MacDailyNews Take: The next Apple is Apple.
Ionescu continues, “Two separate reports from TechCrunch and The Street say that the search company is developing a music service, dubbed Google Audio, and a smartphone that will not be sold through traditional wireless carriers.”
“Michael Arrington of TechCrunch quotes multiple sources, saying that Google has ‘spent the last several weeks securing content for the launch of the [music] service from the major music labels,'” Ionescu reports. “Google Audio would be available for U.S. users, but it is unclear whether it will be a download or streaming service.”
Ionescu reports, “In a separate report, Scott Moritz of The Street, quotes analyst Ashok Kumar, saying that Google is also working to develop its own Google-branded smartphone, which will be sold through retailers, not through wireless carriers, by the end of this year.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: RIM, Nokia, Microsoft, and what’s left of Palm should be concerned.
Schmidt should have been gone the day Android was announced. – MacDailyNews Take, July 10, 2009
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, mole. – MacDailyNews Take regarding the August 03, 2009 announcement that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had stepped down from Apple’s Board of Directors.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Shinobi” for the heads up.]
Goons, trying to compete with iTunes. Honestly, what next?
So Eric Shmidt was indeed an untrustworthy mole…
Apple should launch their own search service now
Google needs to slow down. Needs to be Google not Apple. It is going to bite them in the butt. Can’t be all things to all people. Seems like their CEO was a mole now with a grudge. Instead of a board member!
@ Breeze I would have to agree
@ x you said it! Caprica here we come
Is Google the new microsoft? Wait for apple to dominate a market THEN try to compete. Honestly though, if they want to be in the smart phone game, it makes sense for them to do this, since apple isn’t going to let them use iTunes.
Seems it was a good time to get rid of Eric …
Google wants to be the next Microsoft.
This reminds me of Novell in the mid-90’s, when their CEO at the time was bent on competing with Microsoft, so he purchased WordPerfect. Ironically, Eric Schmidt came and sold WP to Corel.
Google’s approach with their own brand of a smartphone is probably a good one. Unlike in the rest of the world, in the US, it is impossible to find a mobile phone without some very heavy carrier branding (and restrictions). Google’s phone will probably be the first unlocked device freely available on the market, that could be used with ANY supported carrier (presumably GSM). For many people, this would be great. However, the major disadvantage to this option would be having to pay full price for a phone, only to put it on a standard carriers plan (which normally includes a subsidy portion for a phone). No carrier in the US is offering a monthly plan that does NOT include a subsidy. When you sign with an American carrier, you get a free (or deeply subsidised) phone. Today’s rates ALL include this subsidy. Therefore, buying a phone separately, and at a full price, then bringing it to a carrier for a $40 per month voice (or $70 voice+data) plan is essentially giving free money to your carrier. In such an environment, Google will find it difficult to compete against an iPhone and even Droid, Storm, G1 or whatever current flagship smartphones US carriers have.
I wonder if “Them Greedy Fat Bastards” applies to them?
Apple is a ten-trick pony. Google is a one-trick pony. If Apple enters search then Google has more to lose.
For all that complaining about the fact that they should not be regulated as all the other carriers because they are not a telecom oriented business, the truth comes to light eventually. Google should now fall under telecom regulations with immediate effect and served notice to attend an enquiry to determine exactly where they see their business heading and therefor why they should not be branded as a telecom company and therefor extend telecom coverage to all areas of the US just as AT&T;et al are obliged to do.
Apple should by Yahoo and really sock it to Google.
What was Sherlock:-/
“”Is Google gunning to become the next Apple?”
No, the next Microsoft.
No innovation, just looking at what others (Apple) is doing and copying them.
Google is in desperate search for their next money making machine, because so far nothing they’ve launched besides search has paid for itself. Google is just as concern about the forthcoming new Apple platform as the rest of the tech sector. Apple’s integrated user experience gives it unique insight into the next frontier on human integration technology that Google has yet perfect, and Apple’s new North Carolina data center is just the tip of the iceberg.
