Google Inc. began selling its own mobile phone today (01/05/2010), in order to protect its online advertising empire because more and more people are increasingly surfing the Web on their handsets instead of personal computers.
The Nexus One runs on Android operating system that Google introduced in 2007. This makes Nexus easier to connect to Google’s services and other Web sites away from home or the office.
Nexus touch-screen was designed in partnership with HTC Corp., which made the first Android-powered phone and will manufacture this one, too. Google will handle all sales online and has no plans to let consumers check out the Nexus One in retail stores…mmmmhh is this a good idea? I wonder.
Nexus One’s is a bit pricey, at $529 aaaaouchhhhhhh, this definitely lessens its appeal in a still-shaky economy.
The move does escalate the budding rivalry between Google and Apple Inc. Apple has sold more than 30 million iPhones in the past 2 1/2 years.
To counter Google, Apple announced a deal Tuesday to buy mobile advertising service Quattro Wireless for $750 million.
Most of the more than $20 billion in ads that Google sells annually are tied to Internet searches, a market that it dominates. But a proliferation of programs that create more direct routes to mobile applications may lessen the need to conduct searches on wireless phones. In designing and selling its own phone, Google gets yet another way to ensure its services remain within easy reach of people on the go.
Google is billing the Nexus One as the first “super” phone in an effort to position the device as a cut above the iPhone forget Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry for a moment.
Nexus appears to be sleeker than other phones, as thin as a pencil at 11.5 millimeters and as light as a keychain-sized Swiss army knife at just 130 grams.
Among other things, the Nexus One offers more ways to customize the phone’s home page and use voice recognition technology to perform more tasks, including composing e-mails and navigating Google’s mobile mapping products.
“This phone, from a performance perspective, looks a little like your laptop did four or five years ago,” said Andy Rubin, a Google executive who oversees Android.
But most of the features on the Nexus One are already on other Android-powered phones, and it probably will be a long time before it can offer as many different tools as the iPhone, which boasts more than 100,000 applications compared with Android’s 18,000.
Google is asking consumers to pay more so they can select their own wireless carriers. That’s a departure from the usual sales model in the United States.
For the first few months at least, the Nexus One will only work on GSM networks — a limitation that means buyers in the U.S. will have to use T-Mobile USA if they want the handset for high-speed Web surfing. Consumers willing to enter into a two-year data plan with T-Mobile will be able to buy the Nexus One for $179, $20 less than the top-of-the-line iPhone with an AT&T subsidy.
The technological barrier also precludes the initial version of Nexus One from working on the U.S. wireless networks of Verizon Wireless and Sprint, though Google plans a version that will work on those carriers’ CDMA technology this spring and Verizon Wireless plans to subsidize that. For AT&T, the phone’s compatible only with its slower wireless network instead of the 3G one used by the iPhone.
The Nexus One should work with many carriers abroad, as GSM is the predominant technology used. Vodafone’s wireless service in Europe also will begin to subsidize the Nexus One in the spring.
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