does not use a standard 3.5mm headphone jack--it uses their proprietary ExtUSB jack. That's a deal killer for many of us who want to use our own wired solutions.
I also wonder if the wide-open software model (as opposed to the security lock-down provided by Apples heavily restricted developers and AppStore) will cause malware issues for owners of the G1 over time.
Posted by Dev | September 23, 2008 11:38 PM
I have to agree with Dev on some points. Mainly that the open-source and open software model may cause problems, not just with malware and viruses, etc..., but also with crappy software that just causes problems on the phone. I will be interested to see how google handles that.
On the other hand, one big advantage that the G1 may have is the fact that every developer can develop software for it. As it stands right now, unless I want to shell out several hundred dollars for a Mac first, I can't write code for the iphone.
Posted by jasonxz | September 25, 2008 9:33 AM
There is one other aspect to Android that will be interesting to see: Linux is GPL SW, and you cannot build an application using GPL SW without releasing its full source code in buildable format. So while developers may charge whatever they wish for software applications, they must release the source as well (assuming they use GPL components such as libraries when they build). Will this crimp the Android Marketplace?
Or has Android come up with some other licensing scheme to get around this problem?
Posted by Alan | September 25, 2008 11:49 PM