Yesterday I saw the realtime video feed (thanks to @scobleizer) of the unveiling of Google’s new phone, the Nexus One. The phone looks great, with some really cool features and confirming that Google is really lining all its guns towards the mobile space.
But the announcement wasn’t revolutionary in any level. It’s a great new phone that’s powered by any cellular network. You can buy it straight from Google with no string attached. Ho-hum.
Before the announcement, my friend @joeles thought that the phone would finally break the dependence on mobile voice plans, working off of data plans exclusively using Google Voice (@mona was talking about the same thing on this blog post and got really good responses on FriendFeed).
I believe on the long run this is still the case, but it won’t be running on top of Wifi or data plans. I think Google will be utilizing the “whitespace” frequencies that were freed from TV signals to enable data communication on the Nexus or any upcoming Google phones.
The big question mark as usual is the business relationships that could potentially be broken by this shift. T-Mobile could have enforced some sort of contract with Google to stop this from happening. I don’t think that would be Google’s way of doing things, but you can never know. The fact that Google is selling the phone directly is a good indication that they are not going to be tied up with any carrier.
The mobile disruption did not happen just yet. But knowing Google, you can bet it’s on its way.
{ 8 comments }
