The gPhone is dead. Long Live the gPhones.

Pete Mortensen ()

As assumed, Google announced yesterday that they have no interest in entering the mobile hardware game. There is no gPhone. Instead, the company took the wraps off of the Open Handset Alliance, a 30+ company coalition featuring software companies, handset makers, network operators, and web companies that claim to be committed to a genuinely open mobile phone platform.

That platform is Android, a linux-based operating system and software stack originally developed by a start-up of the same name that Google absorbed in 2005. Basically, if you license Android, you can power a cell phone. It’s everything except the phone itself.

It’s exactly what I hoped for. T-Mobile, Samsung, HTC, Motorola and others are on board, and this time next year, there could be dozens of Android phones on the market, each set up for total openness of software and all other features. It could be the iPhone without Steve Jobs trying to control everything about it. It could be high-end, low-end, mid-end, side-end.

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On the other hand, this is a year off. We’ll see the SDK next Monday. Then it will move from vaporware to reality. Can’t wait.

7 comments »

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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  • Steve Ballmer

    They will “compete” with Windows Mobile?
    I think not, we will crush them!

  • Steve Ballmer

    Sorry, forgot my url:
    [Don’t push it with self-promoting spam, Steve. You were good the first time.]

  • the truth

    its gonna be awesome because now ill be able to get mortgage ad spam on my phone and have gmail try to block it and then have google chat connect to the government to monitor my addiction to canadian prescription drugs! let the evil begin!

  • http://www.perkiset.org/ perkiset

    “… exactly what I’d hoped for … without Steve Jobs trying to control everything about it”

    Hilarious. Anyone whos ever been involved in large scale tech projects knows what happens when you take all the restrictions off, put 30 chefs in the kitchen and say “Satisfy Everyone.” I am not excited about a phone that is open to everyone, tries to satisfy everyone and will certainly be a hodgepodge of concessions, rather than a single-minded pursuit of excellence. Whether you agree that the iPhone is that or not is immaterial: this project will be just that kind of nastiness. I can hear McAfee and Symantec giggling with glee already.

  • http://newtonpoetry.wordpress.com iDave

    Hey – ain’t this a great country? The biggest name on the Web competing against Microsoft and Palm and all those folks? I can’t wait to see where the dust settles.

    I’m kind of glad there won’t be a gPhone, because to me it could steal thunder from Apple. But then – ain’t this a great country? Two best buddy companies duking it out for the ears of America?

    Yeehaw.

  • Doug S.

    OTOH, ponder the wisdom of Fake Steve Jobs and be careful what you wish for: “What Google sells is ads. That’s their rocket fuel. And not just any old ads, but really annoying, butt-ugly little text ads. That’s the one market they hope will survive even as everything else becomes free. So let that sink in for a second. Think through the implications for Google’s partners and its customers. Imagine the world that Google would create for us if Google could have its way and run the entire planet. Is that a world you want to live in?”

    So pardon me if my heart does not go pitty-pat at the thought of Google entering the world of cellular communications, gPhone or no.

  • Stuart

    It could just be a right fudge for companies that can’t think of anything themselves.

    The Mac and the iPhone are better remember because they’re not made by a b and c.