Google has announced an Android related press conference for January 5, the same day that earlier reports indicated would see the launch of the Google Phone.
Invitations were sent to various members of the media Tuesday promoting the event at Google's headquarters, to be held just as the annual CES gadget fest gets under way in Las Vegas. Expectations are high that Google will use the occasion to announce the launch of the Nexus One phone as its first phone sold directly to consumers.
It also seems Google is finally ready to address the questions that have risen about its Android strategy following reports that it planned to sell this particular phone directly to consumers through its Web site. Google has invested a lot of time and money during 2009 promoting the Android phones of its partners--namely Motorola and Verizon--and could be about to complicate the work of those partners with its own device.
In any event, Google's announcement will likely kick off a crowded week for the technology industry and could perhaps overshadow any news to emerge from CES later in the week.
The ethereal Google Phone could arrive as early as January 5 on T-Mobile's network, according to a report.
Google could start selling the Nexus One directly to consumers on January 5, according to a new report.
(Credit: Cory O'Brien via Twitter)That's according to TmoNews, a blog that obsessively tracks the movements of T-Mobile. It says it has obtained an internal training document that mentions the Google Phone, thought to be the Nexus One phone distributed to Google employees earlier this month.
In the document, T-Mobile informs its employees that "the Google Android phone will be sold solely by Google via the Web," backing up other reports that Google is about to make a radical departure from its previous phone strategy and "compete with its customers," something Google Android chief Andy Rubin had said the company was not interested in doing.
The document makes no mention of timing, but TmoNews said its sources believe the phone will launch on January 5 at 9 a.m., just before the major CES trade show gets underway in Las Vegas (we presume that's 9 a.m. Pacific time, but the document didn't stipulate the time zone). Engadget reported a similar launch date last week.
We still don't know what the Nexus One/Google Android phone will cost, or even whether sales of the phone will be limited to a small number of registered developers, as Google as done with two previous phones. However, it's hard to believe that T-Mobile would need to gear up for the launch of a phone sold in very limited qualities.
Ever since Google said it had no plans to sell its own phone directly to consumers in October, it has refused to comment on its Android strategy as reports it was about to do just that have built. A Google representative did not return an e-mail seeking comment on Tuesday.
As a company that has built a business model atop trust, Google is in a sticky position as it prepares to formally introduce the Nexus One phone.
Google's Nexus One phone could be a sea change in how Google works with Android partners who might turn into competitors.
(Credit: Cory O'Brien via Twitter)Google employees were given free Nexus One phones at a company party Friday night, and the Internet went into a tizzy. Reports surfaced later in the weekend that this device was the long-awaited Google phone, the company's answer to Apple's strategy of controlling the hardware, software, and distribution model with the iPhone, rather than the partner-oriented strategy of developing the guts of the operating system and letting partners each put their own stamp on the finished product.
Just two months ago, Google's Andy Rubin rolled his eyes when asked about an analyst report picked up by TheStreet.com that said Google planned to pursue this exact strategy. He said Google had no plans to make its own hardware--which is one thing since smartphones are almost exclusively manufactured by contractors in China and Taiwan--but he took a further step in spending about 10 minutes arguing why it would be a bad idea for Google to design its own phone and sell it outside of carrier channels.
That line of thinking resonated with many who follow Google and the mobile industry. After all, Google's stated goal for Android ever since the project was revealed in November 2007 was to create an "ecosystem" of multiple phones that would help improve access to the mobile Internet. And Google seemed to finally reach that goal this year, with over a dozen phones in the wild and more promised from some of the world's leading phone makers and wireless carriers.
But if the reports are correct, Google is about to make a radical departure from that strategy. And Google's new course would take it down a path that could sow distrust among the company's Open Handset Alliance partners, who must now be wondering if they're about to get into a marketing war with one of the tech industry's richest companies.
Katie Watson, a Google representative, said on Sunday that the company has confirmed nothing about its plans for the Nexus One, described as a "dogfooding" experiment for internal testing by the company in a blog post Saturday.
In the rush to anoint the Nexus One as the Google Phone, it's quite possible that the tech industry glossed over the fact that Google already sells Android phones, albeit on a limited basis. For quite some time, registered Android developers have been able to buy completely unlocked versions of the G1 and the T-Mobile MyTouch3G (also known as the Google Ion) for $399.