Damn “TomL”
You beat me to the punch-line.
@Predrag,
Your second paragraph really hit the nail on the head.
@ acid,
“Google is in desperate search”
Was that a pun?
I dunno about the phone. Remember, Google is a software company. They have no experience designing and building hardware. It will all depend on who they partner with and what risks they’re willing to take in the name of innovation.
As for the audio service, if it’s not as simple to use as iTunes while at the same time offering something new and exciting, it’s toast. Most music buyers have little reason to use another store. The last downside to iTunes went away with the DRM. Unless another store offers significantly cheaper prices or has tracks iTunes doesn’t, shoppers are going to stick with what they know. (Ironically, the same user inertia that keeps Windows on top is doing the same for iTunes.)
I like Google, and if Apple finally gets a real competitor, it would be great if it was a company I respect. But they seem to lack focus. First it’s Android phones, then it’s Android on netbooks, then that becomes Chrome OS, now Google’s making it’s own phone? Meanwhile, how many Android products are on the market right now? Not very many.
——RM
What’s next? A Google pod to complement their phone?
Personally, I don’t have the faintest idea what smart phones and music stores have to do with Google’s core business. They could conceivably be riding toward a big, fat fall.
Other then Internet Search and Search Advertising everything else Google has done is half asses and well incomplete. Google looses interest and reminds me an ADD 6 year old. The ADD 6 year old as a better chance of growing up to be a productive & creative Adult. Google just wants to control a market Like they do with internet search advertising When it doesn’t happen right away their interest starts fading very quickly and then they scrap the project in favor of their next big idea that is going to take over a market.
Other then Search, Search Ads, YouTube (which was huge when they purchased it) and Google Maps/Google Earth (which are just extensions of Internet Search) what has google done and stuck to when it failed to become the dominate thing. Exception being Google mail, Google Voice started out as another service from a company they purchased then abandoned development of the service then took was was left of it and started Google Voice with it. Android set on a shelf till Apple showed that a New player in the smart phone market was possible and could change the paradigm. Then Schmidt got iPhone Envy and pull the old Smart Phone OS off the shelf and started Android with it. But Android would have failed if Apple had not already rattled the industry with new paradigms and inspired HTC to get in the game and take a chance on it’s own name and own ideas. Apple opened the door for HTC which took a chance on Android. If HTC had not taken the chance and done their own phone with Android with the G1. No other cell phone maker would have taken that chance either. HTC would still be doing Carrier OEM Phones and no one would know who HTC is. The Big Name Phone makers still would not have been near ready to come out with Android phones. Google would have let Android sit in Open Source and unused. Phone Makers would still be in the we are developing an android phone phase with no planned release date and no details on their Android phone. Palm would have even just given up the ghost and imploded.
Google would introduce even more Android phones into an Android Market share that is already fragmented by different hardware, carriers and components.
The competitors playing catch-up and feature wars are hopelessly weak in the face of Apple’s total integration.
Apple apps rule. One store, one phone. Compatibility and ease of choice.
@predrag
There is one phone in the US that comes without excessive carrier branding. Can you guess which one it is?
(Hint: it’s not an Android phone)
Indeed there is. What’s most ironic is that the phone in question is the most heavily subsidised device in the US, possibly on the planet. Monday’s financial report from Apple revealed that the average wholesale price for their phone was $600. If consumers are paying $200 for this phone, then carrier is getting the remaining $400 in installments over the next two to three years.
Now, if any other smartphone is subsidised to the tune of about $200, which is normally recovered over about 18 to 20 months, it implies that out of your $70 per month minimum voice+data plan, some $10 goes towards your phone. This also means that the iPhone customer must remain on AT&T for at least 40 months in order for AT&T to recover the up-front subsidy. This explains why they are the only carrier in the US. Even if people buy a newer iPhones, their old ones remain on AT&T, recovering that subsidy and eventually, making greater profits for the carrier.