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Verizon Wireless Is Working on Tablet With Google  (View post)

Jérôme [PersonRank 10]

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
14 years ago11,510 views

<<Verizon Wireless is working with Google Inc. on a tablet computer, Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Lowell McAdam said Tuesday, as the company works to catch up with iPad host AT&T Inc. in the area of devices that connect to wireless networks.

Tablets are part of the "next big wave of opportunities," Mr. McAdam said in an interview. He said the work on a tablet is part of a deepening relationship between the largest U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers and Google, which has carved out a space in mobile devices with its Android operating system.

"We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience," he said.

Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, declined to add details on timing of a joint Google-Verizon tablet, or which manufacturer might make it.>>

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704250104575238680540806288.html

mbegin [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

<< The tablet will run on Google’s Android operating system, Marquett Smith, a spokesman for Verizon, said today in a phone interview. He declined to elaborate and said the carrier will release more details later this week. >>

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aYIqy_o1Vsdk

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> "We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that
> we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience," he said.

Throwing together lots of features doesn't make a great experience. And these guys wonder why their products don't make a dent in Apple's market share.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Did the WSJ page change in the meantime? I am now seeing e.g.:

<<"What do we think the next big wave of opportunities are?" Mr. McAdam said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We're working on tablets together, for example. We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience.">>

... a slightly different text than the one quoted above.

Above 4 comments were made in the forum before this was blogged,

Jérôme [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

<<And these guys wonder why their products don't make a dent in Apple's market share.>>

Their *products*? I only see dump pipes and some failed attempts to build something on it.

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

How is this announceware not vaporware rhetorical question.

GeekLad [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

It's very odd that they would put Android rather than Chrome OS. I would hope that at least Google would begin to integrate some of the ultra-fast booting features of Chrome OS into Android before putting it onto a tablet.

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

As long as we're going to discuss what's essentially vaporware – since the other partner in this make-believe-endeavor is a cell network provider, they must've requested an OS that's easier to control, to be made into more of a walled garden than by-definition general purpose Chrome OS [analogous to the duopoly of Mac OSC and iPhone OS on Apple's devices]. Even if Android Marketplace is far less restrictive than the Apple Appstore, there are ready mechanisms in place there to make it more so, to conform more to what Verizon imagines will be its future cash-cow. Would Chrome OS be as compliant for their (assumed, but not unrealistic) control intentions?

Obs [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

Where "not a dent" means outselling the iPhone in Q1, which was also a quarter where Nokia sold nearly as many smartphones as Apple sold in all of 2009. When will blind Apple zealots like Browne [personal attack snipped. -Philipp] and come back to the planet the rest of us live on?

Kenneth Lawson [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

Face it, Every system will be/is a a" Walled Garden" The only difference is with Verizion/Google how far the walls will reach and how hight they will be and how hard they are to get over. And How Pleasant it is to be in them.

Yes Apple again has set a pretty high stranded that every phone and now tablet is going to be measured by. However,I see no reason why the two, IPad, Goggle/Verizon Tablet can't live together, For the most part they will be aimed at 2 different markets, and will share many of the same functionality if not features. I can't wait to see it..

Ken Lawson

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

[put at-character here]Obs:
> ...blind Apple zealots like Browne...

I take that as a compliment, since my chosen phone is a Linux Nokia N900. It means I'm not letting my personal preferences influence my posts here :)

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Ken, let's not talk about the two brands coexisting on level ground (walled-off or not). For one, the other –and I am not talking solely Android-Verizon, but virtually the rest– is still vaporware, or at best in various stages of development. Most of these make-believe products will never happen, or if they do, never make a dent outside their established native, (local replacement cycle) markets [vide the JooJoo]. The sad truth is that Apple's mobile competitors can not get its act together – at best believe that all that is required to stand up to it is to copy key hardware characteristics and some UI behaviors of the iPhone OS (form-factor screen and fast finger scroll, say).

This seems to be case with this vapor item as well... if [cynically put] the iPad's main function is to act as a terminal to Apple's cash-cows of AppStore, iBookstore, etc; then the yet-unnamed VeriDroid tablet seems but a vessel for its cell carrier's intangible packet spectrum. Which the end-users will prefer over the iPad because it runs "open source". Good luck with that; but, given iDevices' head start, is it not also a case of too-little-too-late?

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

More on why this "VeriDroid" may be "a day late and a dollar short" (if not another Microsoft Courier-vapor):
http://google.com/search?q=%22a+day+late+and+a+dollar+short%22

... and why Apple's competitors not learnt the lesson of the iPhone (3 years and counting...): "iPad killers take a time-out"
http://kensegall.com/blog/2010/05/ipad-killers-take-a-time-out/

Kenneth Lawson [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

Every other platform will have to complete with Apple, be it phone or tablet, Until it actually ships and consumers get to play with it and use it; its anyone's guess.
   Whatever anyone puts out will have a uphill battle competing with Apple. Thats the long and short of it.. They may very well be too little to late, and very much several years late and even more dollars short..
Time will tell.....

Ken Lawson

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Platitudes noted & disposed of.

Suresh S [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

i think this news is to increase share price.

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