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No New Nexus In Sight, Says Schmidt: Nexus One Did Its Job

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Many people were confused with the Nexus One’s ultimate purpose. Google wasn’t trying to sell a bajillion million phones to be named the king of smartphone distribution. Instead, they were trying to set a bar that all manufacturers should aim to reach to provide their customers with a very pleasant Android experience.

Up until the Nexus One’s launch, we’d been getting Android devices that – at the time – seemed to be powerful enough for everyone’s taste. All of that changed when Google smacked us in the face with the new device they’d been confirmed to be testing in early December. After then, we quickly saw a new era of Android devices ushered in. Eric Schmidt echoed their vision and its outcome in an interview with Telegraph:

the idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticized us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: ‘Ok, it worked. Congratulations – we’re stopping’. We like that flexibility, we think that flexibility is characteristic of nimbleness at our scale

nexus-one-3

While the Motorola Droid was the first big step in Android’s progression, the Nexus One encouraged manufacturers like Motorola, Samsung, and HTC to step their game up even more and to start offering devices that could keep up with the fast-growing platform. Now – just half a year later – we have more high-end devices to choose from than some would probably like, and it’s only going to get more aggressive from here on out.

Phones with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, dual-core processors, HD video features, and any more bells and whistles you can think of are all on the horizon, and Google couldn’t be happier that they’ll be capable enough to run whatever their imagination can dream up.

[ Telegraph via Neowin]

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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36 Comments

  1. Hope the nexus gets android 3.0

  2. I almost guarantee you it will not only get 3.0, it will be the first in line.

  3. I want a nexus two…. a phone that would have all then best hardware in it and run vanilla androd

  4. I keep trying to get a used N1 on Craigslist for cheap but the ones selling them are real proud of them.
    :-(

  5. Please,

    make another nexus phone!

  6. I think this is Google’s way of saying they’re not planning to sell another phone directly.

  7. Guys, don’t worry. If we make enough calls and e-mails to Google, they will respond. Also let’s give ideas as far as what specs and advertising we would like to see. As for me, I would like it to include hidden and upgradable features and a dual power source like solar/AC/DC.

  8. @Mitchel … I am with you. I love my Nexus One but its main attraction to me other then power of course was the fact that it is vanilla android. A year from now I would love to be carrying another top end hardware android product that is not bogged down with a manufacturer ui on top of it. Hope Google reconsiders and continues to release a top end vanilla device every two years.

  9. I think we all want Google to come out with a new phone hopefully they’ll reconsider this an make a nexus one with a keyboard if not well I’m just gonna buy a nexus one an wait for 3.0 to come out this december

  10. While I could not agree more that running Vanilla Android is great (and one of the main reasons I bought my Nexus One, if the rumors are to be believed, Android 3 will largely do away with custom skins and interfaces so maybe they will all be running Vanilla Android.

    I hope so.

  11. I talked to a Store rep and he has seen the prototype of the “N2” It is Motorola built and he said looked pretty nice. He saw it about 2 months ago or so.

  12. The main attraction to me for the Nexus One was that the carrier was not involved. It broke the bundled/locked/subsidy sales model. People post here as though the AT&T limits on their Android phones are somehow new. Not so. The carriers have always wanted to control what you can and can’t do with your phone. Would a state-of-the-art Android phone sold by AT&T allow tethering, for instance, as easily as the N1?

  13. Lol @going_home your right the vast majority on Craigslist are proud of their N1’s and are still to this day selling them for top dollar. I happen to be lucky because my N1 I bought off some kid for 400 bucks more than a month ago was such a great deal that I couldn’t refuse plus hopping out of the Moto Cliq was added motivation.

  14. i wan’t everything that’s good about the N1 back
    carrier unlocked, vanilla android, it being google’s dev phone meaning it obtains updates earlier than any other phone, and being ahead of the pack in terms of hardware
    plz google, we want a nexus 2!

  15. I think it was Droid that pushed everyone. And it also had vanilla Android.
    N1 was a bad move…there’s no way google can keep up with the hardware competition and they’d end up like Palm if they tried.

  16. Dick W: it didn’t break any model. If it was one phone that could run on any carrier, that would be something. But a choice between AT&T and t-mobile isn’t really much of a choice.

  17. Yeah release one for every carrier that would be awesome not just at&t and tmobile

  18. It kinda sucks that its not being manufactured anymore because I lost mine on Friday and Asurion won’t replace it with another Nexus One since they are not being manufactured any more. I felt like they took a shit and told me to eat it when they told me that sending me an old mytouch 3G was just as good.

  19. I would love to buy a nexus two with a forward facing camera. Like everyone else I love the hell out of my nexus one seven months after its release it is still the number one phone to have at lease it has the latest firmware of any android phone but if I had too choose I’d rather google just keep the platform top notch rather than making phones

  20. I owned and used many Android phones (G1, Mytouch, Droid, N1), and the N1 is far and away my favorite. Because I strongly favored the Google vanilla UI, I’ll avoid getting another phone until Google comes out with the N1 successor. The N1 sales was not that successful due to multiple reasons: not having a Verizon version early on, and Tmobile trying to cripple it by requiring more expensive data plan and termination fee.

    I suspect Google won’t come out with an N1 successor until Verizon, AT&T, Tmobile rolled out LTE (4G). This might allow 1 phone to actually work on a majority of carriers, and hopefully will break the contract lock in model.

