Chris Brakebill

I’ve been wanting to post some thoughts on where I think Google should take the Nexus One strategy in the future. But then this past week they surprised me by announcing that they will no longer be selling the device through it’s online store.

The  gave customers the true Android experience. It was clear of carrier and manufacturer crapware and waste. It could be bought unlocked or on contract with T-Mobile. Google took little risk in selling the phone online and they put no money into advertising. It’s obvious it was an experiment. An attempt to break the carriers control over the phones on their network. The only carrier they could get to go for it was T-Mobile who seems to be willing to do anything to increase subscribers. So when, unsurprisingly, users did

Why wasn’t the Nexus One ever brought to Verizon?? I’d be willing to bet it had a lot to do with Verizon’s desire to have more control over their devices. They didn’t want these Nexus One users having free WiFi hotspot access among other things. And Google probably wasn’t willing to concede that. They wanted their device to be the full unencumbered Android experience.

The only other device I’ve seen in the past year that was similar was the original Motorola Droid. Given that, I was hoping that the next iteration of the Droid might take the Nexus One’s places as Google’s flagship phone. Unfortunately, it seems that both the Droid X and the upcoming Droid 2 will be running some variation of Motorola’s Blur interface. The Droid has yet to receive the official Froyo update, and I would be willing to bet the this WiFi hotspot feature is a holdup. Verizon is NOT going to let a phone do that without being able to make some money off of it.

So why does it matter? Well Android 2.2 has been released for several weeks now, but the Nexus One is still the only one with Froyo available for installation (unless of course you root and install ROMs, which is not for the average customer). It really highlights the problem with Android, Google is at the mercy of manufacturers and carriers. They hoped they could use the Nexus One to push the carriers and take a little control, but they put so little effort into it that there was no way it could possibly succeed.

What should they have done?

1. Certainly they shouldn’t have abandoned the Nexus One idea. Instead, they should have actually committed to it and showed that it was important to have an official Google phone with the latest software. They should have marketed the device properly. More than just a small bit on the bottom of Google.com and some ads in airports. Show me some commercials, print ads, etc. really highlighting the strengths of Android (maybe they struggled to find those…).
2. Figure out your network strategy. Keep it as a GSM phone for AT&T and T-Mobile or build a CDMA one for Verizon or Sprint. Work with those carriers to make it happen but keep the crap out. You will probably have to abandon the free hotspot tethering idea, but that’s fine.
3. I’m not really sure Android is ready for this, but BUILD AN IPOD TOUCH COMPETITOR. The music app is still lacking, but I think you have to give this a try. Unlike Apple, you’re into expandable storage, so you can sell devices with a couple gigs of memory and offer the ability to expand with SD cards. I’d also suggest making both 3G and WiFi models. There’s no denying we’re moving to the cloud, and making a 3G device with an iPad-esque plan would give customers anytime access to Pandora, Rdio, Rhapsody, and possibly Google Music in the future?
4. Work with a retail store to give customers hands on access to these devices. You don’t have to have your own store to let buyers play with them. Best Buy, Radioshack, and Wal-Mart would all be great places to give users an opportunity to see what the Android experience is about.

Tom Reestman made a great point about why Google handled the situation the way they did saying

I wish Google had done a Nexus Two, but I understand why they did not. Google’s interest in Android is to get it in as many hands as possible and sell ads. In Google’s eyes, a Nexus Two would provide no advantages to them or their ad buyers over any other new Android phone. The fragmentation of varying UIs, services, and other add-ons doesn’t need to concern them. Sheer volume and ads, that’s their business model. I’m not knocking the model (it’s very successful), but it’s in keeping with it that they not waste resources on another Nexus.

Sadly I think that may be the case, and why Apple devices will always be better than Android phones. Apple makes money buy building products that consumers love. They want you to love using your phone and to pay them a bunch of money for it. Google, on the other hand, makes money by giving advertisers eyeballs. They only care about Android in so far as customers are looking at ads. That’s more or less the only source of profit for them.

I hope Google makes more of an effort to build something that will let consumers see the joy the using an Android device can bring. A device that will give developers comfort that more users will have the latest version of the OS. However Google tends to think a little bit too much about hard data and I’m not convinced they see the benefit such a device (or line of devices) would bring to the Android ecosystem.