Google G1: Hit or Miss?

Posted At : January 20, 2009 2:57 PM | Posted By : Gary Gilbert
Related Categories: Google,Apple,Technology

The Google G1 will be going on-sale here in Germany at the start of February, so I thought I would take a closer look at Google's first mobile phone. I first thought that perhaps the G1 would be a competitor to the iPhone but by the looks of things I couldn't have been more wrong.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Google G1 will be a complete miss. While it does offer some "interesting" features (full qwerty key-board, Flash capability) the fact that the G1 is almost as thick as the Apple Airbook is not exactly a flattering statistic.

Another major hurdle of course to any would-be competitor to the iPhone is the multi-touch functionality that has managed capture the hearts so many people. Apple has applied for over 200 patents to protect the investment they made in developing the iPhone. It will be very hard for any competitor to produce a similar functioning hand held device without infringing on some of Apples patents.

The other mobile phone manufacturers have their work cut out for them if they want to try and compete with Apple's iPhone. Unfortunately I don't see that happening any time soon.

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7 Comments to "Google G1: Hit or Miss?"- Add Yours

My colleagues have iPhones and one has a G1. While the iPhones win out on style the main positive feature of the G1 is that browsing the web is noticably faster than the iPhone. The rest is down to persoanl preference as far as I can tell.

# Posted By Michael Traher | 1/21/09 11:31 AM

I'd be interested to know about the web cache on the G1. The cache on the iPhone is, well, poorly done to be kind. You can't really navigate back and fourth and forget openning up new windows - it basically clears the cache from the initiating window. Often times, I will have problems where the browser will run out of memory on a single page and shut down.

# Posted By Ben Nadel | 1/21/09 3:23 PM

Having used a G1 for the last couple of months, I'd have to disagree with your assessment. The size of the G1 is not an issue to me. While it's a bit thicker than the iPhone, it's not as wide, making it easy to slip in a pocket. You should go into a T-mobile store and hold one in your hand before deciding its too big. I was surprised at how small it felt after seeing pictures.

I've read many conflicting articles/blog posts as to whether or not Apple actually has any legitimate patent claim to the multi-touch gestures used on the iPhone. I have yet to see anybody produce evidence that pinch-zoom on other devices infringes on Apple patents. The fact that Microsoft uses it for the Surface interface and HP uses it in their touchscreen PCs makes me doubt that Apple holds any enforceable patent. I could be wrong. In any case, the G1 is multi-touch capable, as has been widely discussed lately. Whether or not the G1 would ever get multi-touch is doubtful, but certainly possible. I would love to have it as I find it a better interface for certain apps (like maps).

The real power/potential of the G1 is in the open nature of the OS and the market. Developers have much greater access to all of the devices hardware and OS than an iPhone developer would, making apps like ShopSavvy, Locale, RingDroid, PowerManager incredibly powerful and useful and unlikely to make it to the iPhone. As Android makes it onto more hardware in the coming year, I expect an explosion of apps taking advantage of the G1's (and Android's) strengths. And I won't even get started on Apples seemingly arbitrary approval process on the app store and how badly I think that hurts the iPhone platform.

# Posted By jeff | 1/21/09 6:40 PM

@Jeff,

Thanks for your reply. I will indeed head to the T-mobile shop and hold one as you suggest (I have to wait until Feb though)

It is true that I have a relatively pessimistic outlook on the adoption of the G1 mainly because of the hype and "coolness" and die hard Apple followers out there, and is also the reason I tagged it as a future miss.

As for the patent on the multi-touch, according to the article and the text that I read the patent is more narrowly focused towards a phone and not to a laptop or tablet PC so it is possible that their particular type of multi-touch technology is protected.

I have seen a few videos showing multi-touch functionality on the G1, but to provide the same or similar hand gestures that the iPhone gives would probably infringe on Apples patents (if those particular patents would hold up).

I hope I am proved wrong and the G1 and future versions gather a hearty following, I guess time will tell.

# Posted By Gary | 1/21/09 6:53 PM

Although to Apple fans it seems like everyone is an Apple fan, the user base is actually relatively small compared to the number of mobile/smart device users as a whole.

I have been awaiting the Android phones for a while, and refuse to buy an iPhone due to the prison Apple puts you in on the platform. I'm guessing there are many others like me, as well as folks who will just like the Android platform better.

I'd say that Android will be a slam dunk for Google just as the iPhone was for Apple.

# Posted By TJ Downes | 1/21/09 8:02 PM

I'm not an early adopter by nature, hell I just joined twitter today, I wait and see and while "everyone" around me either got issued an iPhone from work or bought one I kept my basic phone. I've used my camera phone about 10 times in total.

The draconian method of control that Apple uses for it's products has to date kept me from purchasing one, and quite frankly I don't see any need for all the bells and whistles all the smart phones offer. I guess I am just not busy enough or not enough of a gadget geek.

# Posted By Gary Gilbert | 1/21/09 8:57 PM

A lot of my friends ae having Iphones and the one big issue that scared me in the moment when i was almost thinking serriosly about buying this kind of phone is that almost all of them dropped down the iphone. The size and the form of this mobile phone is just nice but inapropiatte for holding in oyur palm.

# Posted By Filmari Botez | 3/21/09 4:53 AM

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