Breaking News from the press conference:
This is a rough ‘as it happens’ draft. We’ll be making more sense of all this in subsequent posts once the event is over.
Google is currently beginning its unveiling of the Nexus One
Google VP Mario Caros: The Nexus One is an exemplar of what’s possible with Android. It belongs in an emerging category of devices we call super-phones.
Peter Chou, CEO of HTC: A couple years ago we were unveiling the first Android products. Thie Nexus One is one of the best designed HTC phones we’ve ever had. The form-factor, aesthetic — it has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display and 1GHz Snapdragon.
Time for a closer look at the Nexus One and its software. Erick Tseng, senior product manager on the Android team. The specs! 3.7-inch OLED display, HVGA (480 x 800) — deep contrast. 1GHz Snapdragon (“It’s really fast.”). Trackball with multi-color notification LED.
Light and proximity sensors, compass and GPS (as we’d already expected).
The thinness is thinner than a #2 pencil, and lighter than a Swiss Army keychain knife. Weighs 130g, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash. Let’s get to the dock connector!
Those contact points enable inline remotes and mics. Inline noise cancellation: two mics, front and back, which enables nose suppression. Custom engraving on the lower bezel!
Jason Chen:
With this great hardware we think we’ve got half the story. But it’s the marriage of hardware and software that make this amazing. The Nexus One runs on Android 2.1
All the droid apps are included on the Nexus One in 2.1, so all the Facebook, Google Maps driving and various other Droid features are present.
The homescreen has changed – first offered shortcuts, then widgets – and based on positive consumer feedback they’ve increased homescreen panels to five (from 3)
Weather widget: This is not just any normal weather widget — it uses GPS to know where I’m at, and I can get minute-by-minute temperature and humidity readings. It’s this great, highly Googly, scientific way to look at weather. ??
New 3D framework in the Android platform. “You now have a mini-computer in your pocket — we wanted to push the 3D capabilities of these devices.” The app launcher is also now 3D, kind of like a vertical ribbon or scroll wheel.
New photo visualization system, Google worked with Cooliris on this. The images tip based on accelerometer (a bit more eye candy that doesn’t really do anything). Photos cluster based on time, date, location etc.
Background sync with Picasa web albums.
Voice recognition: What if I could enable every single text field in the phone with voice?Android 2.1 has now voice-enabled every text field in the device. Speech recognition is done server-side.
Google Earth for Android. Like on the desktop, you can zoom the earth around and zoom into your location. Panning and 3D perspective in Google Earth on the phone. Voice is enabled in Google Earth, too — saying “mount Fuji” actually takes you over to Japan!
How are they going to bring this to market? Here’s a “new way to purchase a consumer phone.” Through a Google web store.
Google consumer channel for buying phones. “Simple purchasing, simple plans from operators, and simple and worry free setup of your device.” Buy it online, or buy it from a carrier. is where you can buy a phone starting today.
Google will add more operators and more devices (including those from Motorola) to this Android phone store!
Nexus One unlocked and without service: $529. Buy it with service from T-Mobile for $179. Verizon Droid phones and Voda devices are coming Spring 2010 — obviously not there yet. Right now it’s just T-Mobile and the Nexus One (in the US).
As of today Google is shipping to US, UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The plan in the future is to add more operators in the US and internationally as well as more devices.
So, recap: buy phones with or without service from Google. The Nexus One is the first model (so clearly the Nexus series will be carrying on in the future), and they’ll be expanding this to more manufacturers and countries soon.
Q&A Session now going on:
If it wasn’t already clear, BTW, this is not an AT&T 3G phone. Nexus One does not have AT&T’s 3G bands — T-Mobile only.
The device has Wi-Fi, but they haven’t locked down tethering.
Q: Is this an iPhone killer?
A: We’re calling it a superphone, but the message isn’t to the iPhone, it’s to consumers. “Choice is a really good thing.”
Q: What are the revenue opportunities for Google?
A: It’s about advertising. There is a small margin on unit sales, but making sure people get access to Google services and get online is their #1 priority.
Q: This phone is your best phone, but it doesn’t have a physical keyboard. Does that mean a physical keyboard is dead? And, is Google going to retail other products online?
A: The HTC strategy is that there are different people who prefer different form factors. This design focuses on the screen and the form factor, and has one of the best on-screen keyboard experiences. And on the software side there’s voice input. This is not the only device that is going to be part of the offering.
Q: Why 512MB for app storage only?
A: They store apps in the internal ROM and not on the SD card now, for piracy reasons, but they will offer an upgrade soon for installing apps on the SD card.
Q. Will internationally shipped Nexus One devices support multitouch, and why is there a limitation in the US?
A. It’s not a limitation, it’s basically how quickly we can enable the web store [They’re talking there about the US-only store, not the multitouch I think]. Devices are shipped from the US.
They’re “considering” adding multitouch support in future.
Q. What happens if you have existing service with an operator?
A. If you click on T-Mobile you’re asked “Are you an existing customer? If so, do you want a new number or do you want to port your number?” – provide a minimum amount of info which T-Mo use to check what plan you qualify for; get an example of what your first month bill would look like, and then end up on the normal page. According to T-Mo’s upgrade policy for the plan you’re on, you’ll see a pro-rated price for the Nexus One.
Danny Sullivan is totally sticking it to these guys. “Why aren’t you giving away a phone for free with advertising? I want the revolution, where is it?” Andy: “I think the plans aren’t boring, I think they’re exciting, globally. The first baby step here is get the online store going, let’s put the best-in-class products in that store, and enhance it in the future.”
And the official blog post from Google can be found .
