TechCrunch: The Google Phone no longer a myth; it’s real and coming soon

MacMall 96 Hour Apple Sale“Get ready for the Google Phone. It’s no longer a myth, it’s real,” Michael Arrington reports for TechCrunch. “Everything up until now has just been a warm up to the Google Phone.”

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.]

39 Comments

  1. 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.

  2. 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?

  3. 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

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. Question…

    Has Google submitted it to the FCC?

    If not, it will be months before it can be sold in the US.

    Apple will have their next gen phone ready to come out in June.

    Also, who are they going to buy their RAM from? Last I heard, RAM is in limited quantities. That could be one reason why the iPhone killers have limited RAM and depend on SD cards.

  7. People are forgetting that Apple announced the iPhone six months before they wanted to because they had to file with the FCC and they figured the announcement was better from them than from a government web site.

    Methinks this article is FUD. Google may announce a phone in Jan but its highly unlikely it could be on the market before the end of 2Q’10.

  8. I am in agreement with those who embrace the competition Google offers Apple. Likewise, I appreciate the many innovations Google has offered. However, is it just me or does Google seem to be spreading themselves a little thin? Big ideas, big announcements, big launches… then a lot (not everything, of course) of what Google does sort of peters out. Some complain that Apple doesn’t support open source enough (I disagree), Google may be an example of depending on open source too much.

    They are a think tank with a lot of money and a severe case of ADD. It’s hard to hack on them too much, but there is definitely some fallibility in Google.

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