There has been much hype about Google developing a phone – the G Phone as it has been dubbed. Well there is no one G-Phone. What Google has done is chosen to develop a platform upon which handset makers and developers can create their own applications. They have released the SDK to developers as open-source.

So what does Google get out of this? What do members of the alliance that developed the platform gain? Well Google will likely get more users of its web services. Google Search is an obvious one, but also other services such as maps, and even yet to be created services which in turn drives advertising revenue. Since the platform is open, any handset maker can use it. Any developer can develop to it. This openness should prod innovation.

The Android Developer Challenge

To encourage development, Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge. The contest will reward winners for their developed applications. A panel of judges will pick 50 winners from entries received from Jan. 2 through March 3, 2008. In the first phase of the competition, those winners will each get $25,000 and be eligible for ten awards of $100,000 and another ten $275,000 awards. The second phase of the competition will feature another $5 million in prize money.

I for one am very excited about the G-Phone. HTC is one of the handset partners and they make excellent devices such as the HTC Mogul (my wife’s phone). It has features my paltry Treo 650 doesn’t have such as a 2mp camera with flash and a much larger screen. I’ve posted some videos below so you can see Android in action. These are of course just demos to show you what it is able to do. What it does in the future will be determined by the creative developers that choose to create applications for it. Notice how some of the cool features of the iPhone are there such as dragging a website around on the page and “flicking” through contacts. It won’t be long before all the cool features of the iPhone are emulated on this platform.

Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the availability of the SDK, that it will be open source in the future, and demo applications on the Android platform.

[coolplayer]

[/coolplayer]

The creators of Android talk about their new open platform for mobile phones and the Open Handset Alliance.

[coolplayer]

[/coolplayer]

A first hand look at building an Android application
[coolplayer]

[/coolplayer]

Location Based Services for All

Having a common mobile platform to develop to (that is free) should boost the development of location-based services. For example there will be a proliferation of both pull and push services. Below are some examples of both.

Pull services: user requests information based on his current location such as: calling a taxi, or searching for a restaurant.
Push services: Information delivered to the user that was not requested such as: shopping coupons, weather warnings sent to users in the current location.

Opportunities exist for ad-based or subscription based services. Google should benefit from both. I would imagine an extension of Google Adsense integrated with your GPS would enable Adsense to direct ads for local resteraunts for example. Imagine how effective it would be to be walking towards a Starbucks when an ad for $1.00 off a Gigantuan Mocha Frappe appears on your screen, good of course at that location only. We could see a whole new ad market develop that has huge potential.

ShareThis

I know you want to rush out and validate this rumor. You can go to the AT&T site and find an iPhone near you. And check out that store in the picture. Where the heck is that store? I swear I’ve seen it on the Jetsons.

ShareThis

This device was prototyped, but is not yet for sale. You can go to the gotwind website to sign up for more info on this nifty little device. If there is enough interest maybe they’ll start selling it.

ShareThis

The price plans for the iPhone are officially out. Pricing seems very fair. I love how the data plan prices are coming down (somewhat). I really expected AT&T to commence a full-blow pillage of the consumer with this phone. I guess they did that with the phone as I doubt AT&T is even subsidizing any portion of the phone other than marketing. Observers are pointing out that T-Mobile and Sprint are likely to be the most hurt. Sprint has a gravy train in its fast EVDO network, with data accounting for over 16% of revenue. Both Sprint and T-Mobile have the young, early adoptors that are likely to switch carriers for an uber-cool device like the iPhone.

ShareThis

Related Posts:

The iPhone Ads

3 Million Apple iPhones?

Evolution of an iPhone Knockoff

iPhone – Attack of the Clones

Zune Phone in the Works?

Seen on the Web: iPhone Shuffle

Will the Real iPhone Stand Up?

iPhone Premiered!

iPhone Mockups 

ShareThis

According Businessweek, Apple plans to have 3 million iPhones ready for sale on launch day.  In other news, AT&T has hired crowd control for its stores in anticipation of the rowdy crowds that will follow.

An old stodgy AT&T now has products that cause crowds?  This just shows you.  The big goliaths, no matter how slow have the billions to survive and if they decide to move can move big (but still slow).  This explains why the hot, new startups with the hot, fresh products get swallowed up.  Hey I’ll start a company in my basement and sell it for millions any day.

ShareThis

In case you’re wondering why all the Apple love today, I’ll sum it up.

1. Bought Apple options Friday @ $23.70
2. Sold Apple options today @ $24.30 or a profit of $60/contract
3. Dax is )

By the way, I see Apple had a slight dip in after hours trading. I’ll be picking up some more Apple options tomorrow morning – Jan $105 Calls [QAAAA] to be exact.

ShareThis

It’s official.  June 29th.  The iPhone ads are up on the Apple website.

ShareThis

However I did find a phone that qualifies as a knock-off the Meizu miniOne. This company has been sued before for other products that looked a little too much like the iPod. Their phone was announced 4 days before the iPhone debut, but it is interesting how they have tweaked it since they announced the phone to look more like the iPhone. In fact it is so close you can probably fool your friends into thinking you have one.

See the picture for yourself and judge. Is it just tweaking the design or is it more of a “oh it doesn’t look iPhone’ish enough.” tweak.

Mere coincidence? or Blatant knockoff?

ShareThis

Another iPhone clone if you can call it that is the LG KE850/Prada phone. This phone is sleek, and looks very similar to the iPhone. It does not sport a slide-out keyboard like the Samsung F700. It is an entirely touch-screen phone like the iPhone and it has the cache of the Prada design studio name. The phone has some short-comings in comparison to the iPhone in data network ability, screen resolution, and internal memory. However the Prada phone has something the iPhone does not have yet – a memory slot.

The two handsets are about the same size although the LG handset comes in smaller. The Prada phone is 99 millimeters long by 54mm wide while the iPhone is slightly larger at 115mms by 61mms. Both are about 12mms thick.

Samsung F700

• HSDPA 1.8Mbps/UMTS, EDGE/GPRS
• 900/1800/1900 MHz + 2.1GHz GSM
• 5 Megapixel camera with auto-focus
• 2.78″ TFT screen 440×220
• Full touch screen
• MPEG4/H.263/H.264/Real
• MP3/AAC/Real
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• MMS/E-mail/JAVA/WAP 2.0
• Bluetooth® / USB
• Full HTML Browsing
• microSD Expansion slot
• size: 104 x 50 x 16.4 mm

LG KE850/Prada

Features
• Capacitive Touch Screen
• Music Player (MP3, ACC, ACC+, WMA, RA)
• Music Multitasking (Messaging)
• Video Player (MPEG4, H.263, H.264)
• Macromedia Flash UI
• Document Viewer (ppt, doc, xls, pdf, txt )

Specifications
• EDGE Tri-Band (900/1800/1900)
• 98.8 × 54 × 12 mm
• 2M CMOS Camera / LED Flash
• External Memory Slot (Micro SD)
• Innerpack Battery 800mAh
• Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, USB Mass storage

Apple iPhone

ShareThis