Google Is Buying HTC’s Smartphone Expertise for $1.1 Billion. This, after Google has already bought and sold Motorola. Remember when Microsoft bought part of Nokia?
The problem is that Apple and Samsung are starting to create a duopoly. And though most phones run Android, iPhones are much more profitable. There’s a reason many companies develop for iOS but not Android. A friend at Google years ago bemoaned how much more profitable iPhone owners were compared to those bought Android phones.
With all that being said the Apple launch and comments on this blog have convinced me I’m not going iPhone. I don’t know if I’ll go for an HTC, Motorola or Samsung. But for me a phone is functional, not an accessory. Perhaps that explains some of the psychological reasons that iPhone owners spend so much more money on apps….
Supposedly Google bought Motorola for its patents, and sold off the other bits of it as soon as it could. The partial HTC acquisition seems to be aimed at actual product development, however.
Originally Android was defensive in nature – in 2008 the only decent smartphone was an iPhone, and if that had continued then Apple could have ruined half of Google’s search/advertising business by switching their default search engine. Google needed a viable alternative to iOS, and didn’t trust anybody else to come up with it, so they made their own.
Now that the iOS family is worth half a trillion dollars or so they seem to be having second thoughts, however.
I like my MOTO G (3rd Gen, they are up to 5) a lot. It is unlocked. A new one costs ~$225 or less. That is a feature Apple can’t match. I have no apps that cost money. The free ones Google mail, calendar, contacts, drive, photos, and maps, Lyft, Airlines, Wikipedia are all the functionality I need.
The current gen pixel’s are be heavily discounted because the next gen is coming out in October. I really like mine. Their project fi services is also super cheap if you don’t use too much data, I’m always near wifi, and I’m very into google’s ecosystem. It works for me and I have recommended it to family members.
I’ll probably jump to the latest Galaxy S version when I make the switch to a new phone (I have an older version of an iPhone right now). I barely use the iPhone app ecosystem besides the apps that are available in the Android Ecosystem as well (mostly the essentials), and I’m still kind of turned off by the whole “proprietary bluetooth headphones only” thing.