The Android Primer: Part 1 – Invasion
4 min read
It’s been a good year to be a tech geek. In recent months especially since there have been a series of products that were released into the market place that have completely changed the way that we either compute or compute on the go. So before we move forward, let’s go back a little and talk about the changes starting with the very first Android phone, the G1. This was the phone that introduced Android into the marketplace. Though it wasn’t a commercial success, what the G1 proved was that Android had potential. It wasn’t long before there was an onslaught of Android phones that culminated last year with the brilliant marketing of the Motorola Droid that brought Android into the public consciousness in a big way. Did you see it the campaign? Now everyone knows that Droid does…
Which brings us to the next phase of the Android invasion and something that Droid didn’t do…the Google Nexus One (a phone commissioned by Google, but built by HTC). This was a slick device that was supposed to change the way that people bought phones. Ultimately it didn’t deliver, not because the specs weren’t impressive, but because the marketing strategy was limited to a select group that would buy into their branding and strategy.  I mean, seriously, who was the person that thought that having a product and then practically that product and pricing almost completely out of reach? With a 529 dollar price point (yes there was a subsidized rate that wasn’t very family friendly) not to mention that the product could only be found online – was it a good idea? No. At the end of the day when all the smoke cleared this turned out to be the fatal flaw in Google’s plan to take over the smart phone online market, as it turned out, was much smaller than Google had hoped.
Now while it seemed that Google was taking their cue from Apple (also slated to release two products in the same year…the iPad and the new iPhone) and banking on the notion that people would be more interested in a product than in a carrier. What they didn’t realize was that behind the scenes, the company commissioned to build the new Google super phone was working behind the scenes with other carriers and ready to release a succession of products like the Droid Incredible and the HTC EVO that were all larger than the last. And since HTC was willing to work with multiple carriers, Google essentially got Falcon punched as HTC was ensuring that the Google Nexus would be a distant memory by midyear. If you weren’t paying attention, and many of you weren’t, it all happened pretty fast so that by the time of release of the HTC EVO we’re literally only days before the release of the new iPhone 4 and things could be changing again in the smart phone market.
But even with all of this hardware out there that ranges from the Eris, Droid, Hero, Incredible…and you get the idea…it’s a lot of variants on the same idea and has many consumers just a little confused as to which product is actually superior. Android may be a platform, but it isn’t exactly the brand that Apple has created with the iPhone. After all, if they (meaning Apple) did anything right, they successfully released the same phone three times to their loyal users who were completely happy to accept them – even considering that the only major changes were showing up in the form of hardware upgrades. That’s pretty impressive. Even when you consider that their product seems to have, for the first time ever, fallen behind many of the specs on the newer Android devices. That coupled with the recent mantra that iPhone users have had with AT&T, their dissatisfaction has run so deep that it even has some iPhone users considering alternatives. Re-enter the Motorola Droid and Droid Incredible with Verizon and now the HTC EVO by Sprint. These are, after all, the supposed heirs to the smart phone throne owned for so long by Apple and their flagship. So now the real question is whether or not the hatred for AT&T runs deep enough for some to defect to a direct competitor to Apple. As we are on the eve of the iPhone 4, my guess is that the product trumps service any day of the week and it will be interesting to see what iPhone fanatics will ultimately do as the iPhone 4 launches this Friday as the hope is that the new hardware and the upgrade to the OS will improve reception. My money is on the fact that it’s still AT&T and that it will not improve reception.
So now that you’re up to date on what’s happening in the world of mobile tech next time we’ll get into more specific comparison between phones, providers and which brand is actually the king of the hill. Until next time…
