Comments on: T-Mobile G1: What we didn't get

The T-Mobile G1 offers some promising features, but it misses some important features as well.

[SlanderPanic]

Does it have AIM, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, or whatever MSN Messenger is called these days?

[johndoofresne]

I think that it will... i know for sure that it has google talk... although relatively few people use it. I would be surprised if they did not since all the other T-mobile phones have the app for it.

[CmdrRickHunter]

I find it amusing... for me, the accelerometer is a gimick, born out of the Wii. meanwhile multitouch is a new powerful technology that has the potential to revolutionize UIs as it takes over the market.

I am _VERY_ curious if the SDK will allow sufficient access to implement stereo bluetooth (or, on the flip side, if the Anderoid SDK simply lacks the option to use stereo bluetooth, so the hardware never had to handle it)

[friday04]

The accelerometer is far from a gimmick. When you're on a site and they have wide content or it's a bit too small to read, rotate the phone and you get a wider, larger view. When you're viewing photos that are landscap, rotate the phone and you get the whole picture on the screen. This is a feature that is very useful and one I find useful on a daily basis.

And multitouch is too good. I would be frustrated on another device that didn't have it.

[Thomas, David]

Ahhh yes, a gimmick.

"a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business."

Just like that pesky mouse, and flat panel displays.

[punkzanyj]

according to the android webstore, they're selling stereo bluetooth headsets with listings like this:
- Motorola HT820 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones for T-Mobile G1
- Jabra BT620 Stereo Headsets for T-Mobile G1
- Motorola S805 Bluetooth DJ Stereo Headphones for T-Mobile G1

Which makes me wonder if there's an easy tweak, or a planned firmware upgrade after launch that makes the stereo work. The G1 is the only phone availabe at the Android store, and the descriptions say "G1" in them.

The multitouch, from what I understand, isn't available due to the potential of an Apple lawsuit. Seems like they are erring on the side of caution with that for now. The hardware supports it, though.

[bbshot]

Ok just to clarify this up, the t-mobile g1 does in fact have multitouch in the hardware, but not in the software.

that meens that if a developer were to make a app using multitouch than it would work.

Htc just did not put that in the software (idk why)

[jmackowi]

I've been patiently waiting for this phone for the last few months. I have to say, I am disappointed. Maybe I expect some sort of innovation out of Google, not just an iphone minus some features. Are there some cool things? Sure, but not enough to drop $200 with a 2 year contract. I may eventually get one, but I am not going to be in the first wave like I had planned.

[salmanj1]

175... i am disappointed too... we all are... but the hardware is awesome...
They'll improve..

[externallain]

What happened to the kick ass phone that was free because of ad support?

Also, a Sprint phone would be nice.

[punkzanyj]

the free phone was a rumor, nothing more.


Sprint will have an android phone, possibly made by motorola or samsung.

[coffeejolts]

The phone DOES have an accellerometer. It was mentioned in the press conference, and is included in the phone's specification on the htc website.
http://www.htc.com/www/product/g1/specification.html

[Dalmatian28]

Very good for the first phone!!!! I am sure that 2.0 will include most o this things that are missing!
There is only one thing that I don't like about this phone....it look like this phone is made from two parts.
One part is the screen and the second are is Many with control buttons. It they managed to put those buttons right under the screen and loose the bottom part....jackpot! Still...looks very good for the first phone!

[justdaven]

The reason for this, is this is where the keyboard slides (as near as I can tell.

[AppleSuxLeo]

The compass feature is pure genius...too bad Jobs didn`t think of it. Doh !

[AppleSuxLeo]

Oh...I forgot , iSlab won`t do "street-view" !

[jazzmandan]

It's looking a lot like all the other smartphones out there. I had a treo before my iphone and never used any audio because of the 3.5mm requirement. I'd be interested to know how it sounds because the treo was dreadful. If they make that sort of stupid decision it suggests all media stuff is an after thought.

I'm sure you can live without multi-touch but I can't. My mother-in-law uses an iphone and she can barely turn on a computer. The beauty of the iphone is that it has only 1 button and that only (generally) does one thing. I was doubtful of not having a keyboard but now I actually prefer it.

