Over the last year, and specially since Apple’s iPhone was released, many rumours about Google developing a mobile phone have arisen. But, these rumours have been intensified last weeks. Many things have been said from this project, but no word from Google officers, so all this stuff is just speculations.
Anyway, this hype is very similar to iPhone’s hype the previous months of its official announcement and it’s very likely it’s driven by Google itself. No doubt the hype is very beneficial for them. (By the way, many people makes the most out of these hypes.) Even the hype has given a name to the gadget, ‘gPhone’, following the same Apple’s product pattern.
Last news comes from CrunchGear. They claim to have received a notice from a HTC insider stating that gPhone will come out of Taiwan’s vender on Q1 2008. The same note says that Google is currently assessing up to 20 HTC models and refining its final handset design. This gPhone would be expected to include a special version of Google Maps, compatible with built-in GPS, and compatibility with Gmail and the calendar app.
To sum up, let’s summarize some things that have been said from the upcoming(?) ‘gPhone’.
- Will be manufactured by HTC
- Will be based on Windows Mobile
- Manufactured by Samsung as well
- It is such a ’100$ phone’
- It is just a new OS based on Linux
- Will include a built-in GPS
- Will be launched in India, Europe and America at a same time
- Different operators are testing it all over the world
- Will be launched in a couple of weeks (by the end of august’07)
- gPhone will be subsidized by advertising
- …
As any reader can see, some of these issues as just opposed. Which of them will finally apply to ‘gPhone’? Let’s speculate a bit more.
HTC is a well-known manufacturer, in another time only producing store branded devices, so it’s a quite reasonable partner in gPhone’s adventure. But… they are specialized in Windows Mobile devices, so Linux-related rumour would seem to weaken. But Google’s strategy has been always information centric, so ‘gPhone’ should not be expected as a very hardware related stuff, but a software related one, so that hardware vendors and operators exclusiveness would make no sense.
Another point very reasonable is built-in GPS. Would anyone expect a gPhone with no Google Maps application? It would make no sense. And… if we have a built-in GPS we will expect 3G as well, a good-quality camera and even WiFi. But all this stuff is worth more than 100$, unless the handheld is subsidized in some way, for instance, by advertising. And this is a well-known landscape for Google.
Well … finally we will see in a couple of weeks, or in Q1 2008, or… who knows?
August 30th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Great post Rafa!
September 4th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
[...] movement would be a good response from Microsoft to Apple and Google (if gPhone’s rumours are confirmed), and would position Redmond company centered on professional market, [...]