Wired Editorial: The Phone that saved three companies

[Bateluer]

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/mf_android/all/1

Pretty good read, I think.

But that optimism faded a few months later, in the spring of 2009, when the first prototype arrived in the Android offices. To Rubin’s eyes, they looked nothing like the designs Jha had presented. Indeed, they were hideous. Yes, there is always a gap between a manufacturer’s sketches and the eventual prototype, but Rubin and his team had so much faith in Jha that they expected him to deliver a phone much closer to the one he had pitched. Despair set in. “It looked like a weapon. It was so sharp and jagged and full of hard lines. It looked like you could cut yourself on the edges,” says someone who saw the prototype. “We were really concerned. There were a lot of conversations where we asked, ‘Is this really the device we want to do? Should we try to talk Motorola out of it?’”

<Andy Rubin>He&#8217;s about to run a time-lapse movie of Android activations, from its 2008 launch to the present. Every time an Android phone is activated, a light blue pixel will appear.

For the first 25 seconds&#8212;which correspond to the launch of T-Mobile&#8217;s G1&#8212;so few dots light up that they barely register. &#8220;Europe is looking pretty good, probably better than the US,&#8221; Rubin says. A few more seconds tick past. &#8220;And then here is the Droid,&#8221; he says, starting to smile. Instantly, the US part of the map goes from dark to a pulsating blue. Fifteen seconds later, courtesy of another hit phone&#8212;the Samsung Galaxy S&#8212;South Korea, Japan, and Europe light up the same way.

Rubin, like most engineers, is usually soft-spoken. But this seems to make him giddy. As he narrates, he speaks faster and his voice grows louder. He points out South Korea and Japan going &#8220;apeshit&#8221; for the Galaxy.

 

[kaerflog]

I think it saved Motorola.
Google and Verizon doesn't need to be saved.

 

[Bateluer]

I think it saved Motorola.
Google and Verizon doesn't need to be saved.

didn't*

Recall, at the time of the Droid 1's launch, Verizon's smartphone line up was a few Blackberry models. Their first foray into 'modern' smartphones was the BB Storm. Everyone knows how that turned out.

The G1, while a great device, didn't exactly have the launch that Google wanted. Would another disappointing Android handset have killed Google? Not likely. Killed Android? Probably.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Sweet tagged for later.

 

[s44]

You left out the best part: the original Droid campaign.

Sometimes the ad guys get paid way too much. Sometimes they get paid way too little.

 

[Deeko]

didn't*

Recall, at the time of the Droid 1's launch, Verizon's smartphone line up was a few Blackberry models. Their first foray into 'modern' smartphones was the BB Storm. Everyone knows how that turned out.

Yea, but Verizon was still doing very well. They certainly weren't going to die, nor were they on that path.

The G1, while a great device, didn't exactly have the launch that Google wanted. Would another disappointing Android handset have killed Google? Not likely. Killed Android? Probably.

Android would likely have faded without the Droid...but Google would have been just fine. The majority of the things Google does lose money. They make enough through advertising to make up for it.

 

[zerocool84]

Yea, but Verizon was still doing very well. They certainly weren't going to die, nor were they on that path.



Android would likely have faded without the Droid...but Google would have been just fine. The majority of the things Google does lose money. They make enough through advertising to make up for it.

Yea Verizon was still the #1 carrier and still is. They didn't have any good smartphones until Android but they certain'y weren't hurting for subscribers.

 

[Mopetar]

The G1, while a great device, didn't exactly have the launch that Google wanted. Would another disappointing Android handset have killed Google? Not likely. Killed Android? Probably.

I highly doubt it would have killed Android. What was going to replace it?

Apple was already capped out on production of the iPhone and it was only available on one carrier so while their market share would look better, they still would not have shipped substantially more phones.

Microsoft was still busy throwing things at the wall that wouldn't stick and were outright worse than Android, as clumsy as the first versions may seem by today's standards.

Palm might have fared slightly better in the market, but for all they were able to accomplish, they wouldn't be able to gain much traction, especially with Sprint as their initial partner.

Nokia might not have gotten into bed with Microsoft, but Symbian would still be a mess and the N900 would not have seen a vast increase in sales. RIM wasn't magically going to make a better product either. Their sales might be higher if Android had remained week, but their phones wouldn't be any better than they are today.

The third party manufacturers would still have stuck with Android, even if it turned out worse than it did. It would have been better than their other options by far. If anything, it would have just delayed the rise of Android for a few more months until someone else came out with a flagship device that worked well.

 

[pm]

That was an interesting article. Thanks, Bateluer

 

[mammador]

Google's main product is the search engine. And Verizon is owned by the world's most profitable mobile operator (Vodafone). So the likelihood of these going under is slim. If Android had failed, well Google had the search engine, Google Maps, Google Earth, etc. to fall back on, even if Android had been a malinvestment. Vodafone is British-owned, and if anything its core market is the UK and Europe.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

I'd argue Android did more for HTC than anybody else. They became a household name after the Incredible and HD2 (the Eris, notwithstanding). Just look at their SEC filings over the last year -- record revenue and profits every quarter. Pretty impressive for a handset maker barely known for their shitty Windows mobile phones.

 

[Deeko]

I'd argue Android did more for HTC than anybody else. They became a household name after the Incredible and HD2 (the Eris, notwithstanding). Just look at their SEC filings over the last year -- record revenue and profits every quarter. Pretty impressive for a handset maker barely known for their shitty Windows mobile phones.

That was partly HTC's own doing. For a long time they made phones (good phones) for other manufacturers, or branded by the carrier. The T-Mobile Dash and G1 were both solid. Most don't know that the Sony Xperia X1 or Palm Treo windows mobile line were HTC phones.

They really started coming into their own when they A) Became a big Android manufacturer and B) Started branding themselves.