...more recent posts
Okay, so I've totally fallen down on posting more often. I really tried to put something together, but I just couldn't get it out. In any case, it's the new year, and as I sort of said, some big changes are coming our way in digital media land. But instead of getting out ahead of these things I'm just going to comment as we go.
Like, for instance, today Google releases the Nexus One. This is Google's own Android smartphone entry. Android, of course, is a smartphone operating system built on top of the linux kernel by google. It's open source and freely available (including the entire network stack) under the very permissive Apache license. What this means is that anyone can use Android as the OS for their own smartphone. And people have, most notably HTC, who really got the space rolling with their G1, and Motorola, with the current champ Droid. But, somewhat confusingly, the name 'Droid' is licensed from Lucasfilm by Verizon, and thus there are also other Droid phones on the Verizon network such as the HTC Droid Eris. So 'Droid' seems to be Verizon's branding for Android, although at this point most people would assume you mean the Motorola Droid if you just said 'Droid'.
In any case, back to the Nexus One. It too - to further complicate the threads - is built by HTC. But the branding is 100% Google. They designed it and outsourced the construction to HTC (much as Microsoft designed the Zune, but it was built by Toshiba.) The top link in this post has probably the best info so far, as Engadget has had a unit for a little over a day. But also Engadget is liveblogging the Google event at CES right now where the device is to presumably be unveiled.
Hardware specs are very impressive but I'll skip the boring details. The real story here is the way the phone is going to be sold. Supposedly Google is going to sell the phone online, unlocked, directly to consumers, for $529. Or, alternately, with a 2 year T-Mobile contract for $179. This puts google in a position of competing directly with their partners (like Motorola) which is something they had previously said they weren't going to do. (Think here about how Microsoft never entered the PC hardware business - they didn't precisely for this reason: they didn't want to compete with their partners like Dell and HP. Google is abruptly taking an alternate route.)
Long blog short: There is a ton of hype and excitement here for a phone that seems to be genuinely well thought out and well built but not really breaking too much new ground, and with a price that would seem to put it well out of the reach of most consumers unless you want to be on the T-Mobile network. From what I've seen I really like this phone, and I welcome competition in this space as being vital to our future, but the Nexus One is merely a competent entry and not a game changer.
P.S. the name Nexus One should be interesting to Blade Runner aficionados.