So now that the big ‘Gphones’ news is out of the bag, and the first Gphones are due out second half of next year, there’s lots of time to think about how this will affect the iPhone and the rest of the mobile arena. Will Gphones be iPhone killers, as many have predicted during all the speculation leading up to today’s announcement?
I’m sure there will be tons of expert insight and analysis of this topic in coming months. But, in the meantime, here’s some non-expert, kneejerk questions and answers on all this Gphones news:
Raise your game. Hopefully the fear of Google and its alliance will drive all the existing players to step up their game and bring us better and better devices.
What’s taking so long? The fact that an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the new platform will be available next week should be a bit of an embarassment for Apple. Maybe they should consider getting the iPhone SDK out the door sooner than next February.
Linux-based. The new Linux-based Android platform is aimed squarely at consumers, like the iPhone is – not at The Enterprise etc. So far, Linux has not exactly taken the consumer world by storm on the desktop. It’s hardly made a dent in fact, and has very low awareness amongst ‘average’ users. Linux is also not known for being a hugely user-friendly environment – right or wrong, its reputation is that you need to be a bit of a techie to run it. Will it make a much bigger splash in the mobile world because users don’t even think about what OS a cellphone / smartphone runs?
Palm? If they deliver on today’s promises The Google team is going to bring out a Linux-based mobile device before Palm. Not great news for Palm I imagine.
Too many cooks? The list of members of Google’s new Open Handset Alliance is long and impressive – leading device manufacturers, major carriers etc. The alliance already has 30 members. Not sure if that’s entirely a good thing though. No doubt that each member has something valuable to contribute, but with that many parties involved there’s also a whole lot of room for disagreements, and potential splintering of the platform. If an open mobile platform ends up with a huge variety of ‘flavors’ like Linux on the desktop, that doesn’t seem like a big recipe for success with consumers. MS already has a hard time dealing just with the device manufacturers when it comes to the Windows Mobile OS – Google has a massive task in getting all the alliance members to stay on the same page.
Low Profile: When is MS going to start raising the profile of Windows Mobile? Apple has hyped and marketed the heck out of the iPhone, and Google and its partners will probably build up a lot of buzz and hype around Gphones in the months to come. In the meantime, Windows Mobile has almost zero awareness level amongst everyday mobile users.
Killer Apps: Who’s going to have the best apps? I’d say Windows Mobile is the current leader in this area – with the biggest, broadest selection of programs. But iPhone seems like it will gain ground very quickly in this area, especially if sales keep going so well and giving the platform a bigger and bigger user base. It’s going to be very interesting to see where developers and mobile software publishers devote most of their energies – how much of their resources will go into developing for the new, open platform, and how much to iPhone and Windows Mobile etc.
iPhone killers? I don’t think so, on what we’ve heard so far. One of the big selling points of the whole alliance is that it will bring much cheaper handsets. There are lots of good and capable devices out now that are less expensive than the iPhone. While the recent price drop definitely boosted iPhone sales, it still doesn’t seem like most iPhone users are hugely price sensitive.
Another major selling point is the open nature of the platform. Despite all the slating Steve Jobs took for his statements about a rogue mobile app knocking out Cingular’s network, I think Apple probably has a winning approach on this subject. Let the iPhone be open to 3rd party apps, but in a tightly controlled way. Wide open, as the Gphones promise to be, is a nice concept – but it’s also likely to have a lot more stability issues. If the iPhone can continue to be the most solid, reliable platform, and the best designed in terms of both hardware and user interface, then it should stand up real well to the Gphones.
What do you all think so far? Will Gphones rule the world? Will you sell you iPhone and buy 3 Gphones with the money?
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