The G1 and iPhone in a long-term duel

If cellphones could brawl, Apple's iPhone would probably quickly pummel T-Mobile's G1, the first cellphone to use Google's Android operating systems for mobile phones.

Unveiled Tuesday, the G1 aims for the consumer market just like the iPhone, which first went on sale in June 2007. The G1 goes on sale Oct. 22 for $180, $20 less than the least expensive iPhone. Both have a touch screen and allow Internet surfing. And both have a special store for phone games and productivity programs.  The G1 will cost you about $380 less over a two-year period for its voice and data plan, says Wired. And the G1, made by HTC, comes with a slide-out keyboard, making it easy to type.

Despite these features and the G1's still-fuzzy appeal as an "open" platform, it has some notable flaws, such as no video playback besides YouTube, as Gizmodo points out. Sure, you can buy music via Amazon.com, but you can't use normal headphones to listen to it -- you need a special adapter, says ElectricPig. The G1 is the Zune of the iPhones, says All Things Digital, referring to Microsoft's music player that has not dented the iPod's dominance.

But it's rarely safe to write off Google. Sure, the iPhone would win a smackdown today because it has momentum. Apple has sold 2.4 million iPhones in the first half of 2008 to leap to the position of No. 2 smartphone in the U.S. among consumers, after the Blackberry, according to the NPD Group. And that's before its latest version, the iPhone 3G, went on sale in early July. And the buzz continues. Apple's App store, also launched in July, has already sold or given away 100 million software programs. (The store offers more than 3,000 games and other applications for the iPhone, most of them made by outside companies and independent developers.)

Give the G1 and the other Android-based phones some time, says Gerry Purdy, chief mobile and wireless analyst for Frost & Sullivan, the international market research firm.

"It's like the story of the tortoise and the hare," he said. "We have the hare running like crazy in Apple. And a little bit of the tortoise in Google. They are careful but intentional. If they hit some home runs with device manufacturers or applications, that will help. But in five years, Android will be an important platform in mobile."

As they battle for the mobile market, Apple and Google could share notes -- their corporate headquarters are no more than a few miles from each other in Silicon Valley. But that would take the fun out of it. "You can’t ask for a better dueling going on, and I love it," Purdy says.

-- Michelle Quinn

Photo: The T-Mobile G1 cellphone. Credit: Getty Images

Comments

[Munnett]

Iphones lack such simple things as sound and open share with blue-tooth connectivity - why?

[Charles]

Everyone that tries to work with Google, as Apple did, ends up getting stabbed in the back by Google monopolistic practices. If anyone thinks that Google is going to give this license free operating system out of the generosity of their hearts, then wake up. Users of these cellphones will be targeted with ads, their navigating patterns will be logged, Android is a trojan horse, an adware operating system right in your cellphone. Apple, learn your lesson, you helped Google and this is what they did now. Nothing is 'free'.

[George]

I have an HTC phone and it is terrible. I don't think the G1 is going to be much competition for the iPhone. Most of what the iPhone offers has to do with the user interface and that G1 is not there yet.

[Bill Miller]

Huh? Who would buy a phone that shows conflicting times on the same screen? The clock says it is 9:11, but the taskbar phone says it's 2:47PM!

Who is wrong, who is right? T-Mobile, Google, LA Times?

I'll keep my Blackberry!
BM

[Pota]

Perhaps where the G1 will excell is its ability to actually have the majority of its phones work following the Oct 22 rollout! The dirty little secret that iPhone users struggle to hide is the constant stream of software glitches, replacement phones and incessant firmware updates that seem to bring more bugs than they fix!

Somehow there's not a lot of press about the latest firmware update that causes random screengrabs to appear in one's photo albums, lists old voicemails as new, doubles the number of crashes per day and reboots for no apparent reason! Just google iphone bug list and glance at the more than 1.2 million website hits that attempt to track the ever-increasing list of problems since rollout. I'm sorry, but no number of ad campaigns that say a product will make you "appear cool" can make-up for a dog has fleas.

[Geoff Swenson]

It has a keyboard, so it already has a huge leg up on the iPhone. The touch interface on the iPhone is nice, but it will always be lousy for text, which is why God invented keyboards.

[Michael Philip]

Looks and appears to be mighty similar to a side-kick with the iPhone touch screen. Definitely something to keep our eyes on but with limited storage and "Open Source (Read *open SORES* when it comes to glitches) will never get it's act together in time. Apple has the advantage of dependable OS, aesthetics and and ease of use...

[rico]

Don't forget that the greatest strength of all things Apple is also their greatest weakness:

Fashion.

[sir jorge]

It should be interesting to see if it takes off, considering that the holiday shopping season is just around the corner.

[John]

I have an HTC phone - The worst phone that I've ever had! It does PDA stuff okayish, but drops calls all the time. It is simply to unreliable to use as a business mobile phone. Hopefully other suppliers will come on board quickly - I will never buy another HTC, EVER!

[John B. Kendrick]

I have had an original iPhone since the day it was released in the US and traded up to the 3G on its release day, and I think Apple has made good progress, not withstandiing copy and paste. Steve Jobs understands that stability and reliability are more important than features, though the iPhone has always had plenty of the latter. That’s why, I as a customer appreciate Apple’s control over the phone. If Android or its controlling telcom allows a free for all by developers it will be a disaster.

I wrote about this very issue in my blog at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/was-steve-jobs-right-with-iphone-10/