MacDailyNews Take: “Everything” being a string of over-hyped “iPhone killers” whose sole constant isn’t a uniform feature set for developers, but mediocre or worse unit sales. Some warm up.
Arrington continues, “Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding (Microsoft did the same thing with their first Zunes, which were built by Toshiba).”
MacDailyNews Take: Does this mean that, aside from being derivative, they’ll be brown and thick as a brick, too?
Arrington continues, “There won’t be any negotiation or compromise over the phone’s design of features – Google is dictating every last piece of it. No splintering of the Android OS that makes some applications unusable. Like the iPhone for Apple, this phone will be Google’s pure vision of what a phone should be.”
MacDailyNews Take: Based totally on Apple’s vision, of course. As pilfered by Schmidt The Boardroom Mole over many months spent kneeling at the feet of Steve Jobs. The fact is: Google knows about as much about designing devices as Michael Arrington.
Arrington continues, “One source told us that HTC, a Taiwanese company, is building the new Google phone, but we think that information is incorrect. We have some fairly good information that suggests Google is working with a Korean phone manufacturer on the Google phone – LG or Samsung. Samsung has multiple parts in the iPhone and could be pressured by Apple not to work with Google, which says LG is the more likely partner for Google.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, by the way, Logic Flaw: South Korea’s LG signs 5-year LCD supply deal with Apple, nets $500 million advance – January 12, 2009.
Arrington presses on, “But either way, the best information we have right now points directly at Korea as the birthplace of the Google Phone. We’ve also heard from a good source that Google is planning a big advertising push around the device early next year – like January.”
MacDailyNews Take: So, Google’s big advertising push is to begin right after millions of people activate their new iPhones on Christmas morning. Genius.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “iSteve” for the heads up.]
So much for their android partners
This may turn out to be a lousy phone, but as a firm believer in the concept that competition makes the iPhone better, I hope the Google phone turns out to be 95% of what the iPhone is.
Good time for Apple to launch it’s own search and mobile ad placement model.
A Google branded phone? I’ll believe it when I see it.
How come Google hasn’t said anything about this?
This is like Microsoft making a Microsoft-branded computer. It’s going to kill all of their partners and really piss them off. Not to mention, it will probably be filled with ads and other intrusions.
Vaaaaapoooourrr …..
Didn’t someone notice that there will be a tablet coming out in January that runs OS X and uses the same smart phone apps that their iPhone uses?
Timing is everything!
Vapor article with vapor info from a pandering Google zealot.
This would be a mistake for Google – they are not in the hardware business, period. That’s why Microsoft can’t get hardware right either. Look at some of their chunky clunky hardware, not to mention the brown zune.
how yawn excitinzzzzzzzz
I’m getting sick of Google this and Google that. I see anti-Google rumblings from the public in the future. They should be careful to not end up like Microsoft now.
“How come Google hasn’t said anything about this?”
Well, iPhone was introduced in January as well. Rumours about it started months before, so this seems pretty much the same. Likely time would be the CES show in Vegas.
Let’s see if this is ends up being like the Zune…
Go big or go home. It’s not so much that this a bad move for google, it’s actually good cuz they control the enviroment. The difference with google and MS is they don’t have major contracts with these manufacters. They gave the software free and made the money on advertisement sales. So they can very easily make their own and not care about the others. They can actually set the example, but let’s face it Apple has made everyone their bitch. They have what no other phone manufacter or computer maker has, control of their product enviroment, which allows something like the first gen iPhone to run the latest firmware. Something droid, winmo, rim can’t get right.
It’s as real as the crunchpad. How will OEMs feel about thus when Google try to peddle their Chrome OS?
TechCrunch is a Google-loving Apple-hating self-important rag that thinks it wields some sort of influence in the real world. The readers over there fap to anything remotely associated with Google.
Wait, I guess one could say the same thing about this site and its readers. lol
Seriously though, what I find interesting is that Google claims to not be “evil” and clearly anti-Microsoft, but their actions are clearly Microsoftian. I don’t trust them with a 6-foot ethernet cable.
Google has succeeded by focusing and innovating well in their software development.
Following and copying Apple, they will always be imitators and might dilute and negatively effect their brand.
Here’s to mole soup, Shmidt …and unlikely dish on my menu.
New verb: googled
The act or process of screwing your partners.
Syn: see Play for Sure.
The assumption that since it’s Google, at last the true iPhone killer. At its first mention AAPL stock takes a dive.
Eerily familiar from iPod history. Dell digital dj with plays-for-shit will destroy the iPod, remember?
Google seemed charming enough when Bill Campbell discovered the guys and told them to start the company. After all they hated msft. But now they simply behave like monopolists, have no sense of aesthetics and their only source of new ideas is to do what Apple does. Sound familiar?
HTC, Dull, Moto and all the others are going to be out-Androided by Android’s creator.
This article has a kind of “you’d better watch out, my brother is coming to beat you up” attitude. Bring it on Google, the champ awaits. And if it IS a worthy competitor, hooray for consumers!
if it isn’t…..BLOODBATH
Apple (as Mason Storm)….
(whispering) I’m gonna take you to the bank, Google……The BLOOD Bank…..
Haven’t they been advertising this already? The stealth bombers bombing middle america with the ‘War of the Worlds” type opening of the producd at the end.
Google to Verizon customers:
“THIS is the Droid you’ve been looking for.”
I have a feeling that Google’s partners have been serving as guinea pigs to test out the hardware and OS, and Google is going to refine it all and deliver the phone everyone was really hoping for. I’ve read that some of the UI features have been inconsistent, especially with some Google apps that didn’t support multitouch, unlike the rest of the OS. Google has been holding out, and deliberately it would seem. They are going to deliver, deliver big, and PISS OFF their existing partners. It’s a pretty dirty thing to do, if that’s how it turns out, but on the flip side, I do hope it puts pressure on Apple to keep refining and improving the iPhone. Droid does have some useful features that the iPhone is lacking in, I must concede.
Google has only got one chance at this. They have to produce a phone that is every bit the equal of the iPhone with an app store that is comparable and a superbly integrated environment. Oh and they need to get about 80% customer satisfaction too.
Apple have set the bar very high indeed and many established phone manufactures have spectacularly failed to get anywhere near the required standard, or even to have demonstrated that they understand why people choose iPhones.
I’ve no idea whether Google will be able to make the grade, but if they fail, there won’t be a second chance. Apple will then be so far ahead that there is no hope of catching them. Ironically it should be easier for those who follow Apple to copy what Apple have done, but both with the iPod and the iPhone, nobody has yet managed to put together a package that combines great hardware, software and a great service.
Von Shmidt, ve have veys to make you snort- oink