As Apple fans digest T-Mobile’s announcement of its G1, analysts say the handset starts with an immediate deficit: brand awareness.
“I think the most important point is that although Google is a familiar name for many consumers the brand power is not the same as Apple,” Gartner research director Carolina Milanesi told Cult of Mac Tuesday.
Milanesi said most people don’t know what Android is or G1. “You sure cannot say that about Apple,” the analyst said.
Apple’s brand is worth $13.7 billion and jumped 24 percent in recognition compared to 2007.
The G1 is $179 and requires phone owners buy a two-year voice and data plan with T-Mobile. The handset, available Oct. 22 in the U.S., goes on sale November in the UK and the first-quarter of 2009 elsewhere, according to the carrier.
Google services have been tightly woven into the G1, a tactic that benefits both Google and public recognition of the new phone. Those services include Gmail, Google Talk (Yahoo, AOL and MSN IM clients are also supported) and video-sharing service YouTube.
“Without such services and applications the G1 will risk being ‘just’ another touch screen device trying to compete for consumers’ preference this Christmas,” Milanesi said.
Avi Greengart, a handset analyst at research firm Current Analysis, said the G1 won’t try to go head-to-head with the iPhone.
“The G1 will not compete directly against the iPhone in the U.S., where the iPhone is an AT&T exclusive, and the G1 is only available at T-Mobile,” Greengart told Cult of Mac.
The avoidance of direct competition will not include Google’s attempt to lure application developers away from Apple’s highly successful iPhone Apps Store, the analyst said.
The G1 application marketplace, dubbed Android Market, is on every Google phone offered by T-Mobile. Reports say the Android Market will resemble YouTube’s interface which allows users to vote on the popularity of videos.
Apple recently has come under fire for decisions to remove some iPhone applications. Last week, the Cupertino, Calif. company banned “MailWrangler,” claiming the application duplicated the Mail app already available on iPhones. That followed Apple’s decision to remove Podcaster for similar reasons.
But that oversight is not available to Android Market users.
“The Android Store has no governing body – and that could be a problem,” Kevin Burden, Director of Mobile Devices, told Cult of Mac. Burden envisions G1 owners installing applications that don’t work.
In related news, Amazon said it’s Amazon MP3 store will be preloaded on the G1, providing users with more that 6 million songs free of copy-protection.
(Image from T-mobile)
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
