The Nexus One is a hit: Disagree? Then you’re a mentalist
Ever since the first Android powered phone hit the market I have been overwhelmed by the amount of positive response it has received. From the number of manufacturers adopting and adapting this new and completely developer friendly OS, all the way to iPhone users switching because they enjoy the customisation and implementation of awesome UI perks. So it definitely is amazing to see that, in the short space of a year, there has been a release of a mobile phone which rivals the ‘hypery’ of the original iPhone > and a phone which, until now?, has been a real direct alternative to the iPhone.
Of course, the question mark within the above paragraph is there because of Apple revealing a private event on the 27th of Jan, which could be the dwelling of a new updated version of the iPhone OS. Although, this is not official yet – but if it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple updated the UI to offer multi tasking. Another reason I write ‘until now’ is because Android is still playing catch up – come on, you have to agree on that, and Apple is still the one leading. And so it could really rattle the Android OS to see their latest 2.1 update look far out dated to the new iPhone OS update.
Of course, my assumptions are pre-tense, they are a prediction – man, if I had a time machine. . well, I would be bringing a PS4 home and an iPhone 4G, possibly a Nexus Two aswell < and from that I would become the most famous blogger in the world (mwahaha).
But unfortunately I have no time machine, only common sense – and a web site, and so I have my imagination only. But by no means is having an imagination a bad thing, I mean, it has always stood humanity in good stead when looking forward to the future. Google was created out of imagination, as was the Mac design, the contour of Ferraris – in fact, i’ll bet you can not think of anything that wasn’t made, thought up of or said without imagination. And ‘yes’ and ‘no’ do not count.
And so begins the main topic; The Nexus One, right, you may have read my post covering the Nexus One sales for its first week; if you did not, then here is the graph which I included:
I have seen this graph a few times, no – lets be honest, I have seen this graph hundreds of times > this thing has been blogged to death. Bored I am of the true dribble some people come out with. Anybody that says ‘thats because the Nexus one is shit’ is either an idiot, or a mentalist. I’d guess both. And have a heard a lot of people say it. That means that, through all the Tech Blogs I have read which include any sort of’ ‘The Nexus is shit’ > around 8 out of 20 for every 20, they are written by idiotic mentalists. Either that, or they miss the point of the Nexus completely.
The Nexus is a hit. Full stop. End of story. Period. Disagree? Then justify it. Skeptical? Then crawl into a hole. Obviously figures speak for themselves – I mean look at that! 20,000 sold? Pah, compared to the Droid that is pathetic > and compared to the iPhone 3GS a joke. If I was an accountant this would be proof that this product is a miss, in fact, this post would probably be on a Powerpoint explaining just why it is a miss.
But I am not an accountant, and that is why I can write with imagination. To get to the base of the answer as to why the Nexus has been a hit you need not look at figures – you look at marketing. Yeah, I saw pretty little too. So you’d guess that because there was such little marketing that the actual marketing that was implemented was ridiculously expensive as to make it as effective as possibly. You’d be wrong.
The main form of advertisement, hype and all round appeal for this phone was not through a television set, a junk e-mail or a big shiny banner on top of Engadget – it was, in fact, you. Yep – you. Anybody will two hands, a Twitter account and access to an Android forum went schizophrenic on the subject. Endlessly typing about this new product, furiously bigging it up – and countlessly dissing the Apple fan boys because, at last, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, there was a mobile phone which had the processor to match the OS.
And so with pretty much zilch spent on marketing – well, especially compared to Apple, you’d think that reading the above paragraph that the campaign was a huuuuge success – a momentous occasion for the Nexus and a huge fist in the ear for Apple. Well – you’d be right. And welcome to the club =).
The point of the Nexus was not to be an iPhone killer – it was never meant to switch people, to convert them – it was also almost certainly never meant to turn people in to mentalists, what it was supposed to do was to test out a form of advertisement which to date nobody has tried. Sure, the Nexus has its down sides – as does an iPhone 3GS < and having tried both, I can not decide which is best. But staying on topic, Google only wanted to see if this was an effective advertisement on its own – without the use of a big shiny banner.
The Nexus is a side effect to what Google is actually doing, in my opinion Android is the big thing here – not the Nexus. Lets put it this way – the iPhone 3GS sold 1.6 Million units in week one. Thats good, but it is nothing compared to what Android powered phones all together have sold. Take the Droid, add the Nexus Sales, the Cliq sales, the HTC Hero sales, the HTC Tattoo sales, the G1 sales, the Backflip sales and pre-determine the sales of the 3-5 upcoming Android powered phones to come in 2010 and the iPhone 3GS figures seem a little, well, low.
The individual mobile phone sales figures are the brands problem, Google can just sit back and endlessly enjoy those brands promoting their OS freely – a little bit like you did with your twitter account. And so without a doubt, without any hesitation, I can call ‘project Nexus’ a success for Android – and a learning curve for Google. Like they say ‘safety in numbers’. And on the advertising method side of things – sure it sold 20,000 units which is low > but as a wise man once said; “I didn’t fail; I found 2000 ways not to make a light bulb. I only need one to make it work” < Thomas Edison.
And so the Nexus One is a hit, both for Google in terms of a learning curve and for Android in terms of publicity and developer interest. The Nexus One is a hit: Disagree? Then you’re a mentalist.
Category: Android, Author Opinions
Great great blog. I hadn’t really thought of it this way… even though i must admit i hadn’t thought about it much at all. But what you say makes scene.