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.
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