4 ms·

Should Google kill the Nexus One?

14 points by mattjung 17y ago

blasdel 17y ago
They should brick the cell modem's firmware and sell them for ~$200 as iPod Touch competitors.
- ars 17y ago
  I actually plan to use it that way - without any cell or cell data service. I haven't bought it yet though, I'm hoping someone else will try it first and let me know if it works.
- kylec 17y ago
  Why? From what I can tell the Nexus One's primary strengths are its integration with GMail, Google Voice, its large screen (for web browsing), and the turn-by-turn navigation app. All of which would be much less useful without a cell network data connection. The places where it lags behind are precisely where the iPod Touch is leagues ahead - the App Store, the music/video player, the integration with iTunes, etc. I'd even briefly considered getting a Nexus One for the aforementioned strengths and using my iPhone as a glorified iPod Touch for the weaknesses. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it the other way around.
- rms 17y ago
  I also thought that after some guy's post asking for a $150 Android phone with no cell connection. I wonder how cheaply one could be manufactured by someone that wasn't Google or an existing manufacturer. I wouldn't want to get in a business trying to compete with Apple based on price alone though. Maybe if your handset completely supported Google Voice for unlimited minutes over a T-Mobile prepaid data only SIM card for $30/month but I'm not sure if the carriers and Google would allow you to do that.
  - daeken 17y ago
    No need to manufacture it yourself. There are dozens of phones/media players on Alibaba which can be purchased cheaply and hacked to your heart's content. I actually considered picking up one of the existing Linux ones and making it run Android, then reselling it. You can get decent hardware from there for $100 for a single unit, even cheaper if you do it in bulk (even 10 units in certain cases).
    - rms 17y ago
      Does anyone think that a viable business exists here? Happy to explore it with people via email.
      - daeken 17y ago
        I'd be interested in working on it. I think it'd be low cost to get it up and going; even if it doesn't work, you're out a few hundred bucks in dev units and a few weeks' work. The biggest problem, IMO, is finding a vendor that will dropship pre-flashed units to customers. If you can find that, the rest is cake. It's considerably more expensive if you have to have the units shipped to some central facility for flashing before they hit the doorstep.
- joubert 17y ago
  Does it have WiFi like the iPod touch does?
  - Zaak 17y ago
    yes
dbz 17y ago
Absolutely not; however, I feel that Google made a big mistake. It released a Minimum Viable Product, which might have been okay for other companies to do, but because Google is such a large brand name- and such a large part of the internet- it is expected to come out with an amazing product. A minimum viable product phone is simply not acceptable for someone like my mother who would by the phone because it has Google's name on it. (Yes. I understand that example has a fallacy or two, but it should make my point clear.) On the other hand, I keep on getting more and more interested in this phone!
- RK 17y ago
  I think expectations need to be pretty stratospheric for the Nexus One to be considered a "minimally viable product".
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    The iPhone was over two years old and extremely common when the Nexus One was released. Its once-astonishing features are now considered kind of routine. Its level of polish is rapidly becoming the industry standard. The minimum is always moving. It would be a different story if the Nexus One were tailored for a niche market. And, in fact, it arguably is: for much of the geek target market, the market of people who know what multitasking is and thrill to read the fine print on the contracts at the Android App Store, the Nexus One is far more than a minimum viable product. And so it seems to get a lot of buzz in that market. Hopefully its market is large enough to sustain something like it.
andr 17y ago
I don't know how many of you actually own a Nexus One, but I bought one, and I can't see why everyone is considering it such a failure. Having used an iPhone and an HTC Magic I think the Nexus is a big leap. It does more than the iPhone out of the box - IM, free contact, calendar and Facebook sync, native Gmail, turn by turn navigation, and tons of technological improvements and finely tuned small details. Granted, it's not a revolution, just evolution, but it is the best phone out there right now. Also, the 20,000 figure (for first week sales) that keeps being quoted everywhere is just a ridiculously inaccurate statistic.
TrevorJ 17y ago
Killing it makes very little sense when the vast majority of the capital investment has been made already. Further, whatever possible (unlikely) brand damage a moderately unsuccessful piece of hardware would do to Google it would pale in comparison to what would happen if they pulled it from the market. Google isn't the kind of company that needs things to be an overnight success, I think in the long run they will gain ground.
pclark 17y ago
no one launches a phone (or anything) correctly off the cuff. Apple were simply clever enough to launch their first phone, the Motorola iTunes enabled phone, with a different brand. Give Google a year and they'll be fine.

