Google’s Nexus One Is Not An iPhone

Interestingly, Malone alludes to the Google Voice scenario so many of us have noted — that Google could take the Gizmo5 assets, patch them to the Google Voice app and make it available on the Nexus One — but says the Nexus One won’t be that device.

Perhaps that will be Google’s Gold nugget 5 Jan. We know, or think we know everything else already about the smartphone.

How cool would it be if Google surprised everyone by bridging Google Voice to the Nexus One, creating a device to circumvent the telcos and disrupt the industry? That would be huge, bigger than free turn-by-turn GPS for Android devices.

He goes on to write that the Apple Tablet will help Apple slingshot past the consumer electronics industry again, putting further distance between Apple and Google and everyone else:

Once again, Apple will have a new product that challenges convention, seemingly obsoletes an entire multibillion-dollar industry (in this case, handheld computers) while overwhelming a second, newer industry (netbooks, such as the Kindle) and yet is still stunning to look at. In other words, the Google phone will be a loser, even if it is a winner, because it will probably diminish Google’s reputation as a tech juggernaut.

You can’t be a Google fan and not be a little depressed, or even angry at this flippant reference to Google as being a loser here. If we are to take Malone’s dire characterisation to heart, we could also very well agree that Google might as well jettison Android.

I disagree. I don’t see how the Nexus One could be a “loser,” or how it could ding Google’s reputation. Android has its fragmentation issues on top of the uphill battle versus the iPhone, but that hasn’t weakened Google’s position in tech.

Nexus’ Real Strength: Mobile Ads

Here’s how Malone’s theory doesn’t work. Think of iPhone and the App Store as a consumer electronics play, while Android is a mobile search and advertising play.

Sure, Google would be screwed if Android wasn’t just another effort to pad Google’s already massive search ad marketshare, albeit on the mobile Web. But that’s what it is and, hell, mobile searches on Google.com were up 30 percent year-over-year in 2009.

For as much as some of us want to see Android fly high versus iPhone and all proprietary platforms, Google doesn’t need to beat Apple. It just needs to be a viable alternative to temper the iPhone hegemony.

This isn’t much different than why we need Microsoft’s Bing or Yahoo, or even Microhoo to keep pushing Google to innovate.

Malone’s piece will read like classic FUD to Googlers and Google Fanboys; to others, such as statisticians who can point to the overwhelming numbers of iPhone’s market penetration versus Android, it will be harsh reality.

To me, it’s as entertaining as a teen slasher movie. Fun, but a little far-fetched in its zero-sum prognostication that Apple wins and Google loses. That’s okay though. I’ll still read anything Malone writes any day of the week.