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Does the Google phone press any threat to the iphone?

Nicolecat

Nicolecat

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 2, 2008
968
7
I was about to purchase my iphone this week...after collecting information (and funds) since the launch.
Now, after all of my building excitement to have the iphone inhand...I get sideswiped with the information that there is this new google/android phone coming to the market within the next month to two months.

The article on www.tmonews.com is quite informative...and yet, there is still much more to learn.

There is a youtube video where they've discussed it on fox...and that is rather enlightening as well as to the oligopoly phone service providers really have.

I am at a impasse at the moment...and it makes me wonder, if I'm the only one ripping my hair out at whether to weather the storm or jump for what I've wanted for the last 6 months. :(
 

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I've been reading about the phone myself. I do love my iPhone and have no regrets about buying it, but I can see some great things from the Google phone. If it were me, I'd buy the iPhone. You're going to get something that has been around a bit longer, though I'd question whether or not you can figure the iPhone to have less or more bugs than the Google phone, and you're going to get what you've worked hard for in the last 6 months.

If the Google phone comes out and you're able to see just what it can do in person rather than on YouTube, and you still want it, then sell the iPhone. I'd venture to guess you'll find the iPhone's resale value will be quite high. Contracts aside of course. ;)
 
Get the iphone....not just because I'm an Apple fan but also because the Google platform has been getting less then stellar reviews from more then one source.......when it (Google) was first introduced everyone was jumping on board...at this point very few plans have it a part of the new handsets.....

Do what you were going to do and I promise you will not regret it!!
 
Does the Google phone press any threat to the iphone?

I would say stay with the trendsetters and not the follower.. every smart phone coming out today is just copying the iphone.. Sure the google phone might do somethings a little bit different but at the end their idea is not original.. Iphone Baby!
 
Also keep in mind that although a phone now has FCC approval, that doesn't mean it's going to be out by the end of the year.

This Wired article sums it up:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/08/google-androi-1.html

The upshot: you're looking at November for the earliest possible launch, and that's assuming VERY minimal testing and debugging. Pitting the Wired article, where they interviewed and quoted Google employees, over a blog post with typos that states "fact" without citing ANY sources much less anonymous ones, I'd take the Wired article as more authoritative.


If you still want to do it, feel free.

As for the thread title: no, the Android phone is no threat. It's another platform; big deal. If anything, it's what Palm OS Cobalt was supposed to be several years ago, but Palm couldn't deliver and are no longer relevant.

So, former Palm users might get into Android, and it'll carve its niche that way. But they're not calling it an iPhone killer, and rightly so. It won't kill the iPhone no more than the iPhone killed the Blackberry platform. There's room for all of the current platforms, if Android doesn't stumble out of the gate.

In the grand scheme, yeah, Apple is selling a lot of iPhones, but there are still lots of people, the majority of cell phone users in fact, who will buy neither product (nor any smartphone at all) because it's not what they want.

And anyway, they're launching on T-Mobile, of all networks. Don't get me wrong, T-Mobile is great in dense population centers, but even in the suburbs they're spotty at best. You think people complain much about AT&T? Just wait till they try T-Mo coverage out.

Oh, one more thing: look at the specs on Tmonews. Assuming those specs are correct, what's missing? Hmmm..

- Video recording
- MMS
- GPS

For all of the bashing the iPhone gets for not having/taking forever to get these, I had BETTER see this phone getting a TON of flack for it too. It even comes with less memory than the iPhone.

If everyone coos over this thing like it's perfect, then the double standard will be confirmed.
 
Thanks for the responses...

I suppose it would help to mention that my husband is working for an interactive marketing company...and is google adword certified.
It would probably be in his best interest to have the google phone, right?

Now, on that note...his boss and most of the sales guys have a mix of the orig iphone to the iphone 3g. :D

I just have to convince him, it's crap...and there just isn't enough information to proove it.

Aside from being easily pwnable...by downloading 'trojan' apps (due the the total open source idea)...although it looks like it's running on linux, which doesn't actually write anything to it that it downloads. (Do I have that right?)

I just don't know what to do...I want to throw a gavel and be done with it, indisputable evidence against this new said google phone/HTC dream/g1 thingy-ma-bobber.
 
I hope it's a threat...competition is a good thing. iPhone owners will benefit in the long run!
 
Probably not...won't know until we see it. I say wait and see, but that's just me.
 
I, as a previous poster expressed, hope that Android is a success to make Apple continue to innovate and improve on the iPhone featureset/experience.

However, I don't really see anything special about the platform. I can't help but think that if this wasn't Google, and say Microsoft, doing the exact same thing it wouldn't be met with such optimism.

Things like the interface seem somewhat archaic. Yes, I know the whole mantra of it being open source and completely customizable, but when has that EVER been a tangible selling point for a mass market consumer device?


Too many cooks in the kitchen with Android as well, so I am unfortunately
less optimistic as to its impact on the wireless industry. :confused:
 
Nicolecat said:
I suppose it would help to mention that my husband is working for an interactive marketing company...and is google adword certified.
It would probably be in his best interest to have the google phone, right?
Click to expand...


Why would it? Google's probably not going to give him any special favors for having an Android-based phone. Nor would they be likely to treat him badly if he happened to have an iPhone. In fact, Google has been developing their web apps to work pretty well over the iPhone Safari browser.