[punkzanyj]

the hardware supports multitouch. The software does not, and it's been indicated that there may be a lawsuit from Apple if they had implemented the multitouch.

[jsdavis]

i CANNOT believe they didn't give it video capture (and video messaging). That omission with the 3.5mm omission may be deal breakers for me.

[Michichael]

Yeah but since it's open development... somebody should be able to write up a program to do just that.

[Remo_Williams]

So, no std headphone jack, cap on 3G data (1Gb per month, throttles to 50kbps thereafter), no multi-touch, no stereo Bluetooth, no tethering, no video. Well, looks like it's a Palm Pro for me.

However, Exchange Server support does not equal "No Outlook" support. My Nokia 3650 syncs with Outlook contacts and calendar sans Exchange Server support.

-R

[stonyy]

What else did I want???? VOIP...A SIP VOIP FACILITY OVER DATA NETWORKS!!!! A phone isn't good for much if you can't use it to talk to others. The extortionate charges for wireless communications is not about to change unless we can access speech and text via a competitive VOIP technology. I was really hoping Google would be the first to breach the barrier.

[arpotu]

You can download a free Skype app - not VOIP enough? :)

[sherr88]

Couldn't believe that T-Mobile didn't include their own UMA for this unit. That was the breaker for me as I do not have a good signal where I live. I currently use both a Curve and an iPhone....looks like I'll have to use both of these a little longer. Like the post above, I may get one in the future but not today like I had hoped.

[cbibbs]

Lack of a 3.5mm jack doesn't bother me. My BB has one and it took all of one day to figure out that I didn't want to use my phone as a DAP.

I *love* the idea of synching without being tied to a single desktop like my BB or the iPhone.

This won't destroy RIM or Apple, but Microsoft and Palm should be sweating. Once Google adds support for a corporate policy push a la RIM, it'll be the cats pajamas for corporate users.

[neowolfwitch]

Exchange access is overrated and expensive. It requires licensing from Microsoft, and would make it impossible for Android to be open source. I'm willing to bet that MOST people who would be interested in this phone probably don't care about it, but that's just IMHO. There are kludges available the work with OWA, but none yet that work with Exchange 2007, and what I've seen isn't all that reliable. I don't know if this phone supports IMAP, but assuming it does- that would be a possible method of access (although without calendars and shared folders).

The big thing that pisses me off is the lack of a standard headset jack and bluetooth stereo headphone support. It makes the whole Amazon MP3 thing pretty much worthless as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to have to pay ridiculous prices for proprietary headphones.

I don't really care all that much about video recording. I have two phones that do it now, and don't think I've ever used it. I like the 3.1Mpix camera!

[everwanted2]

Sure, android is Open Source.. However, apps that go on the market don't have to be, so Giddy M$ can keep their gay proprietorship..

[rrdharan]

> Exchange access is overrated

Overrated, by whom? I have an Exchange server at work. I like to read e-mail from it, and that's why I have a BlackBerry.

> and expensive.

What does that even mean?

> Exchange access is overrated and expensive. It requires licensing from Microsoft, and would make it impossible > for Android to be open source.

This is just completely false. You have no idea what you're talking about. The Exchange protocol was made completely open last year, and in fact, if you are creating an open source implementation you don't need to do anything.

> I'm willing to bet that MOST people who would be interested in this phone probably don't care about it, but that's > just IMHO.

Yes, except your opinion isn't that humble, nor is it particularly valuable.

> I don't know if this phone supports IMAP, but assuming it does- that would be a possible method of access
> (although without calendars and shared folders).

Right, because IT organizations just love exposing the IMAP port to the public internet.

[Mister Winky]

Lack of Exchange sync is a huge oversight if Google has any plans for this phone to be used in the enterorise. EVERY major smartphone platform offers Exchange sync. Palm OS. RIM/Backberry OS. Windows Mobile. OS X/iPhone. Even many Symbian phones. ActiveSync is available for all comers, so not having it on the Google phone is more a reflection of a cultural decision than a technical or licensing issue.

Sure, not every business or enterprise environment runs Exchange, but Exchange is definitely the predominant integrated messaging/calendaring solution available today. This oversight will effectively eliminate the G1 from being considered by many, many business users just as the lack of Exchange support did for the 1st generation iPhone.

