Thread: google phone
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Drewvt is offline Drewvt
2007-11-01 , 21:14
Posts: 162 | Thanked: 3 times | Joined on Jun 2006
#8
Originally Posted by rs-px View Post
Will they position themselves in a niche, like Apple? Or just try and compete against Nokia and Motorola? Personally I think they'll produce a kind of communist everyman's phone -- designed to be cheap, useful and ubiquitous. The intention will be for all Americans to carry one. After all, the phone is intended to support their search/data mining core business, and you can't do that unless you have widespread coverage.
The essence of it is the right idea for the future: why should we continue paying our cell carriers so much money, if we can use ubiquitous Wifi (or a similarly open and virtually free way of connecting) and Skype (or a similar program) to place calls on our N810 (or similar devices), instead of using overpriced cellphones with overpriced calling plans? What I don't like is the idea that Google could be at the center of that new environment, because they indeed have a horrible record when it comes to respecting your privacy:

By making the OS open source, the company would enable developers to build applications specifically for the mobile environment, the same way they have done with most of their Web services.
Hopefully the first application made is something that screws with Google's data-gathering and profile-building goals, just like G-Zapper (kills the Google cookie) and Customizegoogle (the Firefox extension).