Google does sell some phones, such as the Google Ion, but only to developers for Android testing purposes.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)So there is a solid chance that the Nexus One is merely the Android Dev Phone 3, following the Dev Phone 1 (G1) and Dev Phone 2 (MyTouch or Ion). Just this year, Google handed out Dev Phone 2 models branded as the Google Ion to attendees at Google I/O 2009, but if regular people want to buy that particular phone they have to get the MyTouch3G from T-Mobile with a two-year contract.
It does seem clear that Google has played the premier role in designing the software for the Nexus One. In the company's blog post over the weekend, it said "we recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe."
But the key unconfirmed detail is how Google plans to sell this phone. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google plans to sell this phone unsubsidized on its own, with consumers able to choose a wireless service provider after the fact. However, according to corporate sibling Peter Kafka at All Things D's MediaMemo and Reuters, Google has plans to hook up with longtime mobile partner T-Mobile to help sell the Nexus One through Google's Web site for $199.
How will Google market this phone? Anyone with a television set has likely seen an ad over the last month for the Motorola Droid, an Android phone sold for Verizon's network that has been billed as one of the best Android phones to date. It was also the launch pad for a long-term pact between Google and Verizon that will supposedly produce a family of devices based on Android.
If Google plans to sell the Nexus One directly to consumers, will it insist upon using its brand as the lead brand, rather than the "With Google" branding found on the back of many Android phones? Will it blast the airwaves during the NFL playoffs in January to trumpet the arrival of the Nexus One, perhaps just in time for the Super Bowl? And how will that affect partners such as Motorola and Verizon that have sunk so much money into promoting the Droid, only to see rumors of a Google Phone leak out at the worst possible time: the height of the holiday shopping season?
This could be a very telling moment in Google's history. At the moment, Google's mobile division does not seem to be completely in control of the message it wants to send consumers, partners, and competitors.
If Google really does plan to sell the Nexus One directly to consumers and compete with its customers, it has chosen an interesting way to announce it to the world, keeping the Google Phone rumor mill alive for months while publicly denying such plans. Apple has employed such a marketing strategy for years, insisting on near-silence regarding future product plans but benefiting enormously from the frenzy of interest in every little morsel that mysteriously pops up regarding those plans.
However, Google is not Apple. Google public-relations representatives will sheepishly admit that they have little control over how Google rolls out its products: Google is a company run by engineers, and engineers push the button when the product is ready to ship.
But when you're working in an environment with multiple partners that have competing interests, any confusion over your future plans--especially plans that would appear to yank the floor away--can breed distrust among those partners. One of Google's largest problems right now is that it has built a business model geared around the notion that it can be trusted with almost unprecedented control over the flow of information across the globe, and any cracks in that wall of trust will be exploited by its enemies.
With the way details have trickled out about the Nexus One, Google has either alienated current and future Android partners by muscling in on their turf, or set up thousands of eager smartphone consumers looking for an open alternative to the iPhone for disappointment when they realize Google merely plans to sell an expensive unlocked phone to a limited audience, if at all.
After all, Google essentially declared in its blog post that employees are testing a product with "new mobile features and capabilities" that presumably can't be found on the current crop of phones. It's almost the same language Google used to introduce Chrome OS ("our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be") while insisting that it had no competitive reasons for introducing that Netbook operating system.
Few believed that line with Chrome OS, and fewer still will believe that Google is creating Android for the betterment of humanity if it really plans to sell its own phone.
The Twitter service with the cutesy raccoon mascot is making a new home on BlackBerry and Google Android phones. The free Seesmic, like its proliferate rivals, lets you read, manage, and compose Twitter messages much more flexibly than you can do from Twitter's Web site. We crash-tested both mobile versions as soon as we heard the news.
Seesmic on Android
Seesmic 1.0 for Android is available from the Android Market app, which is located on the smartphone. It takes up just over 1MB. The interface spreads four tabs along the top in both landscape and portrait mode, one each for the timeline, replies, direct messages, and your profile. There's also a ribbon on the screen that you can tap to refresh the feed. Click to open a tweet and you can save it as a favorite, retweet, or reply as a public "@" message or as a private posting. From the menu button, you can refresh, compose, or tinker with the settings.
Although Seesmic's Android interface is much more stripped down than its desktop AIR app for Windows and Mac, the app manages to remain flexible by giving you a choice over the kinds of notifications you'd like to receive, and over the partner services you'd prefer to use to send a photo, video, or shorten a URL.
