Google reportedly is planning to unveil its own smartphone in a move that would strengthen its dominance of mobile software and allow it compete directly with Apple’s iPhone.
The new device, which will be released by the end of the year according to the UK Telegraph, will see Google take more control over design, manufacturing and software.
Google now licenses the Google Nexus line of phones with companies like LG and Huawei, but The Telegraph says Google wants to develop the smartphone hardware itself in future.
Google already manages the software through Android, which it lets other manufacturers use on their devices. The Telegraph suggests that Google wants to go further.
“But unlike Apple, it leaves manufacturing to other companies such as Samsung, with the company concentrating on developing the free software that runs on its phones,” the Telegraph reported.
“Although Android runs on the majority of smartphones sold globally, Apple still dominates the lucrative high-end of the market. The proliferation of Android device makers, many of which apply the software differently, means Google has struggled to ensure consistency, with some smartphone owners waiting months for updates, and some manufacturers relegating Google’s own internet services which are included in Android,” the Telegraph reported.
Its own phone would allow Google to control the software, securing the future of services such as the Google search engine and Google Play app store that run on it, the Telegraph explained.
“They are concerned that Android is fragmenting, that it needs to become a more controlled platform,” Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight, told the U.K. newspaper “I think they’ll seek to control it more, more like Apple.”
Google is best known for its internet software but has taken steps into hardware in recent years by releasing its own tablet computer, laptops and other gadgets. Earlier this year it hired Rick Osterloh, the former president of Motorola, to lead a new hardware division in a sign of its growing ambitions.
Google declined to comment when contacted by The Telegraph.
Reaction by tech geeks to the report was mixed.
For one, ARS Technica's Ron Amadeo was far from impressed.
"This is a company that happily floods the market (and confuses consumers) with tons of similar products that compete with each other," he
wrote. "Consider Google's communication "strategy," which has given us Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google Talk, Google Voice, Google+ Messenger, two Android SMS apps, Google Hangouts, YouTube Messages, Google Spaces, and soon Google Allo and Google Duo. It would definitely be in character for Google to release a hardware project that overlaps and competes with Nexus," he wrote.
"The only reason Google might want to build its own phone would be to fully take over the one thing it doesn't have total control over today: hardware design," he explained. "Google has some input on the hardware of a Nexus device today, but it seems to come late in the design process. Every Nexus device is built in cooperation with an Android OEM, but the Nexus handsets don't stray far from existing models."
The International Business Times' David Gilbert says the logic behind a Google-built smartphone seems solid: The search giant has built the world's biggest mobile operating system and has virtually infinite resources, deep contacts in the supply chain and engineers who could certainly build a great smartphone.
"And yet, just because Google can doesn't mean it should. The challenges Google is facing in the smartphone market won't be solved by launching yet another smartphone, not even one designed and built from the ground up at the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters," he
wrote.
"The problems for Android go much deeper than simply needing a better smartphone. Google needs to completely rethink the way Android is distributed," he proclaimed.
The Washington Post's Hayley Tsukayama was blunt and practical. She said if Google is going to this, the tech giant should at the very least make smartphones interesting again
"Honestly, I'm hoping that this means that smartphones are going to get a little weird again. Because they've gotten a little boring of late — and I'm not the only one thinking this, surveys and sales numbers support me,"
Tsukayama wrote.
"The smartphone in its current form is pretty optimized for the way we use it, but that also means it's a bit predictable. Selfishly speaking, I miss the not-so-old days when companies threw spaghetti at the wall — A dedicated Facebook button! A stylus! PlayStation controls! A 3D camera! — to see what would stick."
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