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Google pulls plug on Nexus One

AlexBlom 16y ago
Not surprised. I love my Nexus One, but as soon as you have problems it is a horrible experience. I realize this is HTC's fault, not Google's, but damn. One month after sending it in for repair they lost the thing twice, sent it back with the same issue and want me to go through it all again!
YooLi 16y ago
With the Nexus one going away, is there any other Android phone that doesn't need to be rooted to install vanilla android and updates?
- barrkel 16y ago
  The Nexus One is still the anointed dev phone, for now. It isn't going away, per se; it's still available to purchase (via a third party I think) to registered Android developers.
- s3graham 16y ago
  They'll likely keep selling some relatively high-end through the dev phone program.
- yason 16y ago
  This is exactly why I was waiting for Nexus One, well, to be sold in Finland. I don't want any "value-adding crap" in my phone, much like I don't want any OEM crap in my computer either. A plain Ubuntu or plain Android installation is what I want. Are there really no other Android phones that come without? Oh crap. (FYI U.S. citizens: most mobile phones in Finland and Europe are sold separately from the carrier plan, thus making it easy for people to buy directly from Google. If only they had decided to sell...)
  - lenni 16y ago
    It is indeed a massive shame. After having been fucked around by tmobile Germany I promised myself to never buy a phone from a carrier again. Looks like it is going to be an iPhone now. Say what you want about Apple, they won't let anyone mess about with their software.
- veeti 16y ago
  Well, the original Motorola Droid/Milestone might still be an option.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    Milestone was never an option. It is not just GSM version of Droid, it is also pretty much locked down. While it was rooted, there is still no way to put custom firmware on it. Pretty much like Droid X.
- peregrine 16y ago
  Their are several phones that are very easy to root. I know this doesn't pass your cut but no carrier is going to give up control of a device. The droid x debacle is a good example of this. Galaxy S takes 1 file, 1 reboot, 1 click and its rooted. Just as an example.
- ben1040 16y ago
  I love my N1 because it has none of the carrier-enforced sponsorware and I can use the data plan I pay for however I choose (using the built-in tethering functionality, for example). I appreciate that Google recognizes that Android is an open OS and provides an unlockable bootloader if I want to run a modified firmware. The N1 was what moved me out of the iPhone camp because I found this to be a breath of fresh air. The N1's contemporaries just aren't as open, and given the phone vendors' track records if you buy an Android phone today you're not guaranteed any software updates in a timely manner or even at all. Google made this their flagship device and was what they were using to dogfood the OS, so I was confident the N1 this would continue to see improvement for the useful life of the device. I'll probably be in the market for a new phone by this time next year, and I hope there is a decent replacement for the N1 in terms of openness with a vendor who's committed to supporting it. If my phone is going to be locked down tighter than a drum, I may as well get an iPhone, because Apple has at least established a track record that the device will get software updates through the life of the 2 year contract.
duck 16y ago
It makes sense that one had to give, but I for one didn't see this coming.
macrael 16y ago
Is there any evidence that there will be a Nexus Two? Is it safe to infer that part of the reason for the end of the Nexus strategy is due to carriers and hardware makers objecting to there being a "google blessed" phone?
- lftl 16y ago
  I think the main reason is that Google simply isn't good at being a retail company. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Nexus Two, but I would expect it to be clearly labeled as for developers only and come with basically no support.
- adbge 16y ago
  According to Eric Schmidt (Google's CEO), there will be no Nexus Two. “The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn't have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticised us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: 'Ok, it worked. Congratulations - we're stopping'." Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7864223/Googles-Eric-Schmidt-You-can-trust-us-with-your-data.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7864223/Googles...
s3graham 16y ago
I've said this before, but this is so disappointing. Canada's cell phone market is so horribly warped and the N1 was one of the few attempts to push things slightly towards sane.
Tichy 16y ago
You can still buy the N1, just not from Google. I think they gave up too soon.
- tptacek 16y ago
  I don't think they "gave up" so much as "saw they were never going to make a lot of money on it" and "were antagonizing the channel for the vast majority of all Android sales". G doesn't want to sell phones; they just want to control the OS that runs on them.
  - tjogin 16y ago
    Do you think that it would have been disappointing to Google if Nexus One had sold like hotcakes?
    - grandalf 16y ago
      I'm thinking that the only reason Google would have abandoned the Nexus One is if the manufacturers promised to ship upgradeable phones running the latest (unmodified) Android.
    - zmmmmm 16y ago
