Google’s Nexus One phone was supposed to be the Internet giant’s big entrance into the mobile market. It was the first so-called “Google Phone” in that Google was entirely in charge of selling the thing, and it carried the Google branding in a more prominent way than other Android devices. Today, the Nexus One just got kicked in the pants — big time — and it’s Google fault.
Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, will not sell the device. Big deal, you might think — after all, the carrier also doesn’t sell the iPhone, and it seems to be doing just fine. The problem for the Nexus One though, is that Verizon had originally agreed to sell the device. In fact, Google announced the partnership at its Nexus One unveiling event in January. So what happened? → Read More
Brits can now get their hands on Google’s so-called ‘superphone’ for an upfront cost of “free”. Kinda.
Available from today for pre-order on Vodafone UK, the Android-powered Google Nexus One can be had for £35 per-month on a 2 year contract, including a bundle of minutes and texts, and the much needed 1GB monthly data allowance — this is a Google Phone after all (see TechCrunch review).
There are a number of other tariffs available too. Customers who pre-order can expect deliveries to go out on April 30th. → Read More
Boy have we been waiting for this one — since January 14, actually. As it turns out, too, the backside of the dock we spied a few weeks back is actually the official dock. But it just doesn’t hold the phone in place, it also has built-in speakers, volume controls, and the goods need to charge the Nexus One. That’s pretty much everything we wanted. It even auto-launches the Car Home app upon docking the phone in place. → Read More
So, the iPad? I hear it’s good, but again, it’s not for me—don’t cry. But what’s indisputable? The fact that it’s pretty damn fast. Even though the processor is nothing more than a stock Apple A4, it wallops the fancy Snapdragon, the 1GHz CPU found in the Nexus One (and others). The iPad: useful (to some), and quite quick. Neat. → Read More
We’ve had a few interesting reports of folks having huge problems with the AT&T Nexus Ones. Here we see a lad tap-tap-tapping away, unable to get anything pressed. → Read More
There’s a lot of talk today about how the Nexus One’s initial roll-out has been a flop. And while the numbers aren’t official, things do look pretty grim for the first Android device Google is attempting to sell itself. But Google is wasting no time answering its critics — indirectly — with the launch of a version of the device that will work on AT&T’s 3G network.
To be clear, this isn’t Google teaming up with AT&T on the device. Instead, it’s simply a second version of the Nexus One that works with AT&T’s 3G frequency, which is different than that of T-Mobile’s (the current Nexus One U.S. carrier). The original Nexus One does actually already work on AT&T, but only for 2G connections, so this new version will obviously be significantly faster. → Read More
Mobile app analytics company Flurry estimates that while Apple sold 1 million iPhone devices in its first 74 days of availability on the market, the Motorola Droid actually shipped more devices during that timespan. Sales of Google’s Nexus One, by comparison, kinda stunk: the company only sold an estimated 135k phones in 74 days.
Flurry reaches its conclusions through applications using its solution for analytics reporting. Because applications embedded with Flurry are said to have been downloaded to over 80% of all iPhone OS and Android devices, the company claims it can make reliable estimates about total handset sales. → Read More
As luck would have it, I’ll be in the market for a brand-new phone in the coming weeks. Terribly exciting, yes. But there’s a bit of a problem: the two “biggest” phones out there, the iPhone and all those Android-based ones, rub me the wrong way. Longtime readers will know that I’m fairly neurotic, sorta like George Costanza from Seinfeld. Does the phrase Jerkstore mean anything to you? That’s 100 percent me. So what’s a person to do when, for reasons I’ll describe, he wants nothing to do with Apple or Google phones? → Read More
Right now you need to root your Nexus One and such to enable the hot color LEDs, but you have to imagine that if Google built-in the capability, then it will probably be enabled in an update. At least you would think so, right? → Read More
The last we heard the Nexus One was navigating its way through the FCC and Verizon was targeting a “Spring 2010″ launch. But now there’s a rumor floating around that states quite clearly that March 23, 2010 will be the launch date. Interesting… → Read More
Well – not entirely. After all, it’s bright, responsive, and has a much higher resolution. But there is a lot more to making a good screen, and under a detailed analysis it’s far from a rout when you pit HTC’s bleeding-edge OLED screen against the old-school LCD of the iPhone. Apologies if it gets a bit technical. Here is the basic list of complaints, as investigated here: → Read More
When the Google Nexus One was announced, there were several cool new features unveiled for the device and Android 2.1: interactive wallpapers, 3D graphics and support for Google Earth. The latter wasn’t available at the time, and there was no date set, but it looks like it’s available on Android Market now. → Read More
We had a brief chat with Opera Software product analyst Phillip Grønvold here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday. We had a conversation about the company’s plans to submit an Opera Mini iPhone app up for App Store approval, of which we posted the video interview yesterday.