Sure, it's blurry (blaming the BlackBerry camera), but squint hard enough and you'll see that Seesmic associated a picture with my account that's not actually my face.
(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)The biggest flaws we've noticed so far? ... Read more
Is Google really thinking about making a substantial change to its business model by releasing the fabled Gphone?
Would Google really consider derailing Droid momentum with its own phone?
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)TechCrunch sparked the latest round of Gphone rumors Wednesday, reporting that its sources indicate Google is working on releasing a Google-branded Android phone sometime in early 2010 that will be sold directly to consumers at retail, presumably bypassing wireless carriers. Such a phone is supposedly being built by a manufacturing partner with the intent that Google's brand will dominate the phone; TechCrunch compares the strategy to what Microsoft did with Toshiba and the Zune music player.
Well before Google unveiled its Android mobile operating system project two years ago, and almost ever since, persistent rumors have circulated that Google's mobile phone ambitions go beyond software development. Just as consistently, Google executives have downplayed such rumors with statements that the company is most interested in seeding Android far and wide across multiple carriers and hardware manufacturers, rather than following Apple's strategy of designing and building the entire product itself.
Just a few weeks ago, Google's Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android and the head of the project, told CNET that Google had no interest in "competing with its customers" by releasing a Google-developed phone, echoing comments he made earlier in the year that "I'd much rather be the guy that does a platform that's capable of running on multiple companies' phones than just focusing on a single product."
Now, there was some wiggle room in Rubin's statements. Most smartphone hardware brands--even Apple--don't actually build their own phones, they contract with companies in China or Taiwan that assemble the parts. Therefore, Google's statement that "we're not making hardware" doesn't preclude the company from designing hardware.
On Wednesday, Google refused to comment on what it termed "market rumor or speculation." But why would Google build its own phone? What would it have to gain to offset what it could potentially lose?
Google just signed a multiyear collaboration deal with Verizon Wireless, pledging to help develop a family of Android-based products running on Verizon's network. Any attempt on Google's part to bypass Verizon and sell its own branded handset would likely raise a few eyebrows in New Jersey, no matter how close of friends Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam have supposedly become.
So maybe Google wants to completely bypass carrier networks and release the ultimate IP phone, with Google Voice and the technologies it just acquired from Gizmo5. Such a phone would be free of the two-year contracts imposed by the wireless industry, but would it really be compelling without some kind of wide-area networking technology?
Google's Andy Rubin, head of Android development
(Credit: Google)In the same conversation in which he denied Google was working on its own hardware, Rubin implied that Google doesn't think there's much of a future for WiMax, which Intel and others have long billed as a way around the wireless carriers. The company sat out a recent funding round for WiMax start-up Clearwire after investing around $500 million in the company in 2008, and Rubin said it was planning future Android development around the LTE standard, which is the path that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon plan to take to 4G networks. LTE carriers will likely insist on the now-familiar two-year contract to offset the costs of building out that network, unless federal regulators tell them they can't.
But assuming Google really is planning on releasing a completely Google-branded phone at retail, such a plan could derail the momentum enjoyed by Google and its Android partners this year.
The Microsoft/Zune strategy alluded to by TechCrunch was a disaster for Microsoft's PlaysForSure hardware partners, who had been working with the company on MP3 players that hooked into Microsoft's media software. It effectively cut them out of that market, and almost certainly created distrust and outright resentment that could come back to hurt Microsoft one day.
Any Google-branded phone would immediately compete with phones that Google partners like Verizon and Motorola are placing huge bets around, namely the Droid. What incentive would those companies have to work with Google in the future should it throw a huge wrench into their product development strategy?
And even putting all that aside, smartphones in the U.S. are only attractive to consumers because no one actually pays what a smartphone is worth. Heavy carrier subsidies knock the price of the average smartphone from around $500 or $600 to around $200, because time and time again most people have shown that even if they will save money in the long run by avoiding a two-year contract, they get sticker shock at the sight of a $599 phone. Just ask Apple: the iPhone would not be the iPhone if it was still selling for $599.
If Google were to release its own phone at retail, would it have to subsidize it itself to get the price down to about $200? Would the federal government look favorably on such a plan, knowing that virtually no other company could afford to sell such a smartphone at a loss?