      Actually I think they might have seen it as a problem. I genuinely believe they wanted to target the N1 at only developers and sophisticated users who generally self-serve as far as support goes. They wanted to seed the evangelist and developer communities with a top notch, completely open phone so that they would then develop for and recommend Android to their followers. Had grandma and joe sixpack started using it they might never have been able to handle the support issues. I think they identified a set of users who gave them high "bang for their buck" and specifically targeted them. I know many people say they never saw an ad for the N1 and yet I saw them for a solid 2 months straight on every page that had Google ads on them.
      - tjogin 16y ago
        So if everything went according to plan, why are they canceling it?
eli 16y ago
I blame Google for letting people build the Nexus One up so much (remember the crazy pre-launch rumors about how it was going to change the world?) It's not that Americans are stupid and the rest of the world is smart. The problem is that you typically pay the same monthly service fee whether you take a subsidized phone or not. To go buy your own phone at full retail price is leaving hundreds of dollars on the table. (T-Mobile is the notable exception as they let you pay slightly less for a contractless plan.) Also, few people are willing to buy an expensive phone that they can't even hold in their hand first. My understand was that Google was going to try to get the phones some retail space in e.g. Best Buy.
- yason 16y ago
  The same price for the service with or without a phone is just a sign that the market doesn't work for some reason. Before my (coincidentally, American) employer started paying my phone bills, I had a service from one of the local operators here. In my "smart" country the costs were as follows: - monthly fee: 0,67€ - phone calls: 0,069€ / minute - texting: 0,069€ / message Admitting I indeed don't talk on the phone that much and I don't use data services, I rarely racked up more than 5-10 euros a month. I could get 512k-2M data plan for 10-30 euros a month. Still, any plan that comes bundled with a decent phone here is many times more expensive.
- technomancy 16y ago
  > The problem is that you typically pay the same monthly service fee whether you take a subsidized phone or not. Yeah, T-mobile is really great about this. I'm saving over a thousand dollars over the life of the phone by getting a data-only plan.
  - rwl 16y ago
    I'm curious: do you have a data-only plan so you can use VoIP to make phone calls? I have been trying to find a device that would make it easy to make VoIP calls most of the time, since I am nearly always around free (or already-paid for) wireless broadband, but fall back on a prepaid SIM card when I only have cell network coverage. Some of the Android devices look promising for this, especially the Nexus One, but I have been unable to find hard information about whether it's possible to do this conveniently.
ashishbharthi 16y ago
Any numbers on how many sold so far?
- progr 16y ago
  They sold 135.000 devices in the first 74 days. Maybe now they are at ~200.000.
seanalltogether 16y ago
I bought the nexus one specifically because it was on par with the iphone but allowed me to throw any sim card in that I wanted for traveling between countries. Are there any other phone on the market similar to this?
- pietrofmaggi 16y ago
  An unlocked iPhone. But it cost more than the N1. Here in Italy Vodafone sell (if you can find it) the N1 without contract for 499€, while the iPhone 3GS is now 539€.
lwhi 16y ago
"Google’s plan to cut out the middle-man from the sales plan (that is, the mobile operators) sucks (unless you’re talking about Apple)." Maybe it's fair to say that the problems involved in selling direct to the consumer are relatively insurmountable, unless your company has expertise in that domain. I think Google must have underestimated the task.
- frossie 16y ago
  I think Google must have underestimated the task. Or overestimated their own interest in playing this game.
  - drewcrawford 16y ago
    If they're going to compete with Apple though, who's now firmly waltzing into Google's territory (see iAd and all the new cloud services)... ...don't they have to be interested in playing this game?
    - etherael 16y ago
      No, they just need to partner with people who are interested in playing this game.
hwang89 16y ago
After lusting after the phone for a while, I ordered an unlocked N1 last night after hearing the news. Did I rush it?
- jwhitlark 16y ago
  Nah. It's just not being sold direct anymore. It's still being sold. And it's a great phone, esp. with 2.2 on it.
kloncks 16y ago
The best comment I've heard on this news came from John Gruber: "Here’s the list of Android phones you can buy today other than the Nexus One which support Android version 2.2: {}."
- spot 16y ago
  iOS4 was announced in January. Froyo was announced in May. I leave the arithmetic to you.
- jrockway 16y ago
  I can make meaningless statements too! "Here's the list of iPhone apps I can install on my iPhone without Apple's permission: {}" Incidentally, 2.2 (via the CM6 test) runs just fine on my Sapphire. The joy of Free Software is that I can fix my own device that is no longer the flavor of the month. T-Mobile will never give that device an Android > 2.0. But the community can, and it works much better than the stock image. (Android 2.2 sort of works on my EVO 4G. The 4G doesn't work, but then again, since the EVO came out, Sprint's 4G hasn't worked in Chicago anyway. So I guess 2.2 works fine on the EVO, actually.) Anyway, it all comes down to how you define supported. If you mean, "in the form of a bloatware ROM filled with ads for your carrier", you're right, Android 2.2 is not supported by anything. If you mean, "I can check it out from git, compile it, and load it onto my phone", well, pretty much everything supports 2.2 now. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.
