New Google phone is no iPhone killer
Posted
Sep 23 2008, 12:53 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Google jumped into the phone business today with G1, its new smartphone that will be available in October for $179. The phone is a direct attack on Apple's iPhone and the BlackBerry line. Will it kill the iPhone? No.
The phone is a huge bet for the company. Google knows that mobile is the next big jumping off point for the Internet as people move from simple text messaging to Web surfing, checking e-mail, listening to music and watching videos. Google wants to be the point man for all of that, controlling the software and making more than a few ad bucks along the way.
So Google made software, called Android, for mobile systems. The software can work with just about any phone, and several makers are coming out with Google phones in the next few years. HTC made the first Google phone, the G1 announced today. Google shares are up less than 1% to $432.30.
A quick rundown on the G1. It will be offered through T-Mobile. It's a 3G phone that can also connect through Wi-Fi connections. It has a touchscreen, a music player, a camera and can get tunes through Amazon's music store. Unlike the iPhone, it has an actual physical keyboard. And you can buy games and other applications for it at Google's online store, called the Google Market.
If you sign a two-year contract, the phone costs $179. And you have a choice of two plans: $25 for unlimited data and $35 for unlimited data and texts. That's on top of a voice plan.
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg is calling the G1 the first real competitor to the iPhone.
But more notable is what the G1 doesn't have. It lacks support for Microsoft Exchange, which means it can't easily sync with Microsoft Outlook. And it has far less memory than the iPhone, with just a 1 gigabyte memory card. Both problems can be fixed, but as it stands now, the G1 is not a device for business users.
Another problem is that T-Mobile's 3G service is only available in 13 markets, and the company is trying to expand that to 27 by the end of the year. The iPhone is in far more 3G markets through AT&T.
The G1 is clearly a consumer phone, and that means it's going head to head with Apple's iPhone. The iPhone outshines Google's effort in too many areas right now, including size, weight, network availability and the number of programs you can download at Apple's App Store.
But Google doesn't need to beat the iPhone. Google wants to spread its Android software far and wide in as many phones as possible. Some of those phones will be sophisticated smartphones, and others might be simple little things used mostly for talking. Google needs volume to scale up its mobile advertising network, and that's what it's going after.
Analysts at Collins Stewart estimate that by 2011, Android can be a $5 billion global ad revenue opportunity for Google. Android will fully blossom by that time, the analysts said.
Update: Oof. After reading Gizmodo's list of what's wrong with the Google phone, I repeat: No iPhone killer.
Related reading:
Google's cell phone plans delayed
Google goes beyond the browser wars
Google gets into the wireless business
