Not so impressed by the G1
Yesterday was the release of Google’s first Android based phone, better known as the G1. The hardware is from HTC and it is tied to T-Mobile in the US. True availability will be by the end of October.
I was excited about this but now I must admit I’m a bit disappointed. The G1 is no iPhone killer, at least not as it is now. I get the feeling Google and T-Mobile rushed into releasing something but it’s flaws could really hurt it’s long term prospects.
To me the main flaws are:
- No standard headphone jack! If people complained about the original iPhone’s recessed headphone jack, imagine how absurd it is to not even have a true headphone jack. I guess this phone decided not to be an iPod. But then why build an Amazon MP3 store into it?
- No video playback whatsoever. The argument is that third party developers will create this soon but come on!
- No built-in storage. You HAVE to have a MicroSD card to store anything on the phone. So, don’t forget to buy one at the time of purchase or you won’t be able to do much with the G1.
- No desktop synching options. Again, supposed to be developed by third parties. To make things worse, there is no Exchange support either. So, you are forced to live with Google Apps, which is not that bad but having no alternatives is not good enough.
- As restricted as the iPhone in terms of modem tethering.
There are many other smaller details and certainly there are good things about it. Most of all, it’s Open Source which promises a lot for the future. Nevertheless, I’m sure the adoption rates won’t be even near those of the iPhone, after all, I haven’t even talked about the cool factor.
The question is, how difficult is it to port apps from the iPhone to Android and vice versa. Right now it’s clear that if you are a mobile developer, developing for the iPhone should be the wisest business decision.