Google likes to stir things up and has their hands in many pots, but they're still not Microsoft. They won't shut someone out just because the phone in their pocket isn't running their OS.

As for a virus threat because Android is open source: this won't be so much of a problem if Android has the right security model. Look at Ubuntu and other linux distributions. The security vulnerabilities tend to happen only when someone foolishly leaves a backdoor open, or doesn't follow established security models that are inherent in the linux-based OS. As long as Android developers are careful about it, the risks should be minimal.

On the flip side, it's just as easy for a coder at Apple to make a boneheaded move. We learned that early on when an early version of the iPhone OS had a vulnerability in Safari, and allowed people to pretty much jailbreak their phones by merely visiting a website (this was patched up fairly quickly). Apple and Google just have different models for catching and correcting these problems: Apple through a mostly closed-source code review process and release cycle, and Google through open source models. Both are good IF there are active coders there to keep the model moving.

In the end, if your husband really wants an Android phone, let him get one. If it works out for him, great. If it turns out to be a flop, you can tell him you told him so. :)
 
Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but I always found the Google brand utterly silly. They provide great services of course, but the company name is corny and I wouldn't want to own anything with that butt ugly Fisher-Price-esque logo on it. If you were to slap that logo on an iPhone it would suddenly look like something out of Teletubbies.
 
*shrug* And what exactly does an Apple with a bite out of it have to do with computers, music players and cell phones? :)

Silly or not, it's a well known brand with a good identity behind it. And there are worse brands with meaningless names out there: Lucent, Avaya, Java, Verizon, Agere, Cuil. These names aren't part of any language. They're just dumb brands that someone paid a consulting firm millions to come up with. *shrug*
 
scaredpoet said:
Why would it? Google's probably not going to give him any special favors for having an Android-based phone. Nor would they be likely to treat him badly if he happened to have an iPhone. In fact, Google has been developing their web apps to work pretty well over the iPhone Safari browser.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean it like that...I would expect him to get any kickbacks from it. I was just thinking that if he is google adword certified, and they are always using google docs and such...that it would make sense for him to have a phone that syncs nicely with the google system. (I realize the iphone does too...I suppose, it's more a matter of newness to the industry and being cutting edge)

*shrugs*
If it tanks I would very much enjoy calling him from my iphone to tell him, but we need to stay on the same plan...whichever way we go.
 
To the OP = Google isn't manufacturing headsets, just the OS. Android does look pretty sweet right now, but it's the integration of software/hardware that makes Apple shine, I don't know that other companies can come with the UI to beat out the iPhone.
 
Nicolecat said:
Thanks for the responses...

I suppose it would help to mention that my husband is working for an interactive marketing company...and is google adword certified.
It would probably be in his best interest to have the google phone, right?

Now, on that note...his boss and most of the sales guys have a mix of the orig iphone to the iphone 3g. :D

I just have to convince him, it's crap...and there just isn't enough information to proove it.

Aside from being easily pwnable...by downloading 'trojan' apps (due the the total open source idea)...although it looks like it's running on linux, which doesn't actually write anything to it that it downloads. (Do I have that right?)

I just don't know what to do...I want to throw a gavel and be done with it, indisputable evidence against this new said google phone/HTC dream/g1 thingy-ma-bobber.
Click to expand...

You're actually completely wrong...it's not crap, just a different phone OS.
 
Apple has long proven itself to sell better products then any of its competitors.

I think if the Google phone was a lot better, you can bet your last dime that they would create a rev 3 that would stomp it into the ground ;)

There are also a lot of features, that due to the very nature of the fact that Google does not make the phone, will not be possible. I'm talking about the App Store, real multitouch. In fact the OS will need to be completely customised for every phone, as phones today are so different.
 
I've been reading about the Google phone (Gphone) for months. Every article that I have ever read said the phone will not be ready until 2009. If you want to keep waiting and waiting and waiting, maybe I can send you a bucket of popcorn and a wall to stare at. :)

More seriously though, I have read that the Gphone is just an OS, and will work on the hardware that the phone manufacturers (Samsung, LG, etc) make (much like PCs run Windows). I have read that Google has run into a lot of problems and delays because not all phones are the same, and the OS has to be designed slightly differently for each type of phone. As a result of this, Google, initially wanting to release the OS before Christmas 2008, has had to push the deadline back to "sometime in 2009." Being completely unbiased, if I was you I would get an iPhone now because the phone is available today and is VERY useful. If however, you want to wait first and see what the Gphone OS will be like on a Samsung phone, then just realize that you will be without "the internet in your pocket" for about 9 more months. :confused:
 
One thing that struck me is that "if you don't mind adverts then you can have them enabled and pay less for your phone and your tariff" actually means "if you do mind adverts you will have to pay more for your phone and your tariff to avoid them."
 
Rybold said:
I've been reading about the Google phone (Gphone) for months. Every article that I have ever read said the phone will not be ready until 2009. If you want to keep waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, then good luck. :)
Click to expand...

This is why I'm fed up...I don't want to wait.
...but now my husband is dragging his feet to agree.

I jumped onto the iphone band wagon a long time ago...I just forgot to actually purchase it. :D
 
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