Nexus One

The Nexus One (codenamed HTC Passion ) was Google's flagship smartphone manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corporation . It became available on January 5, 2010 and uses the Android open source mobile operating system. Features of the phone include the ability to transcribe voice to text, noise canceling dual microphones, and voice guided turn-by-turn navigation to drivers (Dell Studio XPS 1340 Battery) .

The device is sold unlocked (not restricted to use on a single network provider). Google offered T-Mobile and AT&T versions of the phone online in the United States before closing the online store in July 2010. A version for use on Vodafone (European) networks was announced on 26 April 2010, available in the UK on 30 April 2010 (Dell Studio XPS 1640 Battery) .

On March 16, 2010, the Nexus One device became available on the Google web store for sale in Canada for use with Rogers Wireless,Telus, Bell, Videotron and Wind Mobile. In May 2010 Google announced the closing of the web store, with the intention to distribute the phone through partners around the world (Dell Vostro 1710 Battery) .

Apple is targeting the Nexus One in a patent lawsuit against HTC.

History

A trademark application for the name "Nexus One" was filed by Google, Inc. on December 10, 2009. The Nexus One trademark was filed in International Trademark Class 9 for "Computer & Software Products & Electrical & Scientific Products" with description of "Mobile phones" (Dell KM958 battery) .

On 15 March 2010 it was announced that the application had been declined due to the mark already being granted on December 30, 2008 to Integra Telecom.

On December 12, 2009, Google confirmed in a blog post that they had begun internal testing of the device (Sony VGP-BPS13 battery).

Google stated that a "mobile lab device" had been given to its employees, at that time Google had not yet confirmed that a device would be sold to consumers. Wireless phone and data services for the device were not activated nor billed to Google; it was up to the employees to activate and pay for wireless service on their own (Sony VGP-BPS13/B battery) .

Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of Philip K. Dick, and several bloggers believe the name Nexus One is a reference to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, in which there are androids with a model designation of "Nexus-6" (Sony VGP-BPS13/S battery) .

Availability

In the United States

The Nexus One was released on January 5, 2010 (Sony VGP-BPS13A/B battery) .

The phone was sold via Google's website, at a price of $529 without a plan or contract, or a subsidized $179 when purchased with a T-Mobile two year contract.Google announced in May 2010 that the online store would close, and the phone would be offered in retail stores (Sony VGP-BPS13B/B battery) .

As of July 21, 2010, the Nexus One is available through retail stores from i wireless and Cincinnati Bell.

T-Mobile

Several plans are available for subsidized phones (Sony VGP-BPL9 battery) :

• $69.99 per month rate, which includes 500 minutes with unlimited nights and weekends, and unlimited e-mail/data. *No SMS included
• $79.99 per month rate, which includes 500 minutes with unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited SMS, and unlimited e-mail/data (Sony VGP-BPS13B/B battery) .
• $89.99 and unlimited minutes, unlimited SMS, and unlimited e-mail/data.

Unsubsidized phones have no such limitation. The $179 T-Mobile price is only for individuals who are not currently under contract with T-Mobile. If one currently has a T-Mobile contract, the price of the phone rises to $279.99 (Sony VGP-BPL11 battery) .

In addition, tax may be charged depending on the state to which the device is shipped . Each order is shipped with free FedEx Overnight shipping (although, when checking your order status with FedEX you may note that it was sent FedEx 2-Day), with indirect signature required (Sony VGP-BPL15 battery) .

With engraving delivery can be delayed up to 72 hours.

Google removed a price level of $379.99 for current T-mobile customers who had a data plan. Those who ordered the phone for 379.99 were refunded $100USD.

T-Mobile contract plans cost $20 per month more than non-contract plans (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery) .

For unlocked phones, T-Mobile offers a Prepaid SIM Card Activation Kit. T-Mobile's website offers it at discounted price of $6.99(or free with a 2 year contract). Voice-only no-contract plans are available at several price points including $100 for 1000 minutes good for a year (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .

Airtime is sold online, by phone, or at retail stores. On 18 Oct 2010, T-Mobile introduced a Data Day Pass which allows Prepaid users to purchase unlimited data access for 24 hours for $1.49 (HP Pavilion dv6000 Battery) .

AT&T

A version of the Nexus One with support for UMTS 850/1900/2100 MHz was first made available on March 16, 2010. (These UMTS bands are used by AT&T in the U.S. and Rogers in Canada.) It was only available from the Google Phone Webstore unsubsidized for $529. This version remained SIM unlocked (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ Battery) .

Verizon

When the Nexus One was first announced in January 2010, Google said that a Verizon model would be made available later in the year (HP PAVILION DV6000 battery) .

