Search results matching tag 'G1'

iPhone Killer 2 - Storm Warning

1649191 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:08:00 GMT

I predicted a few weeks ago in my blog that the G1 from Google wouldn't be the iPK (iPhone Killer). Well, time will tell whether I'm right or not. Well a new week, a new phone and this one (in my opinion) has more chance of winning the clash of the touch titans. The Blackberry Storm (pic below) will be launched this side of Xmas in the UK exclusively through Vodafone with pretty much all the features of the iPhone (and a few more besides). For instance it will be 3G enabled (natch), it has a 3.2 mp camera with video function, GPS capacity, mp3 etc. And one advantage it has over the Google G1 ? This one actually looks the part.

However, the main feature of the Storm is actually the touch screen itself. It apparently has a 'clickable screen'. So what does that mean exactly ? Well, the screen is kind of flexible and responds to how hard you touch it. In theory you will be able to type things much more easily because you know that the click has been registered by the Storm because the screen will depress slightly. Sounds cool right ? (and from experience of the iPhone I know that sometimes your touch commands are not all that easily registered by the unit, so the reassuring analog nature of a kind of soft click sounds funky).

As for price, well expect it to be pitched around the same as the iPhone. And with a legion of Crackberry addicts (me included) waiting impatiently for a touchscreen version of our constant companion I reckon that this little baby may just be the real rival for the iPhone we have been anticipating.

Here comes Google...

693284 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:47:00 GMT

A release date has been issued for the first mobile phone to use Android, the mobile operating system being driven by Google through a collective of partners it pulled together last year. It’s to be called the G1 and will be available on T-Mobile. So, the first ‘G-phone’ should be here by Christmas.

These days it’s impossible to examine anything ‘digikal’ without Google coming up. Even if you’re talking about the internet’s infrastructure - the physical pipes under our roads and oceans that carry all the data - you’ll come across the big G since it’s a major investor in the new super-fat pipes being laid to cope with its growth.

But it’s obvious why the company would put some of its [endless supply of] cash behind such a project: the bigger the internet’s capacity, the more people can use the web more often, the more search traffic it generates, the more money it makes.

Less obvious is an apparent move into mobile phone manufacture. The answer tells us just how clever Google really is. It identified the mobile market as the most serious opportunity for growth for the web (and particularly search) years ago. But, after seeking to chivvy along the sector, it saw that advanced mobile services were being let down in the most fundamental area of all: usable devices.

It also saw that the key to this was the lack of a standard operating system, one that could allow handset manufacturers and software developers to build their own products and services from the same starting point, just as Windows has done for PCs for the past twenty years. So, it decided to take action. It asked a load of disparate partners to join hands to build a standard operating system around which the mobile market could then develop.

Its problem is that, in the meantime, Apple came along and – as is its wont – did entirely its own thing. The iPhone was possible because Apple owns and houses device manufacture, operating system and software development in one place. The G1 will struggle to compete in terms of design and usability because it is, literally, built by committee.

But, it also has its advantages. Android – as a project - has the support of many incumbent players in the mobile space and it’s hard to overstate just how tricky life can be in the mobile sector without it. And it has Google, the de facto operating system of the web. If it can translate its model successfully for mobile, then the G1 and all the other G-phones that follow will become the most useful devices by virtue of their synergy with that model.

Google’s strategic mission is clear: to build the dominant traction of the new, mobile desktop over which, in the ‘immobile’ world, it still has to fight Microsoft. But, the joyful thing is that, if at the end of it all G-Phones turn out to be dogs, none of that strategic insight will mean a jot. Rarely has so much rested on favourable electronics reviews but then maybe that’s why Google thought it best to share the responsibility.

Android and T-Mobile G1's Five Most Obnoxious Flaws

Video of the T-Mobile G1 Google Android Phone

Google enters the mobile market with iPhone rival

iPhone Killer ?

1649191 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:59:00 GMT

Google launched their brand spanking new G1 mobile phone in New York earlier today and immediately it has been heralded as the iPhone killer... but in my opinion, it's hasn't got a hope in hell.

Why ? Well frankly the name is a bit crap (G1 isn't exactly as funky as iPhone), it really doesn't move the game on enough and it simply doesn't look as good (and in these image obsessed times that we live in, looks are everything... well at least when it comes to choosing a mobile phone).

I'm not saying it's a bad phone. Apparently it's pretty good according to most reviews. Physically it isn't that different to the iPhone. It has many similar features (touch sensitive screen, GPS capability, mobile internet access, built in camera which is 1 megapixel more than the iPhone... woo hoo... ).

Indeed the G1 has some additional features that the iPhone doesn't have. For example it has a Blackberry style thumb ball. And a slideout qwerty keyboard. Nice, but hardly revolutionary.

Actually the one area it genuinely excels over the iPhone, is in terms of browsing. Using Googles new Android 'Open Source" platform it allows browsers to quickly access the web but (more importantly) it allows anyone to write software / applications for the platform for free.

Actually, that's pretty cool. But seriously, how many people out there are going to choose that functionality over the way the G1 looks by comparison to an iPhone ?

The G1, using a HTC unit, will be available for free in the UK just before Xmas exclusively through T-Mobile on tariff plans staring at about 40 quid. And it may cause an initial wave of interest but nothing to that of the tsunami of hype created by the iPhone.

Maybe when LG and Samsung launch their more design focused units supporting the G1 platform next year will it have a chance to compete... but by then we will inevitably have yet another new version of the iPhone which will have moved things on even further...