Android, Nexus and The iPhone: A Reflection.

Unless you’ve been living under a very large, internet free rock lately, you’d be hard pressed to have missed the launch of the “google phone”. The much anticipated (and leaked) “Nexus One” was finally released to the public yesterday. The first cell phone from the search giant, developed in conjunction with HTC, is also the first time the company has used their own android operating system on their own hardware. Slated to be available on T-Mobile initially or contract free in the US (with Verizon to follow) or on Vodafone in Europe, the launch has unsurprisingly attracted lots of media attention. With that attention of course come the inevitable comparisons to the iPhone and the equally inevitable labelling of the Nexus One as a potential iPhone Killer. I doubt however that Apple has anything to worry about.

People in the technology world have been salivating over Android for some time now. Manufacturers looking for a way to make up for having let Apple blindsight them with the iPhone have eagerly jumped on board Google’s mobile operating system bandwagon. Despite numerous protestations that they wouldn’t, the media has long suspected that Google would themselves come out with their own phone. In fact the rumours of a Google phone have been around since before Android was even released. Google is taking the same marketing approach that its partners have been making for the last while, billing Android as the “open” option. This approach is clearly targeting the most consistent complaint about the iPhone, its closed eco system. Over the last year, many have decried Apple’s app store policies in particular, and Google and others have seized on this to promote their relatively hands off approach. Many tech analysts have made the obligatory analogy to the early days of the Mac and how Apple lost out on dominance of the personal computer market to Microsoft. The implication as always being that Apple was going to repeat history, only this time losing to Google.

If this all sounds familiar it’s because we’ve heard all this before with the iPod. Apple’s “lock in” with the companies Fairplay DRM was going to doom the company and it would eventually loose out to Microsoft’s competing and supposedly open “plays for sure” format. When that didn’t happen we were once again told that the iPod would lose out to the Zune because Apple’s policies would ultimately doom it. Again, that didn’t happen either and the Zune has not exactly been a roaring success. So here we are again. Just as companies rushed to create their own music stores, cell phone manufacturers are now rushing to add App stores (or jump on the Android bandwagon with its already established marketplace). Just as Apple was criticised in the past for not opening its DRM it is now being criticised for not being more open with the App store. This time however, instead of Microsoft leading the charge, it is Google and its Android partners who are capitalising on the perceived deficiencies of Apple’s approach.

The thing is though, the average consumer just doesn’t care. Android and Nexus might be a tech journalist or a linux geek’s wet dream, but to the average person with a normal life and a normal job, it’s just more techno-babble. Most hadn’t even heard of Android until recently. Most people don’t care that someone’s app got rejected by Apple and most still see Google as a search engine. The average joe or jill soap doesn’t even realise that Google owns You Tube. Apple on the other hand is the cool trendy company that brought everyone the iPod and the iPhone. The iPhone has already achieved global brand recognition as something cool and fashionable, whereas most consumers will confuse the difference between Android as a specific phone and Android as a platform. The average non tech person will probably call the Nexus One, Android, and then get confused by all these other phones also called Android.

I don’t doubt that the Nexus One is a reasonably good phone in its own right, and I’m not trying to bash Android, but at the end of the day it’s just a glorified version of linux with a touch screen (although the phone is not multi-touch enabled apparently) and an app store bolted onto yet another HTC phone. It looks like linux and judging by the demos acts like linux. It’s certainly not a “superphone”. Whereas the iPhone is so simple and intuitive you can just pick it up and use it, there’s no way the average person is using the Nexus One without reading the manual. Well, I’m sure many will, but you know what I mean. Android though, will undoubtedly sell well overall. With over 50 android phones coming out this year, the sheer weight in numbers alone will bump up its market share. It will probably do so though at the expense of RIM, Palm and Windows Mobile rather than at Apple’s. Also, while Google and its hardware partners are gearing up to compete with yesterday’s iPhone, Apple looks set to head off in yet another new direction with the much rumoured tablet. This is in addition to whatever updates it has in store for the iPhone this year.

Then there’s the App store. While free software advocates and tech bloggers might decry the policies of Apple regarding the store’s approval process, 3 billion in downloads speaks for itself. Much like the iPod before it, the iPhone has developed a sub culture around supporting the device. A whole micro-economy has emerged around the iPhone and the App store. Sure you can write apps for Android (so long as they’re small) but the infrastructure and community has become well established for the iPhone. Given the sheer scale of it, to use a colloquialism: “it ain’t going nowhere”. On top of that, there is Apple’s secret weapon, the iPod touch. The iPhone’s thinner younger brother has helped propel the iPhone eco system to stratospheric proportions. The only way that’s going to crumble is if Apple stopped developing the iPhone OS right now and let it linger, or if they made some monumental cock up. Either way, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

At the end of the day though it’s all about the brand. Both Apple and Google have very strong brands, but while Google is seen as a powerful technology company, Apple is the hip and cool maker of fashionable consumer goods. Google might attract the tech crowd, but to the average teenager they’re still the people that make that search engine. Google may be the next Microsoft, but Apple is the next Nike. To many, Apple is the company that brings them the future where as Google is the company that helps them find out about it. For many younger people owning an iPhone is something to aspire to, whereas owning the Nexus will always be having that “iPhone like phone from Google”. To paraphrase that often overused Bill Clinton campaign slogan, “it’s the brand, stupid.”

I wish Google well in their endeavour although I’m really not sure why they’re going down this road. I hope the Nexus does well because competition is always good. If I was a Microsoft, RIM or Palm exec I’d be worried, but the people at Apple are too busy with their next big thing to stop and look in their mirrors at what Google is doing. Apple might tick the “new media” types off with its policies, but as long as it keeps developing for the average consumer rather than the tech journalist, then that’s fine by me.

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