AT&T won’t offer Android-powered handsets any time soon
The key to Android’s success in the US will undoubtedly be carrier adoption which is still the only effective way to sell handsets in this country - just ask Nokia how its Nseries and Eseries lines are doing here. One carrier however, just isn’t going to cut it. The T-Mobile partnership was a great move for both parties involved and it was a tremendous start to Google’s mobile OS efforts here in the US. T-Mobile was all for it as it brought them hype and exclusivity and Google was all for it as, well, it let them launch a handset. Google has a long road ahead of it on its way to becoming a successful player in the US market however, and having its OS publicly rejected by two of the four major US carriers was surely not a goal. First Sprint CEO Dan Hesse made the now-famous comment that Android isn’t “good enough to put the Sprint brand on,” and now AT&T has made a similar sentiment public. AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega told The San Fransisco Chronicle that while AT&T has been looking into Android for a while, it has no plans of offering an Android-powered handset any time soon. One of the reasons given, which may have been a nice little pot-shot at Google, was that Android needs to “open up more” and offer some “non-Google” applications. Burn. For de la Vega to publicly say that Google’s open OS needs to “open up more” isn’t a good sign. Hopefully next year when the app store is a but more flushed out AT&T will sing a different tune.
AT&T has iPhone
T-Mobile has Android
Verizon has ummm…. LG Menu
Sprint has ONEClick
I dont really see anyone budging except the company thats smallest, soon to surpass Sprint if Sprint keeps fucking up..
Point is… Android is unproven, and T-Mobile is willing to do all it takes to move that shit forward, and needs to for the sake of it becoming the next new OS!
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Sprint should just get bought out by Verizon already. And Android will come to AT&T when the time is right. Until then, T-Mobile users can enjoy their exclusive period with the Android platform, or AT&T users can just buy a G1, and unlock it.
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Of course they trash the other carriers phones.
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I think the headline should read something like this…
AT&T won’t offer Android-powered handsets until after the iPhone exclusivity is over.
Footnote…
or else feel the wrath of Apple.
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I think what at&t means by ‘open up more,’ is, “until we can sell at&t-branded apps on Android-based handsets, we’re not interested.”
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Not totally agree but I do understand though.
Right now, the G1 is too centered around the Google apps specially for emails and contacts.
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Shouldn’t that be:
“until we can _control_it_all_and_sell_only_ at&t-branded apps on Android-based handsets, we’re not interested.””
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Google is all about Google. ATT is right here, Android is useless for anyone who isn’t Google-centric. It’s also very raw from what I can tell. Sure ATT wants ATT apps…as Verizon does, and Sprint as well. That’s the price of admission. T-Mo is desperate, so they’re going all-in.
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Android and open handsets in general go against the big cell phone companies’ closed business models. If they dont control it, then it’s “not good enough” for them. They’ll need to be dragged kicking and screaming to sell open handsets. How to drag them?
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“Google is all about Google. ATT is right here, Android is useless for anyone who isn’t Google-centric.”
Seriously that is not true. I had the G1 - you can log into the phone with a gmail account right when turn it on for the first time and after that you don’t have to do anything with Google.
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It may have been a different story if the Google/T-Mobile/HTC endeavor produced a better introductory product than the G1.
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I love how every on put the blame on AT&T’s relationship with Apple yet they are the #1 seller of Blackberries as well. Its likely that they have the approach that until Android shows itself as a big seller then why make a push with it when you already have Apple and RIM in your ranks.
And the point about it is too google centric is correct, thats been the biggest complaint with the G1 (that and the lack of headphone jack).
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Tmo isn’t desperate if some of you can’t see where the OS is going then wow. I’m not a fanboy of the iphone or G1 although I will be picking up the G1 soon and I had the 1st Gen iphone unlocked on T-Mobile it was great but I do love the G1 although it has some flaws as of now but its getting fixed
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@Dtest54 That Blackberry relationship is suffering as indicated by the Bold launch and Librapaj that was very funny.
I think T-Mobile only got this exclusive because no one else wanted it. When it matures they’ll all adopt it though.
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I think the issue is two fold.
First: AT&T will not offer Android until the Apple exclusivity contract it over. That is because they are similar and viewed as cometitors.
Secondly, Android is not proven yet and they are waiting for T-Mobile and Google to work all the bugs out first. This is actually a smart move on their part.
I think the potential of Android is well known but all are waiting to see how things turn out first before they jump in. Although Sprint is just stupid for not picking this up now. They are going under yet they say that it isn’t up to Sprints standards, well I’ll like to hear you say that when you are closing your doors.