  21. I am so lucky i bought my Nexus off a woman who moved to Verizon..she sold it to me off Craigslist for $250..I couldnt beleive it, she said it was a gift and i even told her they run upwards of $400 and she liked my honesty and still sold it to me for $250…wow…this is easily the best phone on the market, people that are so key’d on specs have no clue…vanilla android is always gonna be on any phone i own, im kinda upset about no N2 oh well my N1 with froyo and this winter Gingerbread will run until the wheels fall off i dont care..then hopefully Google will change their mind and N2 will drop and smash everything..!

  22. It was always obvious to me that the Nexus1 phone was built to be the stepping stone for many great phones to follow.

    People couldn’t understand that Google didn’t care how many phones they sold as long as manufacturers start building super phones that makes BROWSING, hense SEARCHING easily accessible to users!

    And it worked! the number of super-phones out there is awesome, providing users with choice to select what suits them.

    Good on ya Google…

    i’m predicting that google will release a chrome and android tablet to set the benchmark. The nexus1 of tablets…

  23. Seriously. I love the android market. The surplus of innovation in phone technology, influenced by the need for the “latest and the greatest” consumer-based attitude, allows for a very competitive phone selection. However, I believe that the Motorola Droid was the forerunner in this Android-market race. The M-Droid came out months before the N1. The specifications or functionality of the phones are not much different. Other than its sleek physical characteristics, the Nexus 1’s only advantage to the Motorola Droid has been the fact that Google sends updates to it first. I still believe the N1 is a great phone. I just strongly disagree with claims that it set the bar for phone technology on the android market.

  24. This makes sense. They brought it out to push the game a bit cause a million 3.2 inch screened sub 600mhz crappy clone phones were being pushed out a minute and giving android a bad name, they pushed manufacturers and now all the big ones are bringing out phones that dwarf the nexus..

    nexus 2 might happen in a year or two when the companies get lazy again.

  25. If Google wants Android 3.0 to compete with iOS 4.0, they’re going to have to release a new phone on the same level with the iPhone 4. High-end specs and a customizable OS can win the tech savvy crowd, but not the average user. They want a good looking phone that just works. And Google better not just leave it up to third party manufacturers and hope that they get it right, ‘cuz they won’t.

  26. yea, still want one…

  27. I want a Nexus Two too :)

  28. I haven’t seen innovation like this since the Pentium days

  29. Nexus 2 with fixed multi-touch = FTW

    if it doesnt come, ill live with my N1 with 3.0 in october/november

  30. My N1 kicks my brothers iphone ass. Couldnt wish for anything else not even a droid or evo because one is underpowered and other is too big for regular usage. Droid X is humongous. Love my N1 and would not sell for anything and that includes iphone 4. Coming from Nokia N900, this was an whole other universe. Plus I can watch any format such as .avi, .divx, etc.

    Simply put, I just love it. Could care less about all the “multitouch issues”. I have never crossed my axis lol so dont care. Love the trackball for notifications and quick skip to another alphabet or two.

  31. That’s too bad because I love the form factor I’d the nexus one
    If I didn’t have to go verizon, I would have gotten the nexus one
    Is anyone else coming out with a small 3.7 inch phone with a trackball?

  32. @ari-free: well, no it didn’t break the carrier control model. But it attempted to. And I have an Android phone on AT&T that does what I wanted it to do not what AT&T wanted it to. One phone model is never going to economically be able to operate on all the different technologies/frequencies to be compatible with all networks. I’ve never wished for that; just to be able to get a device to operate on the network I use without that carrier picking it for me, maiming it, and slathering their name all over it before I get it.

  33. its a shame but google knows what they are doing. I wonder what could have been if google would have made a nexus two with all the new features that the htc evo has. i would have been inline for this phone.

  34. I got my N1 last month, my first ever smartphone, and I am very pleased so far. The 2.2 features are great, and I didn’t have to wait 6 months to get them. Multitouch gets quirky once in a while, and a power down/up solves the problem. You have to hand it to Tmobile and Google. Tmob agreed to give up control that cell providers typically retain, and I have to guess that is why Sprint and Verizon bailed. The possibilities for N1 users to abuse those priviledges (i.e. excessive tethering) are there, but I commit to responsible use. I am disappointed that my experience will be limited to the useful life of the phone since there does not appear to be a replacement.

  35. Come now. I find it a bit pretentious for Google (and posters) to give credit to the Nexus 1 for subsequent improvements to Android phones that companies issued within six months of the introduction of the Nexus 1. For instance, the Evo was in development by HTC for TWO years prior to its introduction. Obviously, Google knew about the introduction of these phones and also knew that these phones would surpass the abilities of the N1. I find it imaginative for Google to say the N1 “successful” in that it prodded other companies to pick up their game. This was happening despite whatever Google did.

  36. Nexus One is a ” I am very contented phone”……. I dont even care about what new and what coming since google make me happy with all its update….. the flash… the wifi tethering (wifi router)..the google cloud sync…. the fastest mobile browser in the universe….Microsoft exchange support.. high end camera and hd video… who knows, maybe some programmers from google activates its fm radio… or makes a key chain usb web cam for front facing video calls (although the big one works)… thank you google…. for listening (ex multi touch).. more power….android the power of openness…

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