TechCrunch later reported that Google could be working on a "data-only" device that would ostensibly use AT&T's network for data services, with calls being placed using VoIP technology. That's a bit puzzling as well, since that would allow Google to annoy new best friend Verizon and AT&T to annoy longtime steady Apple, so at this point, it's hard to know exactly what's going on here.
Few businesspeople directly answer questions about major strategy shifts they might be planning, for the obvious reason that surprise is a competitive advantage. But it's hard to imagine why Google would risk stunting Android momentum just as the software is rounding into the best chance for hardware manufacturers and wireless carriers to compete with Apple and AT&T.
That is, unless somebody at Google has decided that they are the ones with the best chance of competing with Apple.
Google announced Tuesday that the Donuts are ready.
Those smartphone developers waiting for the next version of Android, code-named Donut, will not have to wait any longer now that the Android 1.6 software development kit is available for download. As expected, Donut is not a major release of Android but adds a few goodies that developers might want to consider.
For example, Android can now run on CDMA phones used by the likes of Verizon and Sprint, adding more potential partners to the Android world. The latest release also adds a text-to-speech API (application programming interface) for developers to use in building applications, as well as support for a newer version of the Android Market and an improved search box.
Developers can download the SDK here. Phones running Donut are expected to arrive around October, Google said, which lines up well with the expected launch time frame for phones like Motorola's Cliq. Google has said it wants to release two major updates to Android a year, with the first major release of 2009, code-named Cupcake, having arrived in May.
Scan your Facebook news feed with the new Android app.
(Credit: Facebook)While iPhone owners have long had a powerful Facebook app with a wide range of functionality, Google Android users have had to make do with the mobile version of the social networking site (called Facebook Lite). Not only does it offer limited features, but also it is clunky and rather difficult to navigate.
But that changed Tuesday when a new and long-awaited Facebook app hit the Android market. The free app offers many of the features that you've come to expect on the iPhone app and the full version of the site. You can scan your news feed, view your friends' walls and user information, comment on status updates, hit the "like" button, take and upload photos, add new friends and post status updates of your own. What's more, you can add a notification widget to your home screen and you even can shake to refresh your news feed.
Though we welcome the extra features, the interface and navigation appear a bit convoluted as of now. For example, it takes a lot of clicks to get to a friend's profile and list of friends. Also, you can't get Facebook chat or access to messaging for now. We assume those features will be added soon.
It's worth noting that while Facebook is listed as the developer in the Android Market, according to Facebook's official Web page for the app, it was not developed by the company. From what we hear, Google developed the app with Facebook's help.
We installed the app without incident on our T-Mobile MyTouch 3G. Check back soon for a full review.
Update: Article updated at 1:10pm PT with confirmation from Facebook.
Thanks to close collaborations with Apple, Microsoft, RIM (BlackBerry) engineers, and so on, Facebook-sponsored applications are available for a wide spectrum of mobile phones. An official Android app is in the works, Facebook has confirmed, with Facebook and Google working together on the software.
Some have scoffed that they'd never see the day when the two Silicon Valley titans pause the rivalry long enough to cooperate on a project. The truth is that they need each other, at least this time. Google needs to fill its Android application storefront with popular titles to stay relevant, and Facebook needs to ensure that mobile users can continue accessing core functionality from any device. It would be overstating the issue to suggest that, in one sense, they both need each other to beat each other, but in the case of this small victory, the brand win is important to both.
Facebook for Android is expected to launch with fewer features than its iPhone counterpart, TechCrunch reports. If their tip is correct, users may have to make do without the message in-box. However, Facebook for Android will center on the familiar activity feed and status updates, and is said to be powered by Facebook's Stream API.
We'll see what transpires when the application materializes, so stay tuned for an update and hands-on review in the near future. Neither Facebook nor Google would share a release date, but a Facebook representative told CNET that the app is coming "soon."
Android has the strong Fbook app from developer NextMobile Web (covered here), but with all due respect, it's akin to serving margarine instead of butter; margarine salts and fattens just fine, but we all know it's not the same thing.
Google's move to let software run natively on Android devices opens the door for a version of Firefox that can run on the operating system.
At present, Android applications are written in Java and run on Google's Dalvik Java virtual machine. Last week, though, Google announced the Android Native Development Kit version 1.0 that lets software run natively on the Linux layer below, though the company sees it as a way not to run full-fledged applications as much as to run components of ordinary Android applications.