14 points by mattjung 17y ago

blasdel 17y ago

They should brick the cell modem's firmware and sell them for ~$200 as iPod Touch competitors.

ars 17y ago
I actually plan to use it that way - without any cell or cell data service. I haven't bought it yet though, I'm hoping someone else will try it first and let me know if it works.
kylec 17y ago
Why? From what I can tell the Nexus One's primary strengths are its integration with GMail, Google Voice, its large screen (for web browsing), and the turn-by-turn navigation app. All of which would be much less useful without a cell network data connection. The places where it lags behind are precisely where the iPod Touch is leagues ahead - the App Store, the music/video player, the integration with iTunes, etc. I'd even briefly considered getting a Nexus One for the aforementioned strengths and using my iPhone as a glorified iPod Touch for the weaknesses. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it the other way around.
rms 17y ago
I also thought that after some guy's post asking for a $150 Android phone with no cell connection. I wonder how cheaply one could be manufactured by someone that wasn't Google or an existing manufacturer. I wouldn't want to get in a business trying to compete with Apple based on price alone though. Maybe if your handset completely supported Google Voice for unlimited minutes over a T-Mobile prepaid data only SIM card for $30/month but I'm not sure if the carriers and Google would allow you to do that.
- daeken 17y ago
  No need to manufacture it yourself. There are dozens of phones/media players on Alibaba which can be purchased cheaply and hacked to your heart's content. I actually considered picking up one of the existing Linux ones and making it run Android, then reselling it. You can get decent hardware from there for $100 for a single unit, even cheaper if you do it in bulk (even 10 units in certain cases).
  - rms 17y ago
    Does anyone think that a viable business exists here? Happy to explore it with people via email.
    - daeken 17y ago
      I'd be interested in working on it. I think it'd be low cost to get it up and going; even if it doesn't work, you're out a few hundred bucks in dev units and a few weeks' work. The biggest problem, IMO, is finding a vendor that will dropship pre-flashed units to customers. If you can find that, the rest is cake. It's considerably more expensive if you have to have the units shipped to some central facility for flashing before they hit the doorstep.
joubert 17y ago
Does it have WiFi like the iPod touch does?
- Zaak 17y ago
  yes

dbz 17y ago

Absolutely not; however, I feel that Google made a big mistake. It released a Minimum Viable Product, which might have been okay for other companies to do, but because Google is such a large brand name- and such a large part of the internet- it is expected to come out with an amazing product. A minimum viable product phone is simply not acceptable for someone like my mother who would by the phone because it has Google's name on it. (Yes. I understand that example has a fallacy or two, but it should make my point clear.) On the other hand, I keep on getting more and more interested in this phone!

RK 17y ago
I think expectations need to be pretty stratospheric for the Nexus One to be considered a "minimally viable product".
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  The iPhone was over two years old and extremely common when the Nexus One was released. Its once-astonishing features are now considered kind of routine. Its level of polish is rapidly becoming the industry standard. The minimum is always moving. It would be a different story if the Nexus One were tailored for a niche market. And, in fact, it arguably is: for much of the geek target market, the market of people who know what multitasking is and thrill to read the fine print on the contracts at the Android App Store, the Nexus One is far more than a minimum viable product. And so it seems to get a lot of buzz in that market. Hopefully its market is large enough to sustain something like it.

andr 17y ago

I don't know how many of you actually own a Nexus One, but I bought one, and I can't see why everyone is considering it such a failure. Having used an iPhone and an HTC Magic I think the Nexus is a big leap. It does more than the iPhone out of the box - IM, free contact, calendar and Facebook sync, native Gmail, turn by turn navigation, and tons of technological improvements and finely tuned small details. Granted, it's not a revolution, just evolution, but it is the best phone out there right now. Also, the 20,000 figure (for first week sales) that keeps being quoted everywhere is just a ridiculously inaccurate statistic.

TrevorJ 17y ago

Killing it makes very little sense when the vast majority of the capital investment has been made already. Further, whatever possible (unlikely) brand damage a moderately unsuccessful piece of hardware would do to Google it would pale in comparison to what would happen if they pulled it from the market. Google isn't the kind of company that needs things to be an overnight success, I think in the long run they will gain ground.

pclark 17y ago

no one launches a phone (or anything) correctly off the cuff. Apple were simply clever enough to launch their first phone, the Motorola iTunes enabled phone, with a different brand. Give Google a year and they'll be fine.