The Buzz on Android
Posted by Petrice Gaskin at Sep. 24, 2008
Dan Frommer post at Silicon Alley pretty much echoed my own feelings about the new G1 phone. I was pretty disappointed that the new G1 would be launched with an initial price of $180, only 20 bucks cheaper than the iPhone. As I've stated before, I thought the best route for T-Mobile and Google would be for them to avoid positioning themselves as a direct competitor to the iPhone, but rather as a cheaper, more flexible, and more accessible option. Instead they released it as a product in the same price range, with essentially similar features, minus the universally applauded design and UI.
However, as Frommer points out, "The good news: It's early. Remember Apple's first mobile phone project -- the still-born ROKR? Exactly. So maybe Google has an iPhone waiting to surprise us somewhere." By all accounts, the G1 is a fully functioning smartphone with a platform sure to attract the eye of many a developer hungry for some freedom. Google still has plenty of time to shock and awe us, because they succeeded in delivering the essentials.
Eric Schonfeld over at TechCrunch declares that the G1 is "no iPhone, but it's close." Although it lacks the design finesse of the iphone he points out that the G1 does have a handful of features that the iPhone lacks:
The first Android phone even has some things that the iPhone doesn’t, like a full keyboard that flips out from under the screen like on a Danger Sidekick (Andy Rubin’s old company). And it also sports a nubby little scroll ball like on a Blackberry (I thought RIM had a patent on that). And did I mention the compass? It’s got one built in (in addition to the accelerometer and the GPS), so that when you look at StreetView on Google Maps and swing the phone around it shows you a picture of what you are facing. Some developer is going to write a cool hiking app that taps into the compass, I’m sure. Oh, and there’s one more thing. You can run more than one app at the same time. That’s huge.
Schonfeld and John Biggs from CrunchGear both make the excellent point that the G1 has cemented the idea of a smartphone being a mini-laptop. Biggs writes:
iPhone started the ball rolling and Android is about the finish the job. The change? Phones are now officially computers and the expectation for most users is that they behave in the same way a powerful laptop or desktop PC would perform, albeit in a considerably more compact package.
The overall take on Android seems to be cautiously optimistic--not so much about what the phone is, but about the ways that Google could grow. Google and T-Mobile have delivered an impressive phone, that can't help but be overshadowed by the iPhone. In a sense, the G1 manages to be successful by being comparable to the iPhone. Their ability to deliver this makes me hopeful about future phones and the direction of their development.
Update: Wired is not too impressed with the G1.