  - kloncks 16y ago
    With all due respect, you're going off another tangent. Froyo, aka Android 2.2, was released on May 20. It's now July 19th, almost two months later. The fact that only one phone will support an OS for more than two months is a problem.
    - jwhitlark 16y ago
      I wouldn't call it a problem; it's an artifact of a completely different ecosystem. If it wasn't an open platform, and was all built by only one company, it wouldn't have been announced until just before it was shipped. I'm sure some people are frustrated by it, but following "publish early and often", and all that goes with it, is how open source works.
cookiecaper 16y ago
Personally I don't think that Google tried very hard. I hardly ever watch TV, but I've seen TV commercials for Droid. I didn't see any for Nexus One. I upgraded from a dumb phone recently and wanted to buy a Nexus One, but T-Mobile lady told me Google required a much more expensive plan, that the buy-one-get-one free sale wasn't applicable, and that there were all other kinds of undesirable things about it. It also cost a lot of money for the device itself, and I don't have a lot of money. So while I would have really liked to buy a N1, I bought a G1 for $99, got another G1 for my wife for free, and took them home, rooted, and installed Android 2.1 and I'm perfectly happy with it. We're on a plan that is about $30 less than our separate dumb phones and includes unlimited data and text. And none of this would have been possible with a Nexus One. I don't see any reason why this would be part of Google's fundamental strategy. I don't have a problem with Google selling phones online or directly or being the exclusive dealer, but the Nexus One was just too much hassle and would have cost much, much more in the long term.
- orangecat 16y ago
  Personally I don't think that Google tried very hard. I suspect carrier pressure. They really don't want us to start asking intelligent questions such as why they should be able to lock us into multiyear contracts and control how we can use our own property. but the Nexus One was just too much hassle and would have cost much, much more in the long term It sounds like you're on a family plan. If you weren't, the unsubsidized N1 would come out cheaper over two years using T-Mobile's contract-free plans. And you can "cancel" anytime without an ETF.
- fossuser 16y ago
  Tmobile requires a more expensive plan to recover the cost of allowing you to buy the phone subsidized. If you buy it unlocked over two years (and you're not a family plan) you save around $600 compared to buying it on contract.
  - jedbrown 16y ago
    Um, this number sounds high. My recollection is that there is a $20/month difference in price so you are effectively paying an extra $480 towards a phone over two years. If the difference in up-front cost for the device is less than this, buying off-contract is cheaper.
grandalf 16y ago
Looking forward to Google buying t-Mobile and calling it g-mobile.
- zyb09 16y ago
  I know this is a joke, but I don't think they could afford it. T-Mobile is just a small division of a very big company.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    But there have been persistent rumors that the US T-Mobile operation has been up for sale.
dannyr 16y ago
I give props for Google for trying. I don't really care that they failed. They didn't really know if selling an unlocked phone would work unless they try it.
shalinmangar 16y ago
I don't think it was Google's intention to sell a lot of Nexus One units. I believe that they wanted to set a standard for Android phones over which other manufacturers could improve. Android phones before Nexus One were not good enough and they wanted to tell people that this is how an Android phone should be.
- btilly 16y ago
  This. Google never wanted to try to cut out the middle-men. Google didn't want to push the phone too much. They just wanted to put it out there to be able to let them know, "Here, look, this is what you can do with this technology at this price point." As was pointed out at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1529657 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1529657, Google achieved its aims. The Nexus One was a success. It can go away now. If you pay attention, you'll often see companies do strange and counter-intuitive things because their goal isn't simply to make money on every single product. Study and learn, because they often aren't being nearly as stupid as you might think.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    It's the same strategy as Chrome. They could just have made another browser and pushed it via tie-ins, lock-ins and millions of dollars in advertising. Instead they rebuilt the browser from the ground up for speed and security. This prompted everyone else in the browser space to up their game too. Google is betting that they benefit more from a lot of competitive browsers, than from having an iron grip on a single browser. Conversely, they can't allow someone else with an iron grip to hold the browser market back to benefit themselves. The same is true of the phone market.
    - btilly 16y ago