But in late April 2010, Google announced that "We won't be selling a Nexus One with Verizon ...",and told users who wanted the Nexus One on Verizon to get the HTC Droid Incredible, "a powerful new Android phone and a cousin of the Nexus One that is similarly feature-packed (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ18 Battery) ."

Sprint

A Sprint version of the Nexus One (CDMA2000) was announced on March 17, 2010, without giving specific availability dates or pricing. The press release states a commitment to "simple" pricing and references the current pricing structure (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ180E Battery) .

On May 10, 2010 Sprint announced that it too, like Verizon, would not release the Nexus One, instead opting to release the more robust HTC EVO 4G in current 3G and expanding 4G markets (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ220E Battery) .

In Canada

On March 16, 2010 Google officially released the Nexus One for purchase by Canadian consumers, offering two versions of the handset that will operate on either Bell, Telus or Rogers' 3G networks (UMTS band 2 and 5) or alternatively on Wind Mobile and Videotron (UMTS band 4/AWS) (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ340E Battery) . .

On September 9, 2010, Vidéotron included the Nexus One as part of their launch smartphone selection for its new AWS HSPA+ network. In November 2010, Mobilicity listed the "Nexus One by Google" on their "Products - Phones" web page. This is also on the AWS network (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ430E Battery) .

In France

On May 18, 2010 the Nexus One was made available for purchase through the SFR web portal.

In Italy

Beginning set for May 25, the Nexus One availability was then postponed to May 28, 2010. The phone is sold over the Vodafone Italy shops and website (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ460E Battery) .

In Australia

On July 2, 2010 the Nexus One was available for purchase through the Vodafone AUS website.

The sale only lasted approximately 3 weeks as stock levels ordered were a minimum. The phone has still to date been listed on the Vodafone website as "Out of Stock" (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ480E Battery) .

The phone was also available through non telco resellers for use on any network.

Worldwide

Around Spring 2010, Google will launch a Vodafone model in Europe, with plans to expand the phone to other carriers and international markets in due course (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ4000 Battery) .

Google is making the phone available for delivery to the UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong, although native carrier tie-ups have not been finalized for these countries, and the phone will be shipped from the US (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31E Battery) .

Customers ordering from the UK are charged $29.65 international shipping and an optional $19.00 for an extra AC adaptor, with an additional 17.5% VAT. Singapore applies 7% GST, while Hong Kong does not add any additional taxes. Although the Nexus One will not ship outside these countries for a few months, two French websites started selling it (with a carrier plan) on February 15, 2010 (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31B Battery) .

Phones ordered from Google in Singapore are currently being shipped from the US at the customers expense.

On 26 April 2010, the Nexus One became available for pre-order on the Vodafone UK website.Contracts started from £35 per month with the phone showing as Free (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31J Battery) .

This was a first for Google, as customers do not have to order from the google.com/phone website. Vodafone predict initial orders started arriving on 3 May 2010, and the phone also became available for order in store from 30 April 2010 (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31M Battery) .

Vodafone Australia announce on the 1 July 2010 that they would make the Nexus One available to its customers on a first come first serve basis on the $79 cap across 24 months.

On 10 July 2010, the Nexus One was launched in South Korea with KT as its service provider (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31S Battery) .

First 4,000 pre-orders were started to be sent to respective customers, with 100 being picked to activate it on launch event held in 10th. The Nexus One will go on sale nationwide on 17 July 2010 (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31Z Battery) .

Although the European, Australian and New Zealand Nexus One phones sold by Vodafone are not locked to the network of the provider, they are locked to a special Vodafone-specific system software, making it impossible to receive updates from Google. vodafone UK are making 2.2 available as a FOTA update, as of the end of July 2010 (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ38M Battery) .

Hardware

The Nexus One has a 3.7 inch AMOLED screen with PenTile matrix pixel arrangement. The raster resolution is 480x800 pixels, however each pixel in the PenTile RGBG display has only two subpixels (red and green, or blue and green alternately), rather than the three found in most displays (SONY VGP-BPS8 Battery) .

This gives it a total effective subpixel resolution of a 392x653 RGB display.

The capacitive touchscreen which uses the Synaptics ClearPad 2000 sensor supports multi-touch gestures limited to single finger input and2x1D two finger gestures (SONY VGP-BPS13 Battery) .

It has an illuminated trackball which can emit different colors of light based on the type of notification being received. A voice processor developed by Audience uses a second microphone (on the back) to suppress background noise during phone conversations SONY VGP-BPS13/S Battery .

A 4-conductor TRRS style 3.5mm stereo headset jack is also provided, adding microphone and pause/resume/next/previous functions to the stereo earphones SONY VGP-BPS13A/B Battery .

