Today, T-Mobile launched the G1, the first mobile handset to run Google’s Android mobile operating system. Interestingly, during the launch, Google took a total backseat, letting T-Mobile run the show and reveal the first incarnation of the Android platform, a tactic totally polarised to Apple’s usual brand-controlled iPhone launch frenzy.
The approach Google had to the launch of its new OS may be a sign of things to come; maybe Google is almost white-labelling its software for the benefit of mobile operators to increase its overall market share and propagation across the operators’ networks.
What this may mean is that users will get more of that awful T-Mobile and Vodafone customised software that appears on low-end consumer devices, with features on the same device hugely differentiating between networks. Placing the control of content to mobile operators is a very clever tactic for the mass adoption of the platform, but the end-user experience may be harshly limited on some networks.
This may approach may be confirmed by the lack of mentioning anything of the bundled Google software in today’s keynote; I for one was disappointed by the lack of application innovation highlighted by the T-Mobile guys.
It will be interesting to see what Google says about the platform in the near future – I very much doubt that T-Mobile and Google’s messaging correlates.
Find the T-Mobile G1 press release here.
Related posts:
- Google Chrome - first impressions Google’s Chrome browser generated a groundswell of attention when it...
- links for 2008-10-09 Politics this week: a summary of world news -...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.