      Well Chrome is a somewhat different strategy. Sure, Chrome tried to raise the bar. But Google has a lot of other uses for that browser technology. It is used internally, it shows up in Android, the JavaScript engine is usable in a stand-alone environment, it will be used in ChromeOS, etc. Google didn't just release it, say, "We've made our point" and then stop. Google's strategy with the Nexus One strategy is an occasional strategy. If you're not planning to go into a line of business, it is a lot of money to spend for uncertain reward. That said, I'm quite sure that Google would not be adverse to using it again if they found a good reason to do so.
usaar333 16y ago
How sad. The Nexus One was the best phone out there (at least for my preferences). I was waiting for a Sprint N1 forever, but alas, that doesn't seem to be happening.
ern 16y ago
The headlines seem to be a bit exaggerated. Given that they just launched in South Korea and Australia, and seem to be following up on an existing announcement, I can't see how stopping sales to consumers in the US constitutes "pulling the plug" (although the ambiguous tone of the Nexus One blog post is the main culprit here).
schammy 16y ago
It's still going to be sold at retail outlets. Just because they're not selling it directly anymore - so what? Can anyone tell me why this matters?
rudeboy 16y ago
I was just about to purchase one. Glad I didn't! :)
augustl 16y ago
I bought a Nexus One a few days ago. I suspect many would feel sorry for me, but don't worry, I'm just fine. Google will continue to improve the OS, and I'm sure the device will get better and better in the years to come.
- orangecat 16y ago
  Google will continue to improve the OS And if for some reason they don't, Cyanogen and others will. I expect an N1 will have a longer useful life than a Droid X.
nlanier 16y ago
I have said it before in this space and I'll say it again: I love the hell out of my Nexus One, circumstances be damned.
anigbrowl 16y ago
I feel it's worth pointing out that they haven't killed the phone, just their retail channel. Theoretically the thing could finally become available in carrier stores now, although they probably won't bother after Google's rather poor handling of the marketing and publicity. Sad to see them giving up on challenging the carriers, but with no retail 'Google stores' where people could examine the thing before paying ~$500 for it that's not very surprising. I still like mine, even though I might have saved a few $ by buying a Droid or something.
- dpapathanasiou 16y ago
  Fortunately, though, you can buy other HTC phones which are unlocked and w/o a contract from online stores like newegg. Since many of those models are also sold in telco retail stores, you can do your research there, and buy the unlocked version online.
- artsrc 16y ago
  One of the carriers here is selling them. http://store.vodafone.com.au/handset-htc-nexus-one.aspx?pid=vcap:home:hero:nexus-one http://store.vodafone.com.au/handset-htc-nexus-one.aspx?pid=...
  - mambodog 16y ago
    But apparently they only have 1000 of them, and won't get any more, due to the Nexus One being End-of-life. http://ausdroid.net/2010/07/02/vodafone-only-have-1000-nexus-ones/ http://ausdroid.net/2010/07/02/vodafone-only-have-1000-nexus... I was going to pick one up for cross platform game development with Unity3D, but this was before I found out that developers in Australia still can't sell apps on the Android Marketplace. I thought Google would have their shit together with this by now.
martingordon 16y ago
The lack of retail stores wouldn't have been such a big deal if Google offered a similar, if not better, return policy than phones you could hold in your hand before buying. A 14 day/$45 restocking fee policy is pretty bad. When it's for a $500 device you can't play with anywhere before purchasing, it's abysmal.
- protomyth 16y ago
  Having retail stores (or at least a space in retail stores staffed by your company) has really helped Apple sell a lot of product. There is no real substitute for being able to play with a device and see how good it really is. I think Google didn't get those type of buyers and Googles trouble with people calling them to resolve issues didn't help.
sprout 16y ago
> Google’s plan to cut out the middle-man from the sales plan (that is, the mobile operators) sucks (unless you’re talking about Apple). Except Apple hasn't cut out the middle-man. In fact, the notion that carriers are middle-men is silly. If anything, Apple is the middle-man getting consumers locked into AT&T's poorly priced and overpriced data plans. The hardware is incidental, which is why Google 'failed.' The carriers refuse to offer data service, only phones with bundled service.
joubert 16y ago
What baffles me is that when I walk around New York, I don't see a single Android, Nexus One, etc. ad. But I do see iPad ads. I see iPhone ads. I see iPod ads. Often. Since Google's business is advertising, I am amused.
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  I saw enormous numbers of ads for the N1 - but only through the Google ad network (on web sites). I think they were very selected and targeted in who they were advertising to. I think they specifically did not want hordes of general consumers picking up this phone.
paul9290 16y ago
This was a great PR stunt that further ignited Android as premium SmartPhone OS/experience and alternative to the iPhone. I own an iPhone and prefer it due to hardware/software experience, but the Droid is pretty cool and the Droid X has some killer features.