The phone features a 5.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and digital zoom, GPS receiver, Bluetooth 2.0, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi capabilities.The Snapdragon processor allows for many advanced capabilities including 720p video playback SONY VGP-BPS13B/B Battery .

There is built in hardware decoding for H.263, H.264 and MPEG-4 video, and is capable of playing MP3, AAC+, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, and MIDI audio, and displaying the JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP image formats. It has a micro USB port which conforms to the GSMA Universal Charging Solutioninstead of the common mini-USB port, or HTC's mini-USB compatible format (ExtUSB) SONY VGP-BPS13A/S Battery .

The microSD card slot allows expansion up to 32 gigabytes of card storage. Applications can be installed either to the 512 MB internal flash memory, of which 190 MB are available for that purpose, or to the microSD card.

A third party analysis by iSuppli estimates the cost of hardware components to be around $175 SONY VGP-BPS13AS Battery .

Cellular

As of March 16, 2010, there are two versions of the Nexus One . Both versions of the Nexus One cover most major GSM and 3G providers in the US, Europe and Asia. On both phones, the GSM radio frequencies covered are 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 1900 MHz (Dell Inspiron 1320 Battery) .

The original Nexus One also came along with UMTS frequency bands 1 (2100 MHz), 4 (1700 MHz), and 8 (900 MHz),[69]allowing it to access 3G throughout Europe, as well as on T-Mobile USA and WIND Mobile and Videotron in Canada (Dell Inspiron 1320n Battery) .

The second version of the Nexus One supports UMTS frequency bands 1 (2100 MHz), 2 (1900 MHz), and 5 (850 MHz), allowing it to access 3G in most of Europe, as well as on AT&T Mobility in the USA and Rogers Wireless, Fido Solutions, Bell Mobility, and Telus Mobilityin Canada (Dell Inspiron 1464 Battery) .

The second version of the Nexus One also works on Telecom New Zealand's XT Mobile Network, Telcel's 3G Network and Telstra's Next-G network.

The UMTS radio supports High Speed Packet Access; HSDPA at 7.2 Mbit/s, and HSUPA at 2 Mbit/s (Dell Inspiron 1564 Battery) .

Software

The Nexus One currently runs the Google Android 2.2.1 (Froyo) operating system. Android 2.2 introduced a number of highlights : a new Home screen, support for Adobe Flash 10.1, better Microsoft Exchange support, Wifi tethering, SD-card installable applications, cloud to device messaging for two-way push sync functionality and an overall 2-5x performance improvement (Dell Inspiron 1764 Battery) .

The integrated Media Gallery, developed by Cooliris, provides several new features allowing the user to browse, edit, and share photos and videos on the phone.

The Nexus One ships with non-removable third-party foistware apps, including "Amazon MP3" and "Facebook" (Dell Studio 1450 Battery) .

As of June 14, 2010, Android-based phones have access to more than 72,000 applications through the Android Market.

Platform development, hacking, and modification

The Nexus One ships with an unlockable bootloader allowing developers to participate in the Android Open Source Project in addition to developing applications (Dell Studio 1457 Battery) .

The Nexus One operating system can be unlocked and flashed with the fastboot utility which is part of the Android Open Source Project. Fastboot runs on Windows, Mac OS, or Linux and accesses the Nexus One through the USBport.

The bootloader of the Nexus One is accessed by holding the trackball while powering up the device (Dell Latitude D610 Battery) .

Users are able to gain root privileges on the device by unlocking its bootloader using the fastboot command "fastboot oem unlock." or by uploading specially crafted data packages via the Android debug bridge without the need to unlock the bootloader (Toshiba NB100 Battery) .

Unlocking the bootloader or rooting the device allows the user to install non-official firmware images. Additionally, obtaining root privileges enables a user to override protected operating system features, and install arbitrary software. If using the fastboot command to unlock the bootloader to gain root through use of a custom firmware image (Toshiba Satellite M65 battery) ,

the user is presented with a Google-created screen stating that unlocking the bootloader will void the warranty. The popular CyanogenMod build of Android has already been released for the device.

Hidden apps can be accessed by dialling the following numbers (Toshiba Satellite M60 battery) :

Comparison with other phones

Though the multi-touch experience of the Nexus One is generally similar to that of other multi-touch enabled smartphones (iPhone , Palm Pre, etc), the Nexus One hardware uses software to "enable" multi-touch capability, resulting in x/y axis confusion and preventing some multi-touch applications (e.g. games) from working as they should, compared to other phones (Dell Latitude D830 Battery) .

As of an update released February 2, 2010 it has pinch-to-zoom functionality in the phone's Browser, Gallery and Maps applications. In addition to these official applications, 3rd party apps that support multi-touch gestures are available (Dell Latitude D620 Battery) .

