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Google Mobile Phone in the Works?
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And he's not saying.
Maybe he's trying to do us a favor. He could reveal the box's function, but then he'd have to kill us.
I've said it before and ill say it again, I don't think google will make a phone, their business is software.
Google Lead Blocking for Apple?
No hole poking here, inkswamp. Have shared similar thoughts in posts past. I'd simply like to add to what you wrote.
Today's 'news' makes me think Google is simply testing the waters... paving the way for the inevitable MVNO version of the iPhone (~ 2010?) in exchange for some world renowned industrial design courtesy of Ive & friends.
Win-win. Google will have a stylish (read: desirable), yet low-end (read: really desirable) phone in the relatively new (to mainstream) MVNO & VOIP world (read: really, really desirable) while Apple gains a better understanding of navigating the "we don't need no stinkin' service provider" route - something you KNOW Steve has had his eye on the whole time (cough - data center - cough). Signing with Cingular was just a safe, "toe in the water" move - get in the game with the largest US carrier (read: guarantee a large customer base), learn, absorb and by the time your contract expires, wave Cingular goodbye as you take those 2 years of real world experience to competely redefine the entire mobile communication experice... which I think we can ALL agree is an experience in dire, dire need of redefinition.
We will see this unfold in 3 years. Mark it, dude.
Side note: something Apple has in their favor, that no one else can touch, is OS X. As long as they keep that locked, they can pretty much control their destiny. Who else can offer the tight integration between your computer and your phone and your TV and your toaster and your...? No one. And integration is the KEY factor to success in the ever-converging home electronics/computer world. It's like all of the pieces are beginning to (and have been) fall into place. When we all bitched and moaned through the OS 9 > OS X transition, these thoughts were already on the table in Cupertino. It took that transition to get them on the path towards today and into tomorrow.
Partner this vision with that of Google's. Now consider Google's new(ish) slew of online word processing and spread sheet apps, search, gmail, chat, etc. and you can begin to see where both Apple & Google might successfully leverage each others strengths to ride this new wave of tech into a dominant position in the very near future. It's already in play. Might just be a while before mainstream realizes what's happening. By then, it'll be too late. MU HA HA!!!
Sorry, got carried away.
Regardless, I like it.
Just a few random thoughts and WAGs (wild *ss guesses). I invite everyone to nitpick these because this seems sort of obvious to me but I have yet to see anyone openly speculating along these lines.
Some points to consider:
* Apple is entering the home electronics (phone and TV) markets, both with products that seem very powerful but seem to have some odd restrictions that might hint at more to come.
* Apple has settled with Cingular as their provider despite a vague sense of uneasiness between the two companies. Apple made big demands on Cingular that Verizon refused to go along with.
* Google has been buying up dark fiber lines with no apparent explanation.
* Google has openly looked into the IPTV market and online video.
* Google has openly looked into providing internet access.
* Google appears to have some interest in phones despite having no ability to produce the hardware themselves.
* Apple has been shopping around for more corporate space in various locations.
* Google and Apple have cross paths in some curious ways lately, both admitting that they are working on projects together.
Who thinks there's a chance that Apple and Google are laying the groundwork to (at some point in the future) cut out all the middle men involved in phone, video and internet service for mobile devices? It would be a brilliant business maneuver and would alleviate a lot of what people dislike about the iPhone: that it is tied to Cingular (or any traditional phone or net service provider.)
I could see this being an enormous success. People are fed up with phone service as it now exists (I know I am!) People are fed up with exorbitant fees and lousy service. Both Apple and Google seem to have the same philosophy when it comes to customers, and it's about 180-degrees opposite what you get from Cingular and Verizon and other phone service providers.
So, what kind of holes can you all poke in this theory?
No hole poking here, inkswamp. Have shared similar thoughts in posts past. I'd simply like to add to what you wrote.
Today's 'news' makes me think Google is simply testing the waters... paving the way for the inevitable MVNO version of the iPhone (~ 2010?) in exchange for some world renowned industrial design courtesy of Ive & friends.
Win-win. Google will have a stylish (read: desirable), yet low-end (read: really desirable) phone in the relatively new (to mainstream) MVNO & VOIP world (read: really, really desirable) while Apple gains a better understanding of navigating the "we don't need no stinkin' service provider" route - something you KNOW Steve has had his eye on the whole time (cough - data center - cough). Signing with Cingular was just a safe, "toe in the water" move - get in the game with the largest US carrier (read: guarantee a large customer base), learn, absorb and by the time your contract expires, wave Cingular goodbye as you take those 2 years of real world experience to competely redefine the entire mobile communication experice... which I think we can ALL agree is an experience in dire, dire need of redefinition.