"Android applications run in the Dalvik virtual machine. The NDK allows developers to implement parts of these applications using native-code languages such as C and C++," said Google's David Turner in a Native Developer Kit blog post.
That's enough to whet the appetite of Mozilla, the organization that oversees development of Firefox and its mobile incarnation, called Fennec though likely to sport the Firefox name when it arrives in product form.
"Developers are taking a look at the NDK to see if it provides the capabilities we need to bring Fennec to Android. If it's possible, I think our community would be interested in doing it, because Android will be appearing on more smartphones with the capabilities to provide a good browsing experience," said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of mobile.
A year ago, Mike Schroepfer, then Mozilla's vice president of engineering before he moved to Facebook, said Mozilla wasn't focusing on Android because of the Java constraint and because Android already has a capable browser of its own.
"We've been concentrating on other platforms that don't have browser or didn't have a good one," Schroepfer said in May 2008. "I'm looking forward to (Google) opening up the entire platform. Today I can't get Firefox on Android because I don't have the API (application programming interface) support.
The browser that ships with Android is based on the open-source WebKit project. That's the same foundation for Google Chrome, Safari on Mac OS X and the iPhone, and the browser on the new Palm Pre, making it something of an incumbent power among high-end mobile phones.
It's not a simple choice to releasing software that uses the Native Development Kit. Using the higher-level Java foundation insulates programmers from worrying about what underlying hardware is in a phone or other device, but using native code means the software must be tailored for a specific processor. It also means that software won't have access to many system-level features that are part of Android.
And writing native code can help boost performance, always a problem on mobile phones with limited hardware and battery life. In a parallel situation on PCs, Google has released software called Native Client that lets browsers run software natively processors for better performance.
Mozilla is interested in a variety of sub-PC devices. "We're also very interested in Netbooks across the operating system and chip architecture spectrum," Sullivan added. "Firefox, Fennec, and other Mozilla-based browsers have been demonstrated on Netbooks running Windows CE, various Linux variants, and Moblin," a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices backed by Intel.
Firefox's core use is on personal computers, though. There, a new version is imminent.
"The Mozilla team is mobilizing to ship Firefox 3.5, and it's looking like Tuesday morning" will be the ship time, Mozilla said in a statement Friday.
However, Mozilla also has issued three candidates instead of the expected one, and in the bigger picture added many new features to 3.5 that kept its release back months compared to the earlier, smaller-scale Firefox 3.1 plan, so give the organization some wiggle room.
The HTC Hero phone will have Flash support built in.
(Credit: HTC)Marking a departure from the world of iPhone, HTC's new Android-based Hero phone will also come with the ability to handle Flash elements that adorn many Web sites and power YouTube video.
Adobe Systems announced on Wednesday that its Flash Player will be built into the HTC phone, an important step in the company's efforts to spread Flash to mobile phones. The phone, one of several from HTC to use Google's open-source operating system, is scheduled to ship in Europe starting in July and in Asia and North America later in the year.
However, the initial version won't match Flash Player 10, the current version for PCs, which can run programs written with ActionScript 3. Instead, the Android version will handle ActionScript 2 applications written for Flash Player 9 chores, Adobe said. HTC is participating in the Open Screen Project to bring Flash Player 10 to mobile phones through over-the-air updates, though, so Adobe expects fuller Flash support eventually.
"Flash Player 10 for mobile platforms that include Android is expected to be available in the first half of 2010. We are working on delivering a beta of Flash Player 10 in the fourth quarter of 2009," the company said in a statement.
The Flash support will be built into the phone and not available as a download for other Android phone users, Adobe said.
Just having a check mark in a feature list isn't enough to outflank a competitor, but Flash is a significant feature on the Web. It powers many games, streaming videos, and dynamic stock charts, and other elaborate features on Web pages. And Flash is also used for many more dynamic advertisements.
Adobe demonstrated Flash on Android in an online video Wednesday, showing off the technology for watching a trailer at Yahoo Movies, playing the Penguin Swing game, and selecting a region on travel site Expedia. Double-clicking on the Flash element on the Web page runs it full screen.
Apple's iPhone doesn't run Flash, though Adobe would like to see it there and has been developing a version.
"We are developing Flash player for the iPhone. To release software on the iPhone requires Apple's agreement. We have to make it work great, and need to get their agreement to have it released," said Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch in a 2008 interview. "We would love to see Flash on the iPhone."