Another thing we touched upon was the recently announced plans to provide handset manufacturers with a toolkit to get the company’s Opera Mobile product preloaded on Android devices. Grønvold demoed the app running on Google’s Nexus One phone, and we recorded the video of the app in action. → Read More
Currently, Google has one of the more interesting problems I’ve ever seen. While I’d never tell anyone to slow down their pace of innovation, with Android, I can’t help but wonder if Google might have to do just that — because it’s seriously starting to trip over itself.
This week’s Mobile World Congress is highlighting this exact problem. Yesterday, we saw not one, but two new sexy Android phones announced just by HTC alone. HTC, you may recall, is the manufacturer of the Nexus One, the Android phone that Google felt so comfortable with, it decided to sell itself. Now, just over a month later, at least one of these new phones, the Desire, is simply a better version of the Nexus One. Consumers must be getting whiplash at this point. → Read More
Well, lookee here, it’s Google with a FriendFeed clone just in time to ask the musical question: If FriendFeed sucks so much, why on earth is Google doing a for-profit version of it? While the privacy crisis rages on around our inboxes, Google has blasted yet another microstream out into direct symbiosis with Twitter. Yes, that is exactly what FriendFeed did back in the days it was just an aggregator. Later came the realtime chat, and then Wave, and then Google Realtime Search, all with that annoying realtime updating of the stream that caused so many of us to run for the Easy Hills. This stuff is so hard to understand that we’ve endured months of explanation by Facebook, a buy out of FriendFeed to silence the disturbing noise, and of course Twitter lists. How many times did we think about lists this week, except to note that there are not any in Buzz. It’s been 4 or 5 days now, and even though Google PR has earned its keep managing the privacy missteps, we haven’t heard apologies from the CEO or founders like Zuckerberg pumped out around Beacon and whatever the next stumble was. What’s weird is I can’t remember much more than some Terms of Service that had to be rolled back. It may seem unfair, but Google has waited long enough to benefit from user fatigue about any of these issues. Actually, I can’t remember why we care about this at all. It mystifies me that Marc Benioff is investing Salesforce cycles in this social stream, or why Buzz will be followed as soon as possible with an enterprise version. Looking at the Buzz flow, the only useful stuff is about Buzz futures; at some point all the FriendFeed features will be reimplemented and then the conversation will atrophy and move to a professional advertising QVC channel model. You’ll know the resulting content will be professionally produced because the rest of us will be sick of the whole thing. My favorite part was the Google program manager’s response to a question about the return of Track (we’re always looking for good ideas, whatever that Track thing might be). Buzz really doesn’t need Track at all because there is absolutely no rational architecture to add value to. Basing a social graph on email is like Adobe supporting HTML5. Or trying to decipher which parts of this article are → Read More
Nexus One owners have been griping about the device’s 3G connectivity issue since its release, and Google felt your pain and came to the rescue (even though they did sorta blame T-Mobile’s small 3G footprint for this). Or so we thought. After releasing an over-the-air update which was intended to resolve this problem, users are still reporting bugs. → Read More
Android updates appear to be getting thrown left and right recently, so it doesn’t surprise me that the Motorola CLIQ may be due for a tune-up. According to Boy Genius Report, the CLIQ will be getting Android 2.1 OS sometime in March. Perhaps it’s not soon enough for those CLIQ owners who are turning a little green watching as DROID and Nexus One owners enjoy the latest and greatest. But before you know it, March will be here and the additional features that Android 2.1 brings will make your phone feel like new again. Almost. → Read More
Since the launch of the Nexus One, early adopters have likely had one question lurking in the back of their minds: who to take the phone to if it broke. You see, when the phone was first launched, Google was directing people to either T-Mobile (Google’s carrier partner) or HTC (the device manufacturer) depending on the problem, which could lead to an endless circle of hold times and few results. Today, Google has just rolled out its solution: it’s launching its own phone support line specifically for Nexus One customers. Call 888-48-NEXUS (63987) and within a few minutes, you’ll be talking to a real live Google support tech (the line is open from 7AM to 10PM EST).
This is, of course, a fairly major departure from Google’s standard protocol of making it incredibly difficult to reach anyone for phone support for most of its products. → Read More
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