“Google on Saturday announced that its internal developers are using a new Android-powered phone that many Web sites have dubbed ‘Nexus One’ from its Internet browser identification string, but which many reports say is a variant of HTC’s HD2 phone,” Sascha Segan writes for PC Magazine.
“The nearly hysterical frothing about the ‘Google Phone’ overlooks a whole bunch of existing facts,” Segan writes. “The T-Mobile G1, after all, was a phone whose software was dictated by Google; it was a ‘Google Phone.’ Google has already sold two phones online, unlocked, to developers – the Android Dev Phone 1 (a G1 clone) and the Google Ion (also known as the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G.)”
Segan writes, “The barbaric yawp of desire from Twitter for the ‘Google Phone’ really comes down to another hot, trending Twitter topic last week – something called #attfail. The idea that gets everyone hot under the collar is that Google may sell a phone directly, magically compatible with all U.S. carriers, but somehow without the restrictions and bindings that U.S. carriers place on devices.”
Segan writes, “What this desire really comes from, of course, is Americans’ desperate wish (and it is all about Americans; the rest of the world doesn’t have this problem) to see the iPhone on a carrier other than AT&T.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The endless hype and overwrought excitement over each successive “iPhone killer” has always cast a rosy glow over Apple iPhone’s future. Such rabid anticipation isn’t for whichever device is being anointed “iPhone killer” this month, nor is it anti-Apple sentiment in any meaningful amount, it really comes from people who lust after iPhone, but are stuck on iPhone-less carriers. Every time you see an article or hear someone talking up an “iPhone killer,” it’s an expression of iPhone lust. As we’ve seen in other countries where Apple has taken iPhone to multiple carriers, the constant “hysterical frothing” over LG Voyager, HTC Touch, BlackBerry Bold, Samsung Omnia, BlackBerry Storm, Motorola Droid, “Google Phone” really signifies that there is much pent up demand ready to be tapped by Apple when they feel the time is right to make their next move.
@Rike
“Can’t you pay full retail and avoid the two year contract? That might work for you.”
No. Doesn’t work for me Rike and I will tell you why. Full retail price?
It cost $178.96 to manufacture and build a 16GB 3GS iPhone. According to iSuppli’s research, typically Apple products such as the iPods have been sold at retail pricing that is about twice the level of their hardware build and manufacturing costs. So the “retail price” of a 16GB 3GS iPhone should be more like $357.92 not the $599.00 that Apple charges. Seems excessive right? More than three times the cost of manufacturing, $240.00 over retail price? Of course, because it is not what typical retail prices for Apple are. Why? Because of Apple’s contract with AT&T;.
matt: iSuppli teardowns don’t include R&D;, marketing, legal and many other costs that go into a product’s cost. The iPhone is not overpriced. If anything, it’s amazing that Apple got the retail (unsubsidized) price down so low.
I hate at@t, hence i do not have an iphone. It costs nearly 100 dollars a month to have an iPhone on at@t. If they gave you the option of only having a voice plan and no data plan i would have bought one years ago.
@Snow
Let me clarify this again: typically Apple products such as the iPods have been sold at retail pricing that is about twice the level of their hardware build and manufacturing costs.
So you are saying that the reason why the iPhone 3GS is sold at more than three times the manufacturing and build costs is because the price of R&D;, marketing, legal and ‘many other costs’ is much, much higher for the 3GS than say the iPod touch? I find that hard to believe but I would love to be convinced otherwise.
@Matt and alansky et al,
I really don’t understand the I’m sick of being stuck, or the I’m being held hostage by my carrier remarks. I hear them all the time.
Did you get a $500 phone for $30? Did you agree to stay with the carrier for 2 years if they gave you that $500 phone for $30? If so you’re neither stuck nor being held hostage. You’re fulfilling your agreement in exchange for getting a $500 phone for $30.
Next time pay the $500 and go to which ever carrier you want. Simple as that.
Don’t think there is $500 worth of plastic in a phone? Well don’t buy it then.
Shit I wish they were all free and that upgrades grew on the tree I have out back and that Steve Jobs would come over once a week riding on a Unicorn and reboot my phone for me in person. But I’m “stuck” having to do it my self…I’m being held hostage really.
Yes, if the iPhone were on T-Mobile, I would own that instead of the Android. No question.
@Jerry T
No I didn’t get a $500 phone for $30. I got a $358 phone for $199. Don’t know where you are getting that $30 from?
And no, the phone isn’t worth $500 in plastic, it is worth $178.96 in plastic. And I would be willing to pay retail price which should be $358 bucks. So buying the phone ‘unsubsidized’ doesn’t look good for me because I don’t like how it feels to get fuc*ed in the a*s. But hey, I realize now that either way, you are getting fuc*ed in the a*s, it just depends on who you want to get fuc*ed by, Apple, or AT&T;… but my guess is they are both taking turns either way.
I have an iPhone. If I would have done it all over again I would have bought the phone and just canceled it and went with another carrier. Even still this would have cost me more than what the retail price should have been anyway. And if I would have done it all over again and there was a comparable phone out there, say the nexusone, that was sold unlocked at a sane retail price, there would be no question who I would go with. I’m just hoping that google takes the high road which is probably giving them too much credit.
$199 – 16GB 3GS iPhone w/contract
$36 – Activation
$175 – Early Termination Fee
$70 – One month of service
Total with cancellation: $480
Full retail price from Apple: $599
@Matt,
My point wasn’t the $30. It was the fact that you got a subsidized phone, no matter whether it is $30 or $199, in exchange for that deal you agreed to stay with the carrier for 2 years. You were NOT stuck as you put it, you agreed up front was the real point.
Don’t like 2 year agreements? Then don’t enter them was the second point.
As for what the “real” retail price “should” be. I think you’ll find it is what the market will pay. That’s why Macs cost more than PCs. Enough people will buy them at those costs to make Apple happy. If not, they’d lower the price.