We will see this unfold in 3 years. Mark it, dude.
Side note: something Apple has in their favor, that no one else can touch, is OS X. As long as they keep that locked, they can pretty much control their destiny. Who else can offer the tight integration between your computer and your phone and your TV and your toaster and your...? No one. And integration is the KEY factor to success in the ever-converging home electronics/computer world. It's like all of the pieces are beginning to (and have been) fall into place. When we all bitched and moaned through the OS 9 > OS X transition, these thoughts were already on the table in Cupertino. It took that transition to get them on the path towards today and into tomorrow.
Partner this vision with that of Google's. Now consider Google's new(ish) slew of online word processing and spread sheet apps, search, gmail, chat, etc. and you can begin to see where both Apple & Google might successfully leverage each others strengths to ride this new wave of tech into a dominant position in the very near future. It's already in play. Might just be a while before mainstream realizes what's happening. By then, it'll be too late. MU HA HA!!!
Sorry, got carried away.
Regardless, I like it.
It's the Google Search Appliance. See both models here:
http://www.google.com/enterprise/enterprise_search.html
Been around for a few years...
Back on topic, given the expertise Apple and Google bring to their respective fields, there are *many* different ways they could work together to combine a wireless phone and wireless broadband access, including on-phone advertising, video and data transmission enhancements, bundled Google apps on the iPhone, and a lot more. It just depends on how Google skins the fish since Apple's iPhone works as a smartphone that's only missing Wi-Fi-related features.
Thanks. Must you kill me now?
"Cost-effective," starting at $30,000. Yikes.
http://www.google.com/enterprise/gsa/index.html
"Cost-effective," starting at $30,000. Yikes.
http://www.google.com/enterprise/gsa/index.html
This is why Apple will never get too popular. ( an open environment - i.e., PC + windows + other OSes v Mac hardware and OSX ).
Also, this is why Apple should never be in microsoft's position for marketshare. They'd be worse than microsoft, keeping all their platforms relatively closed ( read: iPod, iPhone, iTV etc ), which is the reverse of microsoft, typically, minus the Zune example of course.
Closed environments isn't necessarily a good thing - a lot of opportunities are missed. Ease of use is one benefit of, but there's a lot of negatives.
Also, this is why Apple should never be in microsoft's position for marketshare. They'd be worse than microsoft, keeping all their platforms relatively closed ( read: iPod, iPhone, iTV etc ), which is the reverse of microsoft, typically, minus the Zune example of course.
Closed environments isn't necessarily a good thing - a lot of opportunities are missed. Ease of use is one benefit of, but there's a lot of negatives.
Then it will be called the GooiPhone and people will use it to search for video clips of pron just like people use Google on the web, only in .3GP format.
Maybe not for just a handy search engine but maybe for news, Maps, or GMail, or the Doc's and spreadsheet, Froogle, Google's instant message Talk, Local, Earth... Google has quite a bit going for it. If they could bundle it all in a mobile package (some of the apps are mobile but not all) and put it on a mobile device like the Nokia 800 than I think they could have a winner. Plus, with 2.+ gigs of online space, it would not have to have a large flash chip in it. Could save costs. But handhelds are a tricky business. Maybe Apple lent a designer or two to google.
This is exactly what I have been thinking. Hear me out on this-
With the birth of DVRs, advertisers are slowly losing ground. I just read somewhere that within 10 years traditional 30 second commercials as we know them will not exist.
So what's next?
What if Google created a national wifi network that worked solely with their phone? All calls are made via VOIP and the phone is also a web browser. Right now the iPhone uses a traditional cell carrier (ATT), but I'm willing to bet the only reason Job's did this was because he HAD to. The technology is not there yet.
Think long-term. A decade from now. Traditional LAN lines and cell phone networks are non-existent. People receive constant data/information/phone calls via wifi. And what if there was no cost? (or a very minimal one)
Google supplies the network, as well as the phone, and the only caveat is streamed via commercials that appear ever now and then, or a banner ad? Want to watch a video (or TV show), download it from the network. Oh wait, Google owns YouTube.
Google wi-fi network, Apple phone, YouTube video/future TV, iTunes store/database/business model, Apple Data Center. Apple/Google merger in the future? I know it's far-fetched - but so was M$'s thought of beating Netscape's dominance....
I am a mac guy, but I got a hand me down Dell Axim pocket pc and it's great. It saves me from carrying my ibook around and has all the functions that i need when I'm out. if there was a phone integrated for $200, i'd buy one. it would be nice to have a mobile version of OS X, but not for $300 more.
All this talk may have an amazing future, no need to worry about MS word documents when Google network takes over with online document editing.