Not surprised. I love my Nexus One, but as soon as you have problems it is a horrible experience. I realize this is HTC's fault, not Google's, but damn. One month after sending it in for repair they lost the thing twice, sent it back with the same issue and want me to go through it all again!

YooLi 16y ago

With the Nexus one going away, is there any other Android phone that doesn't need to be rooted to install vanilla android and updates?

barrkel 16y ago
The Nexus One is still the anointed dev phone, for now. It isn't going away, per se; it's still available to purchase (via a third party I think) to registered Android developers.
s3graham 16y ago
They'll likely keep selling some relatively high-end through the dev phone program.
yason 16y ago
This is exactly why I was waiting for Nexus One, well, to be sold in Finland. I don't want any "value-adding crap" in my phone, much like I don't want any OEM crap in my computer either. A plain Ubuntu or plain Android installation is what I want. Are there really no other Android phones that come without? Oh crap. (FYI U.S. citizens: most mobile phones in Finland and Europe are sold separately from the carrier plan, thus making it easy for people to buy directly from Google. If only they had decided to sell...)
- lenni 16y ago
  It is indeed a massive shame. After having been fucked around by tmobile Germany I promised myself to never buy a phone from a carrier again. Looks like it is going to be an iPhone now. Say what you want about Apple, they won't let anyone mess about with their software.
veeti 16y ago
Well, the original Motorola Droid/Milestone might still be an option.
- vetinari 16y ago
  Milestone was never an option. It is not just GSM version of Droid, it is also pretty much locked down. While it was rooted, there is still no way to put custom firmware on it. Pretty much like Droid X.
peregrine 16y ago
Their are several phones that are very easy to root. I know this doesn't pass your cut but no carrier is going to give up control of a device. The droid x debacle is a good example of this. Galaxy S takes 1 file, 1 reboot, 1 click and its rooted. Just as an example.
ben1040 16y ago
I love my N1 because it has none of the carrier-enforced sponsorware and I can use the data plan I pay for however I choose (using the built-in tethering functionality, for example). I appreciate that Google recognizes that Android is an open OS and provides an unlockable bootloader if I want to run a modified firmware. The N1 was what moved me out of the iPhone camp because I found this to be a breath of fresh air. The N1's contemporaries just aren't as open, and given the phone vendors' track records if you buy an Android phone today you're not guaranteed any software updates in a timely manner or even at all. Google made this their flagship device and was what they were using to dogfood the OS, so I was confident the N1 this would continue to see improvement for the useful life of the device. I'll probably be in the market for a new phone by this time next year, and I hope there is a decent replacement for the N1 in terms of openness with a vendor who's committed to supporting it. If my phone is going to be locked down tighter than a drum, I may as well get an iPhone, because Apple has at least established a track record that the device will get software updates through the life of the 2 year contract.

duck 16y ago

It makes sense that one had to give, but I for one didn't see this coming.

macrael 16y ago

Is there any evidence that there will be a Nexus Two? Is it safe to infer that part of the reason for the end of the Nexus strategy is due to carriers and hardware makers objecting to there being a "google blessed" phone?

lftl 16y ago
I think the main reason is that Google simply isn't good at being a retail company. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Nexus Two, but I would expect it to be clearly labeled as for developers only and come with basically no support.
adbge 16y ago
According to Eric Schmidt (Google's CEO), there will be no Nexus Two. “The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn't have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticised us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: 'Ok, it worked. Congratulations - we're stopping'." Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7864223/Googles-Eric-Schmidt-You-can-trust-us-with-your-data.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7864223/Googles...

s3graham 16y ago

I've said this before, but this is so disappointing. Canada's cell phone market is so horribly warped and the N1 was one of the few attempts to push things slightly towards sane.

Tichy 16y ago

You can still buy the N1, just not from Google. I think they gave up too soon.

tptacek 16y ago
I don't think they "gave up" so much as "saw they were never going to make a lot of money on it" and "were antagonizing the channel for the vast majority of all Android sales". G doesn't want to sell phones; they just want to control the OS that runs on them.
- tjogin 16y ago
  Do you think that it would have been disappointing to Google if Nexus One had sold like hotcakes?
  - grandalf 16y ago
    I'm thinking that the only reason Google would have abandoned the Nexus One is if the manufacturers promised to ship upgradeable phones running the latest (unmodified) Android.
  - zmmmmm 16y ago
    Actually I think they might have seen it as a problem. I genuinely believe they wanted to target the N1 at only developers and sophisticated users who generally self-serve as far as support goes. They wanted to seed the evangelist and developer communities with a top notch, completely open phone so that they would then develop for and recommend Android to their followers. Had grandma and joe sixpack started using it they might never have been able to handle the support issues. I think they identified a set of users who gave them high "bang for their buck" and specifically targeted them. I know many people say they never saw an ad for the N1 and yet I saw them for a solid 2 months straight on every page that had Google ads on them.
    - tjogin 16y ago
      So if everything went according to plan, why are they canceling it?

