“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,” Siegler reports. “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.”
“Leading up to the Nexus One launch, I wondered if Google was just eating its own dogfood (as it said) or its own children. After all, the Nexus One was launching just weeks after the Droid, Verizon’s Android phone that was being marketed as the best Android out there,” Siegler reports. “Plenty of Droid owners were pissed off that they had just laid down their money (and locked themselves into a carrier contract) for a phone that was being upstaged just a few weeks later by Google itself. But now the problem is already getting much worse.”
“It’s not just Google that is upstaging other barely-released Android phones now, it’s the other Open Handset partners, like HTC, doing it on their own. And while it’s great for consumers to have choices, the problem is that consumers must also now deal with the fear that anything they buy will be upstaged by something better in just a few weeks,” Siegler reports. “Why would I buy a Nexus One if I can get the HTC Desire? And why would I buy an HTC Desire when it will just get upstaged by another new Android device shortly after?”
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s a question: Why would you buy any pretend iPhone when you can get the real thing?
Siegler continues, “I can’t help but wonder if we already have a ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ problem with Android. One that is only going to get worse with time… At least with the iPhone, we know that only Apple is going to upstage older versions — and that it will do so once a year.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
Hey, they wanted a phone with an “open” market, that’s what they get!
Eric the Mole stated at MWC that 60,000 android phones sell each day. Seems a bit high.
Google is a day late and a dollar short coming to the party now. Apple will rule this corner of the universe!
Not to mention not of their apps run on all of the different model variations. And it is going to get worse. Must be tough to develop for and tough for the consumer to know which app works with which phone.
The real problem is not the possible hardware obsolescence (at least subjectively – objectively they should work just the way they had before a newer model will have come out).
The real problem is whether the users of these devices will actually receive support and system upgrades after the fact.
I’ll have no problem owning yesteryear’s iPhone 3GS in a few months when the new one will be out, but that is because I know I will still get an OS upgrade for mine.
Choice and competition are generally good things – as long as customer support is also kept current.
If you like options, buy the phone at full price and sell it as a new one comes out. No carrier payout- no lock in.
Theore confusion, frustration and lack of certainty the clearer the choice- Apple’s iPhone.
Ironically, the company with the biggest secrecy and speculation factor is the most predictable in quality and leadership…
@ping,
You nailed it. Support, as well as compatibility with new third party apps, are the biggest questions.
The more confusion, frustration and lack of certainty the clearer the choice- Apple’s iPhone.
Ironically, the company with the biggest secrecy and speculation factor is the most predictable in quality and leadership…
The “open market” reply is simple and exact. In computer talk, . . . elegant.
Years ago, my friends always criticized Apple for being a closed system, not allowing just anything on their equipment. I had to point out that this was also a major strong point of the Apple way.
In light of all the criticism of the App Store, isn’t this just proof that trade-offs are just that. That freedom (of openness) is also the freedom to screwup.
At least the Android and Nexus are on different networks, so that is something a a differentiator.
Imagine how REALLY pissed off you would be if all this model churn was on the carrier you were locked in to.
Developers Developers Developers. Remember good ole’ Monkey Boy? I have a T-Mobile G1 and an iPod Touch. Which platform is going to be easier to release on and support? I can do just about anything with the G1 and play around with it. It’s fun. But from a business side not so much. All of these Android phones are being released, some with multi touch screens some without. Different screen sizes. Unless you are a big shop and can handle the maintenance costs on these phones and your software, you don’t want to play on that playground. When Apple released the iPhone with a version of Mac OSX that was a platform I could build things on. My only issue with the iPhone is AT&T;. Bring it on over to T-Mobile guys.
The article is spot on. Giving Telcos an open platform to screw up is like giving PC OEMS the ability to add junkware to the OS build. No thanks.
To be fair, to a certain extent this has always been the case with technology, something new is always coming out, but from a practical point of view Google seem to be just over complicating things massively
“Why would I buy a Nexus One if I can get the HTC Desire? And why would I buy an HTC Desire when it will just get upstaged by another new Android device shortly after?”
Same problem as when you buy a computer. There will always be a better one around the corner.
Haw-Haw!
To answer the MDN question; “Why would you buy any pretend iPhone when you can get the real thing?”
Answer: Because it’s ONLY AVAILABLE ON AT&T;. ATT does not work for the vast majority of users. Apple needs to realize this.
The upside of all of this is the laid off Windows support IT people can now all go to work for Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. They will look good in those mall kiosk. They can continue to wear their short sleeve shirts and skinny ties and be gainfully employed. See, there is an upside to everything that looks pathetic.
@ M.X.N.T.4.1.
Of course. But with most products, at least there is some sort of predictability to it. People like to bitch about Apple’s penchant for upgrades 6-12 months after release, but we all know that it happens just that way. Don’t want the first iPad? Then wait until the back-to-school/holiday season, and you can bet they’ll have upped the storage or some more features. Or just buy one and live with it happily for 6 months.
But it sounds like the Android Economy has no such patterns. If you can’t even be happy that you have the best stuff for 6 months, why bother.
