Hasta La Gadget!

Google on Friday said it will soon make its Nexus One smartphone available in more retail stores, and that it will eventually shut down its Web store in exchange for this increased brick-and-mortar presence.

“While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the Web store has not,” Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google, wrote in a blog post. “It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.”

Google unveiled the Nexus One in early January. Users could purchase the device online at www.google.com/phone for $529.99 unlocked or $179.99 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile.

There were soon reports, however, that sales were somewhat sluggish, and in recent weeks, Verizon Wireless and Sprint versions of the Nexus One have been abandoned.

On April 30, Vodafone became Europe’s first carrier to sell the Nexus One. Google said Friday that going forward, it will follow this model rather than Web sales.

How well is Google’s Android OS holding up in the smartphone battles? According to recent numbers from research group NPD, the operating system topped the iPhone in sales for the first quarter of the year, coming in second only to BlackBerry in the US.

If you need some more concrete numbers, how about this one: According to Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, more than 65,000 Android handsets are shipped every day. Schmidt revealed the number during a shareholder meeting in Mountain View yesterday. “It looks like Android is going to be either the number one or number two player,” the executive told the crowd.

Schmidt also suggested that his estimate “might be quite low,” according to “the blogosphere.” At present, there are 34 different smartphones running the OS in 49 countries.

Google takes Android product codenames literally — that’s why you’ll find a giant Eclair, Donut and Cupcake chilling on the GooglePlex lawn. This week, they were joined by the object tastefully pictured above. Frozen yogurt, anyone? You might not care to eat this one, as it’s probably made of foam, but Engadget will likely bring you a spoonful next week when we attend Google I/O. Video after the break.

Update: And just like that the video has been set to private. Not like video of a stationary object really adds much value anyway. Nevertheless, it already arrived at the GooglePlex where it’s currently hanging out — under wraps — with its foam siblings.

Continue reading Google dishes out giant Froyo parfait (video)

Google dishes out giant Froyo parfait (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 May 2010 01:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan’s wireless networks have a longstanding, legendary reputation for existing in some parallel plane that’s technologically light years ahead of the rest of the world, but that reputation’s unquestionably in greater danger today than in any point in the past fifteen years. Why? Though the featurephones offered by NTT DoCoMo, SoftBank, and KDDI are ultra high-spec beasts, they’re still featurephones at the end of the day — and this comes at a time when smartphones are finally becoming true cultural phenomena across the remainder of the developed world (and, in some cases, the developing world).

There’s no greater evidence of this than the word this week that Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 — a phone that’s been met with lukewarm reviews, including from Engadget Japanese’s own Ittousai — has allegedly become NTT DoCoMo’s best-selling smartphone in history, a fact that would seem completely inexplicable in any other market globally. What makes it possible in Japan, of course, is DoCoMo’s historically lame selection of true smartphones, a lineup that currently includes localized versions of the HTC Magic, and the original HTC Touch Diamond and BlackBerry Bold. What’s more, many of these devices integrate poorly with popular carrier services on account of their super-tight control of the operating systems running across the featurephone lineup, something they’ve got less control over with a device running Android or Windows Mobile.

In other words, when it’s reported that DoCoMo had sold 100,000 X10s in its first 20 days — and a third-party retailer claims that the Magic-esque HT-03A is the next best seller at 80,000 units in 10 months — it seems plausible, if not likely (and Ittousai agrees). Yeah, even though the localized device has been plagued with performance problems and bugs, incompatibilities with DoCoMo’s i-mode push email, and so on. It’s hard to say what it’s going to take for these guys to make an honest-to-goodness transition to the brave new world of open platforms and freewheeling third-party development, but they’re clearly not there yet.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is likely NTT DoCoMo’s best selling smartphone — ever originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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