eli 16y ago

I blame Google for letting people build the Nexus One up so much (remember the crazy pre-launch rumors about how it was going to change the world?) It's not that Americans are stupid and the rest of the world is smart. The problem is that you typically pay the same monthly service fee whether you take a subsidized phone or not. To go buy your own phone at full retail price is leaving hundreds of dollars on the table. (T-Mobile is the notable exception as they let you pay slightly less for a contractless plan.) Also, few people are willing to buy an expensive phone that they can't even hold in their hand first. My understand was that Google was going to try to get the phones some retail space in e.g. Best Buy.

yason 16y ago
The same price for the service with or without a phone is just a sign that the market doesn't work for some reason. Before my (coincidentally, American) employer started paying my phone bills, I had a service from one of the local operators here. In my "smart" country the costs were as follows: - monthly fee: 0,67€ - phone calls: 0,069€ / minute - texting: 0,069€ / message Admitting I indeed don't talk on the phone that much and I don't use data services, I rarely racked up more than 5-10 euros a month. I could get 512k-2M data plan for 10-30 euros a month. Still, any plan that comes bundled with a decent phone here is many times more expensive.
technomancy 16y ago
> The problem is that you typically pay the same monthly service fee whether you take a subsidized phone or not. Yeah, T-mobile is really great about this. I'm saving over a thousand dollars over the life of the phone by getting a data-only plan.
- rwl 16y ago
  I'm curious: do you have a data-only plan so you can use VoIP to make phone calls? I have been trying to find a device that would make it easy to make VoIP calls most of the time, since I am nearly always around free (or already-paid for) wireless broadband, but fall back on a prepaid SIM card when I only have cell network coverage. Some of the Android devices look promising for this, especially the Nexus One, but I have been unable to find hard information about whether it's possible to do this conveniently.

ashishbharthi 16y ago

Any numbers on how many sold so far?

progr 16y ago
They sold 135.000 devices in the first 74 days. Maybe now they are at ~200.000.

seanalltogether 16y ago

I bought the nexus one specifically because it was on par with the iphone but allowed me to throw any sim card in that I wanted for traveling between countries. Are there any other phone on the market similar to this?

pietrofmaggi 16y ago
An unlocked iPhone. But it cost more than the N1. Here in Italy Vodafone sell (if you can find it) the N1 without contract for 499€, while the iPhone 3GS is now 539€.

lwhi 16y ago

"Google’s plan to cut out the middle-man from the sales plan (that is, the mobile operators) sucks (unless you’re talking about Apple)." Maybe it's fair to say that the problems involved in selling direct to the consumer are relatively insurmountable, unless your company has expertise in that domain. I think Google must have underestimated the task.

frossie 16y ago
I think Google must have underestimated the task. Or overestimated their own interest in playing this game.
- drewcrawford 16y ago
  If they're going to compete with Apple though, who's now firmly waltzing into Google's territory (see iAd and all the new cloud services)... ...don't they have to be interested in playing this game?
  - etherael 16y ago
    No, they just need to partner with people who are interested in playing this game.

hwang89 16y ago

After lusting after the phone for a while, I ordered an unlocked N1 last night after hearing the news. Did I rush it?

jwhitlark 16y ago
Nah. It's just not being sold direct anymore. It's still being sold. And it's a great phone, esp. with 2.2 on it.

kloncks 16y ago

The best comment I've heard on this news came from John Gruber: "Here’s the list of Android phones you can buy today other than the Nexus One which support Android version 2.2: {}."