If Sprint were smart they would offer Android on a sexier platform and they would sell like hot cakes. Sprint. Wake up.
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@alikeabite
Thanks pretty soon I will be charging admission for those jokes so get them while they are free.
@Dtest54
Them being the #1 sellers of Blackberry’s might have something to do with the fact that they are the #1 carrier in the land. Naturally they are going to sell more Blackberry’s than anyone else. As mentioned by another poster, they bowed down to the iPhone, yet royally clusterfucked the Bold launch.
You know they are also the #1 sellers of iPhones too…Just in case you didn’t notice, that was sarcasm
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As with every company, it all comes down to money first. The thing about AT&T is that they don’t care about the customer. Android is open so it can be customized to have carrier related crap on it. But Android gives the user the tools and the power to do what they want with their phone without paying for it (right now). And since Google loves to do things for free, AT&T doesn’t wanna get in bed with them right now until they can figure out a way to lock down the OS so they can be the only ones that Android users on their network can buy apps or services from. I have a N95-4 and was using it on T-Mobile. I could have switched to AT&T for the bigger 3G footprint but I switched to the G1 because T-Mobile is simply the best. For the 2 years that I have been with them, I have never been on hold more than 2 minutes and I always end the call happy for some reason. They actually CARE about their customers beyond the bill. I think Google and T-Mobile are the perfect team and I hope they remain exclusive here in the US. And to all the users here, who can complain about a company who gives their stuff away and takes care of yours for free?
By the way, I was with AT&T (Cingular) before T-Mobile and I had nothing but problems. Dropped calls, missed messages and horible customer service. Ask anyone who switched from AT&T to T-Mobile how the 2 compare. Night and Day.
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Yes, it is all about the money with att. It has to be, it’s a BUSINESS. Don’t pull that propaganda about customer service, every company has underpaid and overstressed monkeys answering the phones. I’ve had great care reps and bad. Just like anyone else on any carrier.
att is smart because they can let Tmo goof with Google and work the bugs out of the OS before they buy into it. If att is going to get into bed with Goooooooogle, then of course att needs to make money on it with their data-centric apps(att navigator, yellowpages.com, etc…) so they can make some residual profit beyond the initial sale of the device.
Also, with apple and RIM surging on att, there’s no rush for att to divest money into a new handset/OS combo. They can use that money to continue to increase their 3G footy.
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@ Maikel
You are complaining about android being google-centric. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s made by google look at any microsoft product they are all MS-centric and how does one activate an Iphone yeah itunes. If the Iphone couldn’t use itunes or be able to sync with a Mac it wouldn’t be called an Iphone. Once Android gets more establish with it being an open it will be able to work with multipal other platforms.
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Apple-T&T is complaining about openness…Ha!
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The irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife.
Android isn’t open enough yet AT&T’s in bed with one of the most restrictive vendors for any of its products: Apple. It doesn’t seem to have an issue with Apple locking down and restricting apps … why should it with Google?
I agree that Android’s pretty immature and I wouldn’t touch it as it’s new and very few apps out there for it. However, I think Google would be more open than Apple would be.
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Let Tmobile keep the G1. Like someone said earlier, there desperate, and need some spunk right now. To me, the G1 is a sidekick for adults.at&t is fine with what they got, the iphone for all the apple fans out there, and Blackberry for all the corporate heads.No need to throw something else into the mix, especially with it being so raw and new.
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I love how people still think the G1 competes with the iPhone.
Please.
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Haha this comment from AT&T is just the other way around I think. Android is too open for them, and I have to agree with the other above that AT&T is afraid that all those services provided by them for money would simply not be used because Android handsets have or will have applications that are freely doing the same or even more. It’s plain to see why AT&T is in bed with Apple the control freak, because they can just kill those apps that are not to their liking, or pose competition.
The problem here is that the US costumers have little choice when it comes to handsets. They have to buy what’s available, and that’s usually something branded by one of the carriers. In Europe the carriers have maybe 1-2 of their devices branded, but the rest are just normal devices locked to their network, with the original manufacturers brand. All devices can be bought locked and unlocked from any carrier (it’s the law).
So what they do is compete with prices and packages, because the exclusivity of the devices are not available to them. This is how it should be on your side of the pond too. Oh yeah and we don’t pay for incoming calls, that’s outrageous in its self…
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@Dtest54 “And the point about it is too google centric is correct, thats been the biggest complaint with the G1 (that and the lack of headphone jack).”
I had the G1 for 8 days and played with it for many hours. I have read many forums. Being too google-centric is NOT an issue. Where are you getting this idea?
I signed in to my gmail account one time and then I texted, browsed the internet, and played with games and applications. What’s that got to do with google?
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