Apple won't have to worry about the threat of no MS word for mac OS, because that would become obsolete (fingers cross).
NOW, the question is, i doubt AT&T, T-mobile etc aren't looking into similar networks, I am sure they are well aware that phone companies are on the way out... similarly, I doubt MS is sitting on there asses, with Windoz Mobile etc... now the question is are the competitors doing anything similiar and forming some aliances.
Apple won't have to worry about the threat of no MS word for mac OS, because that would become obsolete (fingers cross).
NOW, the question is, i doubt AT&T, T-mobile etc aren't looking into similar networks, I am sure they are well aware that phone companies are on the way out... similarly, I doubt MS is sitting on there asses, with Windoz Mobile etc... now the question is are the competitors doing anything similiar and forming some aliances.
kind of sounds like google's almost thinking of making there own version of the 100 dollar laptop... how many people these days don't have internet access? and to be honest i think it'll be a while before we can realistically have Google maps in our pockets along with youtube, etc. I know the iphone will have it but to be honest with you i think that's more of a gimic more then anything. but that's just my opinion. Kind of like wap, this amazing tech advance, could book tickets through your phone, check cinema times, chat "online" or check the score of the latest game. problem is that nobody does (generally anyway.)
Now, put that into a third world situation, it could work... I was over in Kenya recently and it amazed me to see how many people have mobile phones. But they use them, not only to stay in contact, but to do business. Now a farmer can bargain with the middle man knowing how much he would get in the local town, the middle man could save time in bringing his truck out to a village if he knew that there was nothing there for him. If you could stick gmail, google talk and a few other apps onto the phone you could have a much better 100 dollar phone instead of the laptop... only my thoughts though (and i know, it would cost alot more to make a web enabled phone then 100 dollars, just kind of brain storming here!!)
Now, put that into a third world situation, it could work... I was over in Kenya recently and it amazed me to see how many people have mobile phones. But they use them, not only to stay in contact, but to do business. Now a farmer can bargain with the middle man knowing how much he would get in the local town, the middle man could save time in bringing his truck out to a village if he knew that there was nothing there for him. If you could stick gmail, google talk and a few other apps onto the phone you could have a much better 100 dollar phone instead of the laptop... only my thoughts though (and i know, it would cost alot more to make a web enabled phone then 100 dollars, just kind of brain storming here!!)
Nothing but a rumor. Although, it would not surprise me if Apple along with Google announced a version of the iPhone with Google functionality sometime in the future.
Oh, really?
In what way is Windows a closed environment?
Developers are free to write 3rd party applications, free to create all kinds of hardware ( including the PC ) to work with the OS and microsoft actively encourage this - just like Apple does for OSX ( minus the platform to run OSX on, of course!)
microsoft have been secretive about certain API calls, yes - but then I suspect that Apple don't reveal all of their API calls either. The spotlight is on microsoft rather than Apple in this case because microsoft have far more marketshare ( in the same way the spotlight is on iPod ).
An example of a closed environment is iPhone.
Cingular and T-Mobile are moving to a standard called UMTS (also known informally as "3GSM" because it's a 3G version of GSM.) UMTS is itself migrating to a so-called all-IP platform, where the entire thing is presented as a connection to the Internet, and phone, messaging, etc, services run over the top of that. UMTS is not yet there, but a process called Long Term Evolution is in the works to get UMTS to that level.
On a different note, Sprint-Nextel is experimenting with a WiMAX network, and it's quite possible to see them phasing out, or at least deprecating, their CDMA2000 network in the long term once the kinks have been knocked out of WiMAX, which is still a new technology.
Verizon's future is unclear, I'm guessing they'll probably go with WiMAX too, though Qualcomm's trying to push something called UMB which retains the restrictiveness of CDMA2000 but provides more capacity. If everyone else goes for WiMAX and/or LTE UMTS, I don't see it as having a future.
So, yes, they're not sitting on their hands. Don't expect to see anything immediately, but within the next three years they will migrate to systems based primarily on the Internet, and it's quite possible your primary mode of Internet access will be via one of today's mobile phone carriers, not via a wire.
Predictions that Google can just roll out a nationwide Wi-fi network are overblown FWIW. Wi-fi doesn't have the range. People would hate replacing their phones with Wi-fi phones. There's nothing stopping Google from bidding on spectrum and rolling out WiMAX or a variant of UMTS though, and I suspect that's what they'll do in the long term.
Actually that's one of the formal names for it now, happened about a year ago. The term was not used informally afaik.
People knew the term GSM so well, that the GSM people decided to capitalise on it and refer to their 3rd gen as "3GSM".