Nexus-1 – Google’s Entry into Mobile Phone Market and Inevitable Challenges

Google, the internet giant, took a dip in the fluid translucent world of smartphones with the introduction of long-awaited own gadget, Nexus-1 at the beginning of the New Year. Up until its release, the whole exercise had been a jealously-guarded secret – at least from Google’s point of view - apart from the regular leaks about its appearance, capabilities and the potential to scare off its rivals.

Despite the fanfare that was associated with the release, Nexus-1 is still a minnow in the famously-cut-throat market of smartphones, especially in the menacing presence of the likes of Apple iPhone, Nokia N97 and Blackberry.

Apple revolutionized the mobile phones with the introduction of iPhone, a truly innovative, unique product at that time. The early users used to select numerous screens with their index fingers - a particular manoeuvre that can only be described as a cross between the act of leafing through a book and that of practising a certain tip in Kama Sutra in the middle of a heightened activity in the realm of erotica. Millions of human beings decided to follow suit by emulating the very move – and buying iPhones, of course, needless to say, at Apple prices!

The speed at which the humans reacted to this particular style of movement of the index finger – and embraced it too - resonates with an event that took place in an island of Japan, a few decades back. Some researchers who had been observing the eating habits of monkeys did notice the way the primates ate sweet potatoes scattered across the beach of the island for a particular study – and with certain unease when it came to cleaning the stuff. One researcher, meanwhile, as the story goes, had actually washed a potato and given it to a monkey only to notice the rest in the troop doing the same, which defied logic and reason. A few weeks later, much to their surprise, the researchers had found out that the monkeys in the islands all over Japan were doing the same, i.e. washing sweet potatoes before eating it.

Psychologist Carl Jung accounted for this phenomenon by pointing at the existence of what he called Collective Consciousness. Creatures can spread signals far and wide using this ‘layer’ above our heads. Monkeys had used the part of the realm of the Collective Consciousness that belongs to them to communicate with their own species – in this case, how to wash and eat sweet potatoes.

So, monkey-conduct partially sheds light on Apple success: an obsession of a few can turn something for a ritual for many. We don’t know whether Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple heard about the story; but the fact of the matter is whatever he lays his hands upon, it turns out to be a goldmine. Thanks to his association with microwaves at practical level, he may have used even ionosphere in addition to the Collective Consciousness to spread the inexplicable addiction to his devices.

Therefore, the new role assigned to the index finger, in contrast to its usual role of threatening your inferiors, did the trick as far as the explosive growth of the brand Apple is concerned; iPhone became a magnet to attract millions of customers all over the world while winning the hearts and minds of both pundits and ordinary folks alike for its versatile features: the grown-ups called it brilliant; the kids branded it ‘wicked’; young hotheads used to call it ‘sexy’. In short, the fan base of the brand Apple went from strength to strength with no rivals in sight.

The novelty of the iPhone was the touch-screen facility coupled with relatively large size for a device of that calibre.Its larger-than normal screen size for a mobile device brought in some comfort for readability which inevitably led to the accusation of being a bit bulky by technological analysts. However, Apple addressed the issue by making it thinner in the later versions. Apple’s own operating system - the ‘soul’ - OS, designed especially for iPhones, offers software developers with much-needed platform to produce applications for it; software developers switched over to OS from traditional backgrounds to cash in on the lucrative market, as the sale of iPhones sees no signs of abating.

As always it happens, the launch of Nexus-1, or rather the aftermath of it, was being hyped up by the media by branding it as an iPhone-killer – a reference to the potential competitiveness to the Apple’s pet. The reality is, at least at present, far from it, though.

The ‘soul’ of Nexus-1 is Google’s own operating system known as Andaroid which is used by a few more mobile makers, most notably by Motorola. Motorola’s Droid mobile device came with a set of attractive features in terms of 3-D graphics and voice recognition. So, Google has to tread very carefully while marketing its own device without pushing its ‘buddies’ into a corner. Its sale of unlocked phones – at a significantly high price – may not make the mobile networks happy about the move. The sales are restricted to a very few countries like the US, UK and Singapore and they can only be ordered at www.google.com/phone.

Mobile phone manufacturers are in hyperactive-mode to woo customers in the face of fierce competition from rivals. They are stuffing more and more features into these devices offering the customers what they call ‘value for money’. Unfortunately, it comes at a price – in addition to the fairly heavy price you pay for the gadgets; even technologically savvy customers must get on to a very steep learning curve at first to use them sensibly, let alone master them.

Even then, the mobile network providers will not be generous in offering most of the attractive services free of charge. For instance, in the UK, customers must pay an extra charge for the use of GPS – Global Positioning System – on their mobiles to find their bearings, the very service you get through humble satellite navigators – at no cost. It is the same with music and videos. So, there are limiting factors that inhibit the activities of the users despite the presence of multitude of applications in the mobile phones. The relatively high charge for making video phone calls in Europe is also a case in point; the ultra high resolution in terms of multi million pixels makes little sense in this scenario.

Unless these issues are addressed while taking the fiscal sensitivities of the customers into account, mobile phone customers will experience the ‘feature-fatigue’ in the very near future, exactly the way they lost interest in the power of desktop machines or laptops in the past few years. Since Google don’t own mobile networks or internet providers, the challenges for its marketing arm will be enormous and complex to come to grips with.

Google may have taken into account the vast customer base that it can boast about. Nexus-1 may be the first leap towards the mobile advertising by the internet giant. When a commercial giant grows into an empire it uses everything at its disposal to protect its interests at any cost, even if its rivals accuse it of resorting to predatory practices.

When driven by uncontrolled ambition to excel at everything, Google is running the risk of doing a ‘Microsoft’ – underestimating the growth of the internet to pay a heavy price. In this context, the success of Nexus-1 is yet to be seen. If the period between the introduction of Nexus-1 and that of Nexus-2 is a very long time on the basis, that a year is eternity in the dominion of technology, the experiment with a mobile device has not yielded the desired result for the company.

During this anxious period, the fans of Google can pray to their respective gods by asking them to make the ciliary muscles of the eyes more flexible and tolerant so that we can adjust the windows of soul to read the smart devices with the least strain on the eyes, if it is going to be the future trend, as the big companies want us to believe.

- Asian Tribune -