Initial Thoughts on The G1 | Hacker News Reader

Initial Thoughts on The G1

avc.com

14 pointsciscoriordan14 comments

As an iPhone fanboy and iPhone app developer, I absolutely welcome the first Android phone to market! Gogo G1!

I want an aggressive competitor to iPhone. iPhone isn't perfect and having a great competitor can only drive Apple to making their devices better.

> I want an aggressive competitor to iPhone.

The iPhone. THE iPhone. Just because Steve Jobs wants you to anthropomorphize THE iPhone doesn't mean you should.

Thanks for explaining it, I always wondered why dropping the articles annoyed native speakers so much.

I don't think the design of the physical phone itself is enough to beat the iPhone. I know people say it's all about the software, but that's not really true. I don't understand why companies are trying to compete with apple without making good aesthetic and behavioral design THE top priority. It's like the zune vs. the iPod, and the G1 is the zune.

It's been said many times before, but beating the iPhone isn't the point. Google wants more people using phones with good web capabilities. Android is trying to beat what most people have; crappy phones that can't access the web very well. If Apple sells 100 million iPhones, Google profits too; more people on using mobile web means more people using Google.

That's a good point. But that only applies to google. T-Mobile would prefer to beat the iPhone, wouldn't they?

Actually T-mobile is an iphone carrier in Europe. I'm sure they would offer the iphone in the US if AT&T didn't have an exclusive deal.

Aesthetics of these phones is not primarily about the design of the physical phone itself. If you ran Symbian on iPhone hardware it wouldn't be anything remarkable at all, it would just be another normal phone.

The hope for Android is that lots of different hardware will be running Android, as opposed to the iPhone model where only a small number of handsets will ever run the iPhone OS.

Except that it isn't. It's completely different. The Zune and iPod are two competing products from two proprietary vendors, that go head to head and someone wins.

The G1 is the first device of many, built on an open, configurable, hackable, repurposable platform called Android. Perhaps the G1 isn't quite what you want, but the possibilities are wide open, and not limited to what Google, or Microsoft or T-Mobile wants. The important thing in this equation is Android, not the first device that happens to run it.

HTC has a lot of stuff up their sleeves, this is just their first Android phone for the US. froma design perspective, before the iPhone came out, HTC was lightyears ahead of any other handset manufacturer. I'm very much looking forward to their future Android phones, especially since i cant freaking stand at&t and my iphone freezes/reboots all the freaking time. also waiting for instinctiv shuffle for iphone 3g haha. and shopsavvy.

The G1 sucks for one simple reason - it looks like it sucks. It's like sticking the engine and dashboard of a ferarri in a 1999 mazda - the spec sheet tells you it's great, it handles great, it's cool on the inside, but it's still not going to impress any ladies when you drive up with it.

They should have put a little more effort in the external finishing.

I bought one yesterday at a T-Mobile store in New York. And I generally agree that the fit and finish is far from the iPhone. But I don't think buyers of this phone -- or their phone-admiring friends and acquaintances -- will care.

For this phone, it's about the three S-es: screen, software, slide-out keyboard. They are all top-notch, and they are the features that will have people gawking, talking, and eventually buying the G1. I had a clerk at a different store who had never seen or heard of the G1 ask me to look at it half an hour after I bought it. They were in love after about 30 seconds.

The screen is bright and crisp, as good-looking as the iPhone, and despite the lack of multitouch, works well. Android is shockingly good in round one. The notification system alone is a huge step forward in mobile phone design. And the keyboard bridges the gap to all the ex-Blackberry users (such as myself), who don't want to tap-tap away on a screen.

It sounds bad, but I totally agree with you. People LOVE their apple products, they have an odd attachment to them. (Rarely do you hear people telling you they love their computer...well they do when their computer is a mac). They are more likely to tell their friends that they should get one too.

> People LOVE their apple products, they have an odd attachment to them. (Rarely do you hear people telling you they love their computer...well they do when their computer is a mac).

As Mitch Kapor once said, IBM PC is a computer you can respect, Mac is a computer you can love.

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