Daniel Langendorf at last100 has written an outstanding post, explaining how (if done right) the Gphone and not the iPhone will be the one to change the face of the wireless industry.
The post has accompanying graphics - Gphone concepts contributed by Lorin Wood, a previsualization designer who specializes in concepts and ideation for Hollywood. Wood’s concepts for last100 explored how Google applications, and its advertising, might look like on the Gphone.
Here's a taste of what Dan wrote, but I recommend you click through to read the whole thing:
The iPhone sports a 2 megapixel camera. Google should at least match this, or maybe go one better if it’s feasible cost-wise. One way Google could differentiate its camera from others is not through megapixels but through image stabilization, which is now found on many point-and-shoot cameras and high-end lenses for digital cameras. Camera shake is prevalent in cell phone cameras — especially, it seems, on the iPhone — and including IS would do wonders to minimize shaky, soft, and slightly blurry images.
Video cameras on cell phones are nice to have, and are becoming more relevant in the era of YouTube. But cell phone video cameras suck. The ‚Äúfilm‚Ä? is grainy and its hard to do anything with the content other than watch it on the phone. A cell phone that could shoot 640 x 480 video, in an acceptable standard (like H.264), and allow people to do something with the content (email, download to a computer, upload to YouTube) would usher in a new wave of mobile content development.
Finally, the Google phone must include GPS, which is another complaint of the iPhone. [...]
Read full post on last100. Also check out last100 editor Steve O'Hear's post on the announcement of Nokia's online music store, Ovi, which takes aim at Apple and mobile carriers.
Comments
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"Camera shake is prevalent in cell phone cameras — especially, it seems, on the iPhone"
The latest iPhone update seemed to correct the hand-shake problems for the most part.
Posted by: Scott Johnson | August 29, 2007 7:23 PM
All jolly nice ideas, but about 24 months away from being commercially viable - i.e. hacks show the iPhone can do video but I wager it sucks battery. H264 encoding - definitely sucks battery. Higher resolution camera = larger images = more CPU in JPEG encoding = sucks battery. Not to mention adding to production costs.
Google are very clever at software. They could even be clever at hardware. But they're not going to produce a completely new type of market-beating battery.
In the meantime, it's not as if the iPhone won't be updated to add a higher resolution camera, GPS, etc, as they become cheaper / more energy efficient.
(And like third-party apps, lack of GPS really isn't holding the iPhone back. I'll welcome it when it arrives, but I'd prefer it in my camera first - auto geo-tagging of pictures seems the most use I'd put it to).
Posted by: JulesLt | August 30, 2007 3:49 AM
I'm not entirely sure Google will launch this separately. What if Google and Apple came together on this one? Who is better placed in the tech world to place a brilliant mobile device in the hands of the most buyers? Imagine, Google on an Apple...?
http://zachbeauvais.com/node/34
Regards
Posted by: Zach | August 30, 2007 5:26 AM
http://www.fonearena.com/blog/2007/08/31/is-gphone-is-openmoko.html
the gphone will run openmoko i suppose
Posted by: varun | August 30, 2007 12:20 PM
I'm thinking hard about that one KILLER feature which Gphone might possess. What's that one feature which will make all of us line up and want one??
Check my views on this at http://techtrod.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/the-gphone-whats-the-killer-feature
Posted by: Amit Bhowmik | September 4, 2007 11:53 PM