spot 16y ago
iOS4 was announced in January. Froyo was announced in May. I leave the arithmetic to you.
jrockway 16y ago
I can make meaningless statements too! "Here's the list of iPhone apps I can install on my iPhone without Apple's permission: {}" Incidentally, 2.2 (via the CM6 test) runs just fine on my Sapphire. The joy of Free Software is that I can fix my own device that is no longer the flavor of the month. T-Mobile will never give that device an Android > 2.0. But the community can, and it works much better than the stock image. (Android 2.2 sort of works on my EVO 4G. The 4G doesn't work, but then again, since the EVO came out, Sprint's 4G hasn't worked in Chicago anyway. So I guess 2.2 works fine on the EVO, actually.) Anyway, it all comes down to how you define supported. If you mean, "in the form of a bloatware ROM filled with ads for your carrier", you're right, Android 2.2 is not supported by anything. If you mean, "I can check it out from git, compile it, and load it onto my phone", well, pretty much everything supports 2.2 now. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.
- kloncks 16y ago
  With all due respect, you're going off another tangent. Froyo, aka Android 2.2, was released on May 20. It's now July 19th, almost two months later. The fact that only one phone will support an OS for more than two months is a problem.
  - jwhitlark 16y ago
    I wouldn't call it a problem; it's an artifact of a completely different ecosystem. If it wasn't an open platform, and was all built by only one company, it wouldn't have been announced until just before it was shipped. I'm sure some people are frustrated by it, but following "publish early and often", and all that goes with it, is how open source works.

cookiecaper 16y ago

Personally I don't think that Google tried very hard. I hardly ever watch TV, but I've seen TV commercials for Droid. I didn't see any for Nexus One. I upgraded from a dumb phone recently and wanted to buy a Nexus One, but T-Mobile lady told me Google required a much more expensive plan, that the buy-one-get-one free sale wasn't applicable, and that there were all other kinds of undesirable things about it. It also cost a lot of money for the device itself, and I don't have a lot of money. So while I would have really liked to buy a N1, I bought a G1 for $99, got another G1 for my wife for free, and took them home, rooted, and installed Android 2.1 and I'm perfectly happy with it. We're on a plan that is about $30 less than our separate dumb phones and includes unlimited data and text. And none of this would have been possible with a Nexus One. I don't see any reason why this would be part of Google's fundamental strategy. I don't have a problem with Google selling phones online or directly or being the exclusive dealer, but the Nexus One was just too much hassle and would have cost much, much more in the long term.

orangecat 16y ago
Personally I don't think that Google tried very hard. I suspect carrier pressure. They really don't want us to start asking intelligent questions such as why they should be able to lock us into multiyear contracts and control how we can use our own property. but the Nexus One was just too much hassle and would have cost much, much more in the long term It sounds like you're on a family plan. If you weren't, the unsubsidized N1 would come out cheaper over two years using T-Mobile's contract-free plans. And you can "cancel" anytime without an ETF.
fossuser 16y ago
Tmobile requires a more expensive plan to recover the cost of allowing you to buy the phone subsidized. If you buy it unlocked over two years (and you're not a family plan) you save around $600 compared to buying it on contract.
- jedbrown 16y ago
  Um, this number sounds high. My recollection is that there is a $20/month difference in price so you are effectively paying an extra $480 towards a phone over two years. If the difference in up-front cost for the device is less than this, buying off-contract is cheaper.

grandalf 16y ago

Looking forward to Google buying t-Mobile and calling it g-mobile.

zyb09 16y ago
I know this is a joke, but I don't think they could afford it. T-Mobile is just a small division of a very big company.
- protomyth 16y ago
  But there have been persistent rumors that the US T-Mobile operation has been up for sale.

dannyr 16y ago

I give props for Google for trying. I don't really care that they failed. They didn't really know if selling an unlocked phone would work unless they try it.

shalinmangar 16y ago

I don't think it was Google's intention to sell a lot of Nexus One units. I believe that they wanted to set a standard for Android phones over which other manufacturers could improve. Android phones before Nexus One were not good enough and they wanted to tell people that this is how an Android phone should be.

btilly 16y ago
This. Google never wanted to try to cut out the middle-men. Google didn't want to push the phone too much. They just wanted to put it out there to be able to let them know, "Here, look, this is what you can do with this technology at this price point." As was pointed out at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1529657 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1529657, Google achieved its aims. The Nexus One was a success. It can go away now. If you pay attention, you'll often see companies do strange and counter-intuitive things because their goal isn't simply to make money on every single product. Study and learn, because they often aren't being nearly as stupid as you might think.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  It's the same strategy as Chrome. They could just have made another browser and pushed it via tie-ins, lock-ins and millions of dollars in advertising. Instead they rebuilt the browser from the ground up for speed and security. This prompted everyone else in the browser space to up their game too. Google is betting that they benefit more from a lot of competitive browsers, than from having an iron grip on a single browser. Conversely, they can't allow someone else with an iron grip to hold the browser market back to benefit themselves. The same is true of the phone market.
  - btilly 16y ago
    Well Chrome is a somewhat different strategy. Sure, Chrome tried to raise the bar. But Google has a lot of other uses for that browser technology. It is used internally, it shows up in Android, the JavaScript engine is usable in a stand-alone environment, it will be used in ChromeOS, etc. Google didn't just release it, say, "We've made our point" and then stop. Google's strategy with the Nexus One strategy is an occasional strategy. If you're not planning to go into a line of business, it is a lot of money to spend for uncertain reward. That said, I'm quite sure that Google would not be adverse to using it again if they found a good reason to do so.

