

Yawn, Google Introduces iPhone Clone - sid-
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/analysis-yawn-google-introduces-iphone-clone/

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pyre
I really hate these arguments. The argument basically comes down to this:

    
    
      No one should make *any* smartphones unless they can
      immediately top the iPhone. If you can't top the iPhone
      on day one, then just don't bother competing at all.
    

It's one thing to call out hype. It's another thing entirely to say, "X is
over-hyped therefore it shouldn't exist."

> _But it’s still effectively tied to the smallish T-Mobile cell phone
> network._

No it's not. So far as I can tell, you can use it on AT&T's network. The only
catch is the you can't use AT&T's 3G with it. But this seems to be a one or
the other choice. AT&T and T-Mobile apparently use different frequencies for
their 3G (T-Mobile's is non-standard), and no one seems to be putting out
phone that support both (in my limited research on the topic). This leads me
to believe that there must only be chips that support one or the other. In
that case, there's no pleasing everyone. If you choose AT&T, you'll piss off a
bunch of people, but you'll also piss off a bunch of people if you choose
T-Mobile.

> _And the Nexus One lacks the convenience of being connected to iTunes._

So... the only phone that will _ever_ appease you will, by definition, need to
be an Apple-branded phone.

> _The Android app store is a fifth the size of Apple’s._

It's the quality, not the quantity of the apps that matters. Comparing on size
alone is useless. There have been a number of articles on the number of crappy
and rehashed apps that get poured into the AppStore marketplace by people
hoping to use the shotgun approach to AppStore success. And how exactly is
Google supposed to remedy this with the launch of a phone? Make the phone
iPhone-compatible and hack their way into AppStore access?

> _Meanwhile, Apple is getting ready to announce an entirely new iteration of
> its iPhone in three weeks — the tablet — that will likely make every other
> player in the market look like a laggard — again._

This is the stupidest thing I have read lately.

> _Why didn’t Google offer a phone with both a GSM and a CDMA radio that would
> work on any U.S. cell phone network?_

It's not that simple. See the GSM 3G comments above. I thought that there used
to be GSM/CDMA chips. Maybe they were part of that whole Qualcomm lawsuit a
few years ago?

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storborg
"The only catch is the you can't use AT&T's 3G with it."

That would effectively cripple the phone. So while it may be possible to use
on other networks, it's really only practical to use on T-Mobile.

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nailer
Why are T-Mo and AT&T the only options? Couldn't you use this on say, Verizon?

(I don't live in the US)

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cookiecaper
Sadly, AT&T and T-Mobile are the only nationwide GSM carriers in the United
States. Every other major player uses CDMA.

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nailer
Man that sucks. I can understand all of the US using a different standard from
the rest of the world (like with NTSC and imperial measurement) but having the
US use two standards at once is clearly not in their own interest.

~~~
pyre
Canadian carriers are the same. The only difference is that all of the smaller
carriers have been swallowed up and you basically have the choice of 'The GSM
Carrier' (i.e. Rogers who grew their empire out of cable tv) or 'The CDMA
Carrier' (i.e. Bell -- the government mandated telephone monopoly).

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philk
A couple of things in that article stood out as particularly flawed:

"Meanwhile, Apple is getting ready to announce an entirely new iteration of
its iPhone in three weeks — the tablet — that will likely make every other
player in the market look like a laggard — again."

The tablet is aimed at a different niche than the "mobile phone/mp3 player"
space. Very few are going to buy a tablet and ditch their phone.

"Why didn’t Google subsidize the Nexus One so it was half the price of an
iPhone, instead of the same price?"

Perhaps because they like making money?

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wildjim
You could also argue that the tablet market is already interesting despite
Apple -- e.g. Lenovo's Skylight, ChromeOS, other Android tablets (e.g.
Archos') and even Nokia's venerable N800 series.

And that's ignoring fully Windows/Linux capable systems like Samsung's Q1's,
and Viliv's range.

~~~
philk
True. Although if Apple produces as much of a leap forward with its tablet as
it did with the iPhone it'll probably make most of the existing market look
archaic.

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mrbad101
I'm really really excited to get mine. I've had the 3g Iphone for almost 2
years now, and I cannot wait to stop using it.

Maybe its just the developer inside me screaming, but I cannot deal with Apple
and how they deal with the guys who are really making the iphone popular --
the programmers.

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gnoupi
I guess one just had to make his "counter-article" to the flow of "wow,
amazing google phone!!" we see recently.

Of course in itself it's pretty much only a rant, with fallacious arguments,
but it fulfills its goal of generating a lot of "how can you say that it's
stupid" answers.

I mean, I even clicked on it just for the sake of the title, like probably
many did. Mission accomplished, so, people click and react on it.

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davidw
Sort of like "Yawn, Microsoft introduces clone of Mac called 'Windows'". But
with less evil and more open source.

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blintson
No, with more evil. They introduced open source so Intellectual Ventures could
sue the writers for patent infringement.

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Tichy
It's a smartphone. They existed before the iPhone. Even app stores existed
before the iPhone - at least in Europe, some companies made millions by
selling J2ME apps for "classic phones". They discredited themselves by
exploiting gullible teenagers, but still. For all I know, they might still be
raking in the big money - they certainly still do TV ads.

What exactly makes a phone an iPhone clone?

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gnoupi
The iPhone is a smartphone with a touch screen, The Nexus is a smartphone with
a touch screen, Therefore the Nexus is an iPhone :)

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third
Gotta admit. I want one, not because I see it better than X, but rather
because on it's own it's an awesome phone. I just had hoped that it would be
released with a version compatible with AT&T's 3G network. HTC is
manufacturing a CDMA capable phone, and do make phones for AT&T so why not
produce a second GSM version compatible with AT&T? Unless AT&T works hard to
get a very nice android phone soon, I'm likely to switch carriers.

