The Dream Phone

It seems that a lot of people in tech land are down on Android these days. My friend Howard sent this update via twitter last night:


   
      Google has another blind spot and a black hole of money – Android – absolute disaster brewing

I don’t share that point of view. I can’t wait for the Android-based Dream phone from HTC that will run on T-Mobile (thank god!). Here’s a video I saw on Apple Insider today of the Dream phone.

Its hard to know if that is a legit video and it’s hard to really get a sense of the phone from that video. But it looks a lot my my "dream" phone that I blogged about almost a year ago now.

The things I really want in a phone are a big touch screen with a great browser that supports flash, native google apps, a real keyboard for typing that slides out like the sidekick, and the ability to run it on any GSM network.

It cracks me up that they call this The Dream Phone because that’s pretty much what it is for me.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. benton.yetman

    yah I’ve got high hopes for the G1! The 5″ x 3″ touch screen is impressive, as is the 3-mp camera, keyboard, and UMTS. Honestly, I can live without GPS and the other flashy demos we’ve seen as long as the user experience is open and seamless, something which seems core to Android. Fred, your vision of a device that’s less phone and more “a mobile browser that supports voice” is spot on…

  2. Pierre

    It seems like every 6 months or so the blogosphere, and now the Twitterati, picks an anticipated product to hate.Remember the furor around Hulu? People had nothing good to say about them either. Remember how that turned out? The peanut gallery was way off base, Hulu is a great service.I can’t say for sure how Android will turn out but I know that anything that makes the development for mobile platforms easier is a much needed solution. As it stands, developing for mobile is like herding cats. There needs to be a standard.Mobile is a huge potential revenue generator for everyone in the tech biz. I want my piece of that pie as I’m sure all of you do too. Instead of hoping for google to fail I think we should all hope they succeed here. At the very least they will make it easier for all of us to make money if they do well.

  3. howardlindzon

    i read I saw I keep an open mind and I still conclude….black hole. Not saying google is a short, just apple keeps looking better and better

    1. fredwilson

      not in my book. i got the new iphone and it sucks

      1. tim

        Nothing annoys me more than someone saying something sucks and doesn’t follow it up with a reason. I don’t know how android will fair as I haven’t seen anything real concrete on it. However google is taking pages out of the Microsoft skewl of product releases – announce something, over promise, and delay the living hell out of it. The next logical step is to under deliver. Based on that – I have no real hopes that android is the new jesus phone. Matter of fact – I think it will be a disaster based on how the launch is being handled.I’ve owned two iPhones and it has flaws but still the best experience of a phone I’ve used to date.

        1. fredwilson

          i think you can say something sucks in the comments. a post that says that needs an explanation. but this is a comment. i have bought two now. the first gen and the new one. and both of them are paper weights for me. i don’t find them particularly useful. certainly not the way my blackberry curve is useful.

      2. simondodson

        ditto .. i cant wait for a phone to surpass the iphone .. then ill move on it ..

  4. Kyle S

    Fred – completely unrelated topic, so bear with me. Also, this post includes a spoiler for the men’s 100M final in the Olympics, so if you want to be surprised tonight skip it…I’m furious at NBC for not showing Usain Bolt’s record-breaking run on their website in order to drive up viewership. This is especially irksome since they’ve been relatively good about having live event coverage in many other things (like baseball). But beyond just not showing the video on their website, they’re going above and beyond to really piss me off.The BBC is happy to show video of the race on their website… unless you’re from the US. While it’s certainly within their purview to decide to honor a request by NBC about that, it’s still irritating.But I just saw this twitter status: http://twitter.com/SeeMikeW…Not only is NBC blocking people from uploading Tivo’d coverage of the race from territories outside the US that show it live, they’re also not allowing people who recorded the event with their own cameras to upload that footage on YouTube! Why would YouTube agree to a restriction like that? NBC certainly doesn’t own the copyright to Mike’s camera footage.Ugh, this whole episode just infuriates me.

    1. simondodson

      ditto .. i went thru this . this morning .. i installed all there bloatware etc .. then whammoUS residents onlybah

  5. Soren Macbeth

    I’m going to have to side with Howard on this one. Ask a developer how they feel about Google’s commitment and support for Android. Not good at all from the people that I’ve spoken to.It’s Google’s half commitment that will sink it. Saying ‘Here’s a toolchain, we’re done.’ is not going to be good enough, especially if you are not lightning fast in addressing concerns of the very people you are counting on make your branded mobile OS #1.

    1. howardlindzon

      nobody likes a brownnoser, unless they agree with me.

  6. Jeffrey McManus

    It seems quite possible to me that you could both be right — the phone could be a hit and it could be a huge money sink for Google.I’m thinking of this in terms of what Java has done for Sun.

    1. Nick Molnar

      I want to believe Android will be great, but I can’t. I think the carriers are going to have too much say in the matter – and building great UIs are not their strongsuit. The phone doesn’t natively support vector graphics, so many of the iphone-esque transitions are simply impossible.Then, there is the elephant in the room: fragmentation. There is only one iPhone, but there are going to be many many types of Android devices with different input methods, screen sizes, and features. That is going to be a major pain for small developers who will ultimately move back to the iPhone to avoid the struggle.I hope Android inspires smaller, newer, entrants to the field of handset design. I hope the web browser is wonderful and the carriers beat expectations on UI. I hope the problems I’ve listed above can be conquered but I’m not sure hope is enough.

  7. Javed Alam

    Actually, I have been waiting for that phone myself simply because I would like to support open source software as much as I can.Also, I have been with t-mobile for long time. I have no complains with the service.The video seems to be real. Here is my write on the night the news broke:http://randomthougts101.blo

  8. bijan

    that video is actually an adroid powered phone. i’ve played with it. And I’m looking forward to getting my very own when it comes out.

  9. Joseph Weisenthal

    I’m intrigued by Android, though I think it’s a mistake how a lot of commenters (not Fred) are hyping this up as iPhone vs. GPhone.While the iPhone is a pure consumer device (with the potential to appeal to business users), the “GPhone” is obviously much more a traditional smarphone. A device made by HTC on T-Mobile without a sexy marketing push isn’t going to rival anything from Apple for a long time. On the other side, it’s going to be a tough slog breaking into the business market, given companies’ reticence to bring anything new and unproven into the network. That leaves a narrow slice of mobile enthusiasts and guys like Fred as the natural buyers. And only a mall group of this group will end up buying the early models.Point is: It’s not going to be an overnight sensation or instantly revolutionary. It’s going to be a long time, if ever, before this really makes waves in mobile.

  10. kenberger

    I’m relieved to hear that comments don’t have to really backup their thinking, as posts do, since I have too many long-winded thoughts on this one to air right here. (although I did blog a bit about Fred’s fPhone concept previously: http://bit.ly/CkRjI)But it cracks me up too that it’s called the dream phone, because it may remain just that.

  11. James Adams

    I think Jeffrey’s analogy with Java is closest.It might be great in providing a more standardised development platform for mobile apps, although “write once anywhere” will be never be fully true across multiple handsets and I’m not convinced Google will make money from this long term based on what I know about their current strategy.The other issue with a more open platform of course is security/viruses, a semi-centralized authority (Apple) definitely has benefits in this regard.

  12. markslater

    whats with the disturbia breathing? i was waiting for him to start android stalking

  13. richrosen

    The Android SDK is more open than the iPhone SDK. The result will be “more of what we want on a phone” and more innovative applications.