Of course, we know better here. If they’d bought the best stuff, they’d have bought an iPhone.
Imagen just how fragmented things will get once other mobile operating systems hit the market. As a developer, this will become daunting to support each flavor of headset with here own OS and particular features. In the end, all this will only help Apple get stronger. As a developer, you will always prioritize the biggest platform with the most stable development environment and less variables to deal with, and that looks to be Apple’s iPhone.
@ m
You can hardly say that AT&T;doesn’t work for the ‘vast majority’ of user when they have hundreds of millions of subscribers, but it is true that the carrier is probably the biggest barrier to growing the iPhone’s market at the moment.
And believe me, Apple *DOES* realize this. They know it probably better than anyone, but they didn’t get in bed with AT&T;because it was true love. They just let Apple call the shots on the phone in a way no other carrier would. Maybe you’ve forgotten the days of buying a stupid tetris game for your Feature Phone and having to pay monthly for it, or the basement-grade ringtones you used to have to rent. AT&T;let the reins go for the iPhone in exchange for exclusivity, the only way that the iPhone could become what it has.
I am a fan boy. I admit it.
Love the iPhone.
I am tired of the AT&T;bashing.
But I must admit, I am growing tired of defending AT&T;. I am growing tired of the bad reception.
I know, I know, all carriers have trouble spots when it comes to reception. Love you AT&T;, but dang it, build more towers then the others if you want to dominate.
@ Chrissy
I agree w/ most all of that..but in the meantime, users on other carriers who cannot use ATT (like me & many others, for instance) can only have access to these copy-cat smartphones. Which was the answer to MDN’s question. Believe me, the day AAPL decides to open up the iPhone to others carriers, my family will be on-board 100%. But until &/or if that occurs– it’s not as if we really have a choice in the matter.
This has always been a problem with HTC, Nokia, etc. They think the answer to boost sales is to release another new hardware product. The problem is that these aren’t just phones any more – smartphones require much more than making phone calls. How is Google’s Android (and third party developers) going to cope with different hardware vs. software buttons for controls, different capabilities of hardware, etc. when new and different hardware is released every two months?
It’s Microsoft, part deux, only without the commanding market share to make the hardware guys fall in line.
The biggest Problem that the Android OEM’s have is Branding.
Currently they are all towing the Google Branding iron around now that Android has burned it on their Ass. The OEM’s are a bit sore but the Google brand is helping them sell a few more Phones. The issue is the Google Brand is replacing the OEM’s Brand in the market place and in the mind of Consumers. PC makers have this Problem now because the Microsoft Brand is the biggest driver and profiter of PC sells, Apple a PC Maker does not use or Pay Microsoft and the Microsoft brand is not in anyway associated with any Apple Product (neither is Intel’s despite the fact that Apple’s systems use Intel CPU’s. Intel’s marketing and branding is carried into Apple’s Products and Apple’s Products are only Branded as a Apple product. Because of this the Apple Brand on a Product is able to be priced higher (but, Apple places it’s Brand at a very high value so, they protect it with High quality products using the best components and proving the best customer server.).
Motorola was one of the strongest Brands in the cell phone business as they were the founders of the business now they’ve sold out their Brand to Google with the Droid to sell some and try and keep the market-share that they have. I have no issue with an cell phone maker using the Android OS or Windows OS as the OS for their smart phone but the phone makers need to push back on the OS branding efforts and make their Brand Front and center. The OS brand should not be important or even talked about by the Phone Vendor except in small print on the box. “This phone runs Android by Google” or “This phone runs Windows Phone 7 by Microsoft”.
If the Phone makers keep following the PC makers down the road of letting the OS maker Brand their Product for them as Google Android Phones or Microsoft Windows Phones then the phone maker’s Brands will be reduced to nothing and they will be left to just discount their hardware in a race to see who can sell cheap phones at the cheapest price with the thinnest of margins.
Oh, Apple will continue to dominate the market while everyone else sells cheap Android or Windows Phones for little to no profit.
Demon,
Right now, the perception is that the only reasonable alternative to the iPhone is the Android. In other words, not another brand of phone; a mobile OS, regardless of the phone brand. If a handset maker wants to sell a phone, and they put Android on their phone, the only chance they’ll sell that phone if they put Android OS brand front and centre.
When a consumer wants to buy a smartphone and can’t go with AT&T, they want a “Google” phone. They’ll look through T-Mobile, Spring and Verizon offerings and look for that Google brand; they just won’t care if the phone is Motorola, HTC, Samsung or anyone else.
Handset makers have no choice but to race to the bottom with their prices, if they want to sell their phones. As long as Android provides motivation for consumers to buy, it will be the primary marketing vehicle for handset makers to sell. This is no different than PC box assemblers. The only one that will continue to stand out (until iPhone eats away its market share) will be RIM.
And, by the way, what’s with all the random capitalisation?? (Brand, Product, Problem, Maker, High, Pay, Phone… none are proper names, all are mid-sentence… I almost thought I was reading text in German!)