Google Android Round-Up: Free Email Access; Amazon Music Service; 10 Percent Marketshare
At 10:30 a.m. tomorrow in New York (7:30 a.m. PST), T-Mobile USA and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) will hold a joint press conference to raise the curtain on their first Google Android device. Our own Joseph Weisenthal will be there in person to ask questions, take pictures and provide you with live coverage. I’ll also be watching from a Webcast to provide a summary of the news as it happens. In the meantime, I figured I would whet your appetite with some of the recent chatter on Android to get you prepared for the launch. Of course, the big thing everyone wants to know won’t be answered tomorrow, but we’ll be one step closer. That is: Will Android have as big of an impact on the mobile industry as the launch of Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone? Judging by these leaks developing so far, it’s possible….
—Free email access without a data plan: T-Mobile is considering including free e-mail access using Google’s Gmail service with Android phones, meaning users won’t have to have a data plan, Fortune reports. That compares to the $15 a month that Blackberry users currently pay. Of course, the service would be supported with advertising.
—Amazon music service: The Anrdoid phone will have an Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) music and video store application running on it, reports VentureBeat, which reportedly saw a live device this weekend at a bar. This of course will be similar to Apple’s iTunes service, but unlike with the case of iTunes, the Amazon store will allow you to buy and rent movies and video on the phone.
—Google will garner 10 percent marketshare: First, reports pegged Android’s future marketshare at 4 percent. Now, Gartner is projecting that it will account for 10 percent of the smartphone market in 2011, reports Vnunet.com. “Android has the potential to become the de facto operating system (OS) for Linux and we expect sales to reach around 10 percent of the smartphone market in 2011,” said Roberta Cozza, Gartner principal research analyst in a research note.
—Google’s idea of mobile: Google’s own Andy Rubin, Android’s co-founder and former Danger CEO, outlined his idea of where mobile is going in a blog post last week. Some of his thoughts include “smart alerts,” which pushes useful information to you, such as traffic conditions when you are headed out for dinner; the idea of “augmented reality,” which senses things around you, and provides information, like an item for sale inside a store window; “crowd sourcing goes mainstream,” which is when content, such as pictures, emails, texts, Twitters, and blog entries, are stored and can be retrieved when you want information about a city, restaurants, etc.; and the ability to future-proof devices, which means, your phone gets better over time, not obsolete. This is accomplished through open source as developers make updates and improve software.
—Android as a remote control: This came out last week, but partner developer PacketVideo says eventually Android phones will be able to act as remote controls, as PacketVideo plans to adapt its “PVConnect” software to let users send content such as video, photos, and even TV shows between their computers, TV’s and game consoles, similar to AT&T’s recent announcement that it would link the iPhone to its high speed internet and video U-verse service.
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