Written on 21st January 2009
3 COMMENTS Peter Robinett, Web Programmer and Founder of Lunch 2.0.nl
The first Android phone, the G1, is only coming to the Netherlands next week and to other European countries in the next few months, but already we hear its successor is coming. Gizmodo just posted what they claim are the first photos of the G2.
Gizmodo claims the the phone is slimmer, which must surely be thanks to the fact that it apparently does not have a hardware keyboard. While I would be very surprised if Google, T-Mobile and HTC weren’t already developing a successor to the G1, I’m not sold that this phone is it.
The photo definitely seems to be of an HTC Android phone but the claimed lack of a physical keyboard really astounds me. Coming after the launch of the iPhone and with so many similarities, the fact the G1 has a physical keyboard despite having a touchscreen struck me as a strong statement that the Open Handset Alliance was learning from Apple but not seeking to slavishly copy the iPhone.
I spent the day demo’ing the G1 to T-Mobile employees and the keyboard elicited two reactions. Those coming from BlackBerries and Windows Mobile phones would immediately proclaim the superiority of the phone over the iPhone due to its physical keyboard. Those used to iPhones were more hesitant, and several actually looked for the on-screen keyboard they were sure was there.
To me, a nice compromise would be to have some sort of iPhone-style virtual keyboard while in portrait mode but rely on the hardware keyboard in landscape mode. This is surely possible and looking at the second of Gizmodo’s photos, I can easily imagine the phone having a keyboard that slides straight out, like many other HTC phones, rather than the sort of diagonal slide the G1 has.
What do you think? Do any Next Web readers have the inside scoop?
Written on 19th January 2009
18 COMMENTS Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
Last week I wrote a post on the horrible Microsoft Songsmith ad (where they used a Mac in the ad!), now an example of a big company that does understand how to market their product.
The T-Mobile Flashmob
Little words are needed, take a look for yourself.
Compared to the Songsmith ad, who do you think gets more attention?
Despite their incredibly inefficient way of selling the iPhone – 6-hours waiting times and shop-assistants who sell to their friends first – T-Mobile has sold 120,000 of those shine objects since July 11th. T-Mobile CEO Hamid Akhavan gives a simple reason for the distribution problems. “Our (sales) expectations were surpassed,” he told Reuters. Of these 120,000 phones, 75,000 phones were sold in Germany.
I’m actually surprised by these somewhat low numbers. Especially in Germany, home of 82 million people, one would expect to sell more than just one phone per 1100 people. Even in the first six weeks. Akhavan told Reuters that the distribution had hit a snag due to its wide-spread launch in 22 countries.
The Dutch have always been famous for their critical and direct attitude. Well, T-Mobile won’t deny this. Since they haven’t received complains from Austrian and German users, but they did from Dutch users. Typical…
Your blogger waisted six hours of his life on a friggin’ phone today. The only Dutch operator that offers the iPhone 3G couldn’t handle (Dutch link) the data load the activation process required. The result? Every single iPhone had to be registered by calling up the T-Mobile headquarters. When you take in account that all the iPhone-selling stores had to do this, you won’t be surprised to hear that waiting times to get a hold of a T-Mobile HQ employee were as long as 80 minutes. That crisis resulted in a very bizarre daily schedule for me:
The line at T-Mobile store, hope you dig my yellow shoes
7 am: Getting up – jumping on my bicycle to go to Amsterdam’s largest T-Mobile Store in the Kalverstraat. 7.30 am: Arriving at the store, a forty-year old Apple fanboy hands me a coffee. There are around 30 people waiting. 8 am: Store manager hands out numbers, there are only 35 iPhones available. Just enough for the people who are already waiting. I have number 24. 9.30 am: Store opens: first lucky seven enter the store. 9.35 am: System crashes. From now on it takes around 90 minutes per customer. 11.00 am: Most of the people who were part of the first round have left the store. 28 people and I realize we’re here for quite a while. Especially as T-Mobile employees help out four friends who have just arrived. When customers tell the store manager this, he acts like he has no idea of what’s going on. 12.15 pm: The store manager now makes the same mistake and helps out a friend of his. He then disappears. 1.00 pm: Finally! There’s my number. Let’s buy that shiny object. 1.45 pm: I’m lucky since the guy who sells my iPhone manages to reach T-Mobile HQ pretty fast. It only took me thirty minutes to buy the phone. Pity that I had to wait for five hours and thirty minutes to do so.
O2 also suffered from technical glitches – causing waiting lines of 90 minutes. Mobile Computer interviewed visitors no. 2 and 3 at the London Regent Street Apple Store – who left early because the whole buying process took to long:
Update: there’s a new gadget around, called the iBrick.
Believe it or not, Germans can buy the brand new 3G iPhone 8 GB version for only 1 euro – and a fat T-Mobile contract. To be exact: users have to sign up for a monthly 69-euro service plan. By doing this, Apple probably wants the early majority to pick up the iPhone in a dazzling speed as a lot of teenagers and twenty-somethings can’t resist such a low price.
Operators like T-Mobile can easily subsidize the phones, as long consumers sign for a very lucrative contract. The 16-gigabyte version will start at 19.95 euros with an all-inclusive data plan costing 89 euros per month going up to 249.95 euros for a minimal 29 euros-per-month contract.
I wonder how many of the shiny phones they’ll ship in. One thing is for sure.. “Is that an iPhone…?” will soon be history.
Written on 21st January 2009
3 COMMENTS 
Written on 19th January 2009
Written on 26th August 2008
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