Google will stop selling Nexus One phones in U.S.

Google's Nexus One phone, touted as a "super" phone by Google and a key iPhone competitor when it launched in January, is now history in the United States. The search giant said it will no longer sell the phone via its website once existing stock is depleted.

"Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google," the company said on its blog. "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."

The Nexus One got high marks from reviewers, and is considered a signature Android phone, using the operating system that Google helped create. But it has struggled to find a market. The advent of other high-profile Android phones — including those built by HTC, which makes the Nexus One — have marked stiff competition, and lessened the need for Google to sell a gold-standard phone of its own. Notable models include Motorola's Droid, Droid X and HTC Droid Incredible running on Verizon Wireless, Samsung's Galaxy S, which will appear on a variety of carriers, and the HTC Evo, which runs on Sprint's high-speed 4G wireless network.

Sales of the phone were also hurt by Google's novel and early efforts to sell the phone only via its website, with spartan customer support in the first weeks after the $529 phone became available.

"With only a small percentage of handset sales going through the Web, it was difficult for the Nexus One to gain much momentum," said Ross Rubin, NPD Group analyst. "Google may have backed into such limited distribution to avoid competing too directly with its (Android) handset partners."

Customers could order the phone to be used on T-Mobile's network, and pay $179 for it with a two-year contract. The Nexus One also runs on AT&T's network, but the carrier does not subsidize the cost of the phone, as it does with most others. Sprint, which had indicated it would run the Nexus One, later changed its mind, with the company saying it would instead concentrate on the new HTC Evo. (Verizon Wireless also quietly backed away from supporting the Nexus One.)

Then, in May, Google said it would stop selling the Nexus One on its website "once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores." That did not happen.

Story continues below More below
Advertisement | ad info
Sponsored links
Marketplace
.While Google has not released sales figures for the Nexus One, "it's likely in the hundreds of thousands, not millions," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and technology analysis at Interpret, LLC.

"It was an experiment in retailing that might not have succeeded, but it also redefined the standard for Android devices and that was successful," he said. "Google managed to drive hardware partners to better designs, specs and features in order to stay competitive."

The Nexus One, with its 3.7-inch touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera, "remains one of the best Android devices on the market," Gartenberg said.

The phone is the second high-profile one in a month to be abandoned by its creator. Microsoft's Kin, a social networking phone carried by Verizon Wireless, was discontinued in June after only six weeks on the market. (Msnbc.com is an NBC Universal-Microsoft joint venture.) Some attributed the failure not to the phone's sticker price but to the fact that Verizon decided to charge customers for a full smart-phone data plan, in spite of the phone's limited functionality.

Google's Nexus One announcement came Friday, the same day Apple CEO Steve Jobs held a press conference about the iPhone 4 and its antenna issue, saying iPhone 4 owners will get free bumpers to deal with the reception problem caused by how the phone is held.

"Earlier this year, we announced that we will be closing the Nexus One web store," Google said on its blog. "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 ....

"To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS (operating system), Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers."

© 2010 msnbc.com Reprints

original article.

Android Gets a Build-Your-Own-App App

I think the Android phones are doing great with marketing and appealing to all their customers, and i wish APPLE would open their contract to all mobile carriers so i can get an Iphone! haha but until then maybe an ANDROID phone wont be that bad. short sweet and simple article.

Got an idea for a smartphone app? If you've got an Android phone you might be able to build it yourself, thanks to App Inventor for Android, a new Google Labs program for Windows, OS X, and Linux that's designed to make building Android programs as easy as piecing blocks together.

Steve Lohr's story in the New York Times makes it sound sensational; here's a video from Google showing a lady creating her first App Inventor app:

App Inventor is in closed beta at the moment, and Google says it'll let folks in "soon" -- you can sign up here. As you'll see if you fill out the sign-up form, Google sees the program as an educational tool of particular interest to teachers and students.

It's an exciting idea that's more than slightly reminiscent of HyperCard, the brilliant visual programming tool that was a big deal on the Mac more than twenty years ago, and which is missed to this day. HyperCard or something similar would be a boon on the iPhone -- even Steve Jobs has says he thinks so, although Apple apparently doesn't have any interest in building such an application itself, and new restrictions in the iOS developer agreement prevent apps developed with the HyperCard-like RunRev from being distributed on the App Store.

(More and more, I think that the surface similarities between Android and iOS are less interesting than the fundamental differences in emphasis and philosophy -- and the more different the two OSes get, the more interesting they'll be.)

I still have a cranky-old-man rant about PCs getting boring when they stopped coming with BASIC and normal people therefore stopped learning how to write their own software. I can't wait to get my hands on App Inventor -- and to see whether it's capable of creating programs that anyone other than their inventors will want to use . .

original article.

Apple App Store Suffers Hack Attack

Apple said Tuesday that it removed a seller from its online applications store after discovering that he gamed the store's sales ranking system to make it appear as though his e-books accounted for 42 of the site's top 50 electronics books.
Apple said the hack was carried about by a developer named Thuat Nguyen.

"His apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns," Apple said in a statement.
The company did not provide details about how Nguyen managed to rig its sales data. Some observers are speculating that he merely manipulated sales figures, while others believe Nguyen may have actually gained access to App Store user accounts to make unauthorized purchases.


SMBs are getting the analytical capabilities to drive faster decisions based on better data

BI For the Small-Medium Business

Nguyen listed his Web site as "mycompany", an Internet address that reportedly leads to a domain name parking page.

Apple insisted App Store or iTunes users' information is not at risk as a result of the incident. "Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded," the company said.

Still, Apple cautioned its customers to be vigilant for suspicious transactions.

"If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about cancelling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions," Apple said.

"We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately," Apple added. Investors shrugged off news about the breach. Apple shares were up .69%, to $248.65, in midday trading Tuesday.

original article.