usaar333 16y ago

How sad. The Nexus One was the best phone out there (at least for my preferences). I was waiting for a Sprint N1 forever, but alas, that doesn't seem to be happening.

ern 16y ago

The headlines seem to be a bit exaggerated. Given that they just launched in South Korea and Australia, and seem to be following up on an existing announcement, I can't see how stopping sales to consumers in the US constitutes "pulling the plug" (although the ambiguous tone of the Nexus One blog post is the main culprit here).

schammy 16y ago

It's still going to be sold at retail outlets. Just because they're not selling it directly anymore - so what? Can anyone tell me why this matters?

rudeboy 16y ago

I was just about to purchase one. Glad I didn't! :)

augustl 16y ago

I bought a Nexus One a few days ago. I suspect many would feel sorry for me, but don't worry, I'm just fine. Google will continue to improve the OS, and I'm sure the device will get better and better in the years to come.

orangecat 16y ago
Google will continue to improve the OS And if for some reason they don't, Cyanogen and others will. I expect an N1 will have a longer useful life than a Droid X.

nlanier 16y ago

I have said it before in this space and I'll say it again: I love the hell out of my Nexus One, circumstances be damned.

anigbrowl 16y ago

I feel it's worth pointing out that they haven't killed the phone, just their retail channel. Theoretically the thing could finally become available in carrier stores now, although they probably won't bother after Google's rather poor handling of the marketing and publicity. Sad to see them giving up on challenging the carriers, but with no retail 'Google stores' where people could examine the thing before paying ~$500 for it that's not very surprising. I still like mine, even though I might have saved a few $ by buying a Droid or something.

dpapathanasiou 16y ago
Fortunately, though, you can buy other HTC phones which are unlocked and w/o a contract from online stores like newegg. Since many of those models are also sold in telco retail stores, you can do your research there, and buy the unlocked version online.
artsrc 16y ago
One of the carriers here is selling them. http://store.vodafone.com.au/handset-htc-nexus-one.aspx?pid=vcap:home:hero:nexus-one http://store.vodafone.com.au/handset-htc-nexus-one.aspx?pid=...
- mambodog 16y ago
  But apparently they only have 1000 of them, and won't get any more, due to the Nexus One being End-of-life. http://ausdroid.net/2010/07/02/vodafone-only-have-1000-nexus-ones/ http://ausdroid.net/2010/07/02/vodafone-only-have-1000-nexus... I was going to pick one up for cross platform game development with Unity3D, but this was before I found out that developers in Australia still can't sell apps on the Android Marketplace. I thought Google would have their shit together with this by now.

martingordon 16y ago

The lack of retail stores wouldn't have been such a big deal if Google offered a similar, if not better, return policy than phones you could hold in your hand before buying. A 14 day/$45 restocking fee policy is pretty bad. When it's for a $500 device you can't play with anywhere before purchasing, it's abysmal.

protomyth 16y ago
Having retail stores (or at least a space in retail stores staffed by your company) has really helped Apple sell a lot of product. There is no real substitute for being able to play with a device and see how good it really is. I think Google didn't get those type of buyers and Googles trouble with people calling them to resolve issues didn't help.

sprout 16y ago

> Google’s plan to cut out the middle-man from the sales plan (that is, the mobile operators) sucks (unless you’re talking about Apple). Except Apple hasn't cut out the middle-man. In fact, the notion that carriers are middle-men is silly. If anything, Apple is the middle-man getting consumers locked into AT&T's poorly priced and overpriced data plans. The hardware is incidental, which is why Google 'failed.' The carriers refuse to offer data service, only phones with bundled service.

joubert 16y ago

What baffles me is that when I walk around New York, I don't see a single Android, Nexus One, etc. ad. But I do see iPad ads. I see iPhone ads. I see iPod ads. Often. Since Google's business is advertising, I am amused.

zmmmmm 16y ago
I saw enormous numbers of ads for the N1 - but only through the Google ad network (on web sites). I think they were very selected and targeted in who they were advertising to. I think they specifically did not want hordes of general consumers picking up this phone.

paul9290 16y ago

This was a great PR stunt that further ignited Android as premium SmartPhone OS/experience and alternative to the iPhone. I own an iPhone and prefer it due to hardware/software experience, but the Droid is pretty cool and the Droid X has some killer features.