Google's Nexus One to shortly become Nexus nOne

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 20:59

Your IT - Mobility

Google's superphone and iPhone alternative, the Nexus One, has succumbed to the kryptonite of market pressures where competing against your smartphone manufacturing partners for retail sales didn't prove as successful as Google hoped.

With the last shipment of Google's Nexus One 'superphone' arriving from Taiwanese manufacturing partner HTC, the Nexus One will go Nexus nOne in the US and will presumably never get to the more famous Nexus 6 upon which the Nexus name was reportedly based.

Google has decided to stop selling Nexus One in the US from Google's online store and says that once the current shipment runs out won't sell any more to the public, despite some sales still continuing in Australia, the UK, Europe, South Korea and possibly some other local markets.

So it's a case of no more sales in the US as some sales do continue elsewhere, at least for the time being, with no sign of a Google Nexus Two being due anytime soon.

Google says it created the phone to spur the smartphone market, but it also put Google in direct competition with Android OS manufacturing partners.

It also gave Google the most advanced Android phone at the time, and put Google in a position to update its own phones to the newest Android OS versions before competitors, making purchasing decisions even more difficult for consumers with so many different versions, compared to the iPhone's single most-advanced model at any one time.

Google's Nexus One blog explains the upcoming cessation of retail sales in more detail, following the earlier announcement that the Nexus One store would close.

The blog posting notes that: 'This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others based on local market conditions.'

Although retail customers soon won't be able to get new Nexus Ones, developers in the US will still have access, with Google noting that: 'To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS, Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers. Visit the Android Market Publisher site http://market.android.com/publish and log into your developer account to purchase a Nexus One.'

So, the Nexus One is nearly the Nexus gOne, but despite continuing competition from Apple's iOS, Nokia's Symbian, Samsung's Bada and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platforms, Google's Android OS is certainly powering ahead - and powering well past the Nexus One superphone experiment.