Will Android Kill the iPhone? Or will AT&T?
The Droid. The Droid Eris. The Hero. The Nexus One. The G2. The Dream. Android phones are being released at a staggering pace, and the term “iPhone Killer” has been floated around ever since Apple’s phone exploded on the marketplace. But even though the new Android phones are well built and impressive, will they really spell the demise of the iPhone? There are rumors in the mobile community that the real iPhone killer will come not from competitors, but from inside its own camp…
In the US, the only carrier that offers the iPhone is AT&T. There were rumors about the iPhone expanding to Verizon last year, but they fizzled out. Now we are starting to see why. Verizon has jumped head first into the Android pool, releasing the Droid and Droid Eris in Q4 2009 and the Nexus One to be launched in Spring 2010. Suddenly AT&T is no longer the only place to get a mobile application friendly smart phone. And with Verizon offering a MUCH larger 3G network, AT&T can only fall back on its network performance, which has always been one of the fastest in the country. Unfortunately, even that is coming to an end, with millions of iPhone users devouring 3G network bandwith. In fact, because of increased dropped calls and Internet interruptions, AT&T has begun limiting the sales of iPhones in dense urban areas. On December 28, online sales to New York were suspended, with no word on when they would be reinstated.
Lost in all of this is the fact that the iPhone is still a really good device. So what can Apple do to avoid coming in second in a two horse race? Simple, they need to expand their carrier base. The sooner the iPhone can make its way into other markets, the better. If they are contractually obligated to stay with AT&T for any significant amount of time, they are going to end up playing catchup in a market that is evolving at record speed. Of course, the good news would be that we would get to see some really cool commercials… “Hi, I’m an iPhone.” “And I’m an Android…”
Comments
one thing you hadn’t mentioned which i think is particularly interesting is the rumor that the Nexus One would be basically divorced from the telcos altogether, owners would buy a pay-as-you-go voice+data service and place most of their calls over the data connection using Google Voice.
Google is doing a bang-up job of not letting the evil telcos mess with their plans. I commend that.
RE: theOther
I also like the fact that the Nexus One will be available directly from Google, and not dependent on a carrier (although I don’t know if I would call them evil ;) ).
And you are right about the ability to use pay-as-you-go plans. If you purchase a Nexus One directly from Google, you can insert any GSM SIM card (except for AT&T, which uses a proprietary band), and you can use Google Voice to place calls. Honestly though, I don’t see this becoming a mainstream use of the phone. It certainly is intriguing though.
Thanks for the comment!
As a follow up to the comments by theOther and myself, I also believe that using Google Voice still uses minutes.
Check out this link to Google Support that makes it very clear that you still use minutes when placing calls with Google Voice.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=78d60052084a63ba&hl=en
way to harsh my mellow paul!
;-p
oh well, i guess i might have to look into sipdroid as suggested in that post you’d linked.
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