Also, I don't know why HTC is trying so hard to eliminate the 3.5mm headset jack from all phones, but it's a de facto standard that's not going away just because HTC's phones don't have one. Just another dumb decision, especially for a phone with dedicated media capabilities.

I predict the G1 will fail miserably because it's OK at everything, not great at anything, unlike a Blackberry or iPhone.

-Mister Winky

[bobbrew]

Handwriting recognition? Camera Flash? What type of expansion slot? I've seen dozens of photos, but can't tell what card (capacity) it'll use. LED display projector? Haven't heard mention of Google Calendar - a voice calendar like Jott would be nice. Will it scan text to calendar? Evernote compatibility? I hope the alarm is as loud as my WM5 HTC SDA.

[snowboardking1]

wh;en will these companies get it;we live,for best or worst, in a windows dominated world. ANY phone or smartphone introduced MUST BE OUTLOOK COMPATIBLE.

[punkzanyj]

it takes SD MIcro. A 1GB card is 12 bucks. They've only made up to 8GB, but higher capacity cards will be available soon and should work in the G1.

If you have a gmail account, you automatically have google calendar, google docs, blogger, and a picasa account.

[crothers71]

GPS seems like an important missing feature.

[kittles3069]

It has GPS...

[urr_quasdim]

..except it isn't missing; actually it's more powerful than the one on iPhone due to Street View.

[kswartz26]

This is definitely a better v1 than the first iPhone, which was missing so much that it was definitely not worth the hype.

I think it's missing one major feature, which is desktop sync. I use Outlook (but not Exchange), and prefer to keep Outlook as my hub of all things. That said, I do appreciate that Google doesn't have a whole lot of motivation to do this, since they can sync all the same information online via Google Cal, GMail, etc., and that's probably the right future direction, anyway, regardless of their own personal interests.

[everwanted2]

I am actually very excited. Google rolls with software very fast, these past months they were begged by T-mobile to help them, and so they did and now that they can take a break, Google will start developing the better software. Its like this: Start out with something not worth it, then upgrade everything with a major software update and fix all issues, then people will be amazed. Apple uses the same strategy with their every-year new ipods and such. Good Luck Google.

[LiveStronger]

I agree... This is missing a couple things, but that list is a whole lot shorter than the original iphone. And actually, some of those points are kinda wrong.

No Exchange? It's true that it is really expensive, but to get on your Outlook calendar all you have to do is tie your Outlook calendar to a Google calendar. Lifehackers have been doing that for a while. Stereo bluetooth is sad, but who really pays thru the nose for a stereo bluetooth headset? Not to mention that they look so incredibly tacky. Lack of a headphone jack is incredibly lame (and possibly the only bad feature on my Samsung U740/Alias), but may just be a tmobile issue. I can't wait for the verizon model to come out...
VoIP and Jott would be part of the applications that you would download for it. Multitouch is only going to happen if you want apple to get a small % of each HTC dream sold (Just like Creative gets a small % for every ipod sold... patents FTW!)

[kittles3069]

Honestly, the 3.5mm omission isnt that big of a deal. The adapters are pretty cheap and really just lengthen the cord. If you are gonna use corded head phones then the adapter shouldnt bother you at all..

Omitting BlueTooth stereo, i think is a bigger issue. Maybe this can be addressed via 3rd party or maybe the phone just cant handle it. but initally i think its the bigger of the 2.

[Mister Winky]

I disagree -- as someone who has forgotten his Treo headphone adapter many times (what, am I supposed to keep it in my pocket at all time?), requiring the use of a proprietary adapter on a media-oriented phone is flat out stupid.

-Mister Winky

[punkzanyj]

it's actually not proprietary. Samsung phones have a proprietary plug, one that only samsung makes, and that samsung developed.

The HTC devices all seem to have a USB mini port. That's standard on a lot of devices, from cameras, to cell phones, to mp3 players. It doubles as the headphone jack, saving internal wiring and external space. The adapters are between 5-10 bucks at the store. I'd by 2 so I had one at home, and the other sitting in my backpack. No big deal. I'm actually more interested in the bluetooth.

The android store is selling bluetooth stereo headsets for the G1, which makes me wonder if perhaps it just needs a firmware update to make stereo possible.