HTC Desire

HTC later released the HTC Desire, which has very similar specifications to the Nexus One. The Desire features an optical trackpad rather than a trackball, physical buttons rather than the touch sensitive buttons and an FM radio but lacks the noise cancelling dual microphones present in the Nexus One (Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Battery) .

The Desire is solely branded as HTC and runs HTC Sense rather than the stock version of Android. Sense can be switched off to get the stock Android experience however this was disabled on the retail HTC Desire (Sony VGN-FW11S Battery) .

Criticism

• The Android 2.2 update caused the Nexus One to develop a serious wifi connectivity issue which causes the wifi to continuously lose its connection and fail to reconnect . There are reports that Android 2.2.1 has fixed this issue, although there has been no official word from Google (Sony VGN-FW11M Battery) .

• The Nexus One reportedly had problems with 3G connectivity and touchscreen at launch. Updates have since been issued for the operating system, including the addition of multi-touch capabilities in the Android web browser and Google Maps functions (Sony VGN-FW139E/H battery) .
• While the updates have reportedly also somewhat improved 3G connectivity for the T-Mobile version of the device, similar issues with the AT&T compatible version have not yet been addressed. A class action lawsuit is pending against Google on the matter, as the phone has problems connecting to 3G networks in areas with less than ideal coverage (Dell Latitude E5400 Battery) .

• Initially, Google did not provide telephone support and consumers were forced to use its online Android forum. At this time, Google has stopped all support for the phone and customers are directed to contact HTC (Dell Latitude E4200 Battery) .
• The Nexus One is currently shipped to the US, the UK, Hong Kong, Germany and Singapore, although the phone has not been fully localized for non-US markets - the lack of satnav outside the US, UK and Ireland,and the US English "voice keyboard" being the most obvious shortcomings (Dell Vostro A840 Battery) .
• Recent update saw Google Navigation being enabled for additional 11 countries .
• Goldman Sachs slashed their estimates for sales of the phone in 2010 by 70% due to the half-hearted marketing efforts by carriers (Dell Inspiron 300M Battery) .

"Discontinuation"

On July 16, 2010, Google announced that the next shipment of Nexus One smartphones would be the last to be sold on their web store, stating "While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not (Dell Studio 1737 battery) .

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." The device will continue to be sold through retail stores, and other channel partners (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery) .

As of November 1st, 2010 Google will close the Nexus One support forums, redirecting users to the Google Mobile forum, which only have categories for software. The message shown to users was: "The Nexus One forum will be archived and become read-only on November 1st (Dell RM791 battery) .

Please see the Nexus One Terms of Sale for details regarding support. If you have questions about using applications on your Nexus One post them to the Google Mobile Forum." . Also worthy of note is that the link to Terms of Sale on that message has no mention of support, contrary to what the message implies (Dell XPS M1530 battery) .

Nexus S ("Nexus Two")

According to Andy Rubin, the next Nexus series phone would have targeted business users and may have had a hardware keyboard (Dell XPS M2010 battery) .

In July 2010, The Daily Telegraph reported in an interview with CEO Eric Schmidt that Google would not be releasing a follow up to the Nexus One.

However, On 11th of November 2010, Engadget leaked some pictures of a Samsung manufactured Nexus S device along with marketing materials from Best Buy and T-Mobile in the United States (Dell Vostro 1000 battery) .

Google officially announced the Nexus S on December 6th, 2010. The device, built by Samsung, will be the first to ship with Android OS version 2.3 "Gingerbread" and includes Near Field Communication (NFC) hardware (Acer Aspire One battery) .

iGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage and Google IG), a service of Google, is a customizable Ajax-based startpage or personal web portal(much like Netvibes, Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, and Windows Live Personalized Experience) (Toshiba Satellite P10 Battery) .

Google originally launched the service in May 2005. Its features include the capability to add web feeds and Google Gadgets (similar to those available on Google Desktop).

On April 30, 2007, Google renamed "Google Personalized Homepage" to "iGoogle" (SONY VGN-FZ210CE Battery) .

As of 17 October 2007 Google had made the service available in many localized versions in 42 languages, and in over 70 country domain-names. In February 2007, 7.1 million people used iGoogle. In April 2008, 20% of all visits to Google's homepage used iGoogle (Dell Precision M70 Battery) .

Features

Gadgets

iGoogle gadgets interact with the user and utilize the Google Gadgets API. Some gadgets developed for Google Desktop can also be used within iGoogle. The Google Gadgets API is public and allows anyone to develop a gadget for any need (Toshiba Satellite L305 Battery) .

Google also allows all users to create a special gadget that does not require the use of the Gadgets API. The gadgets are designed to be shared with friends and family. The special gadgets must be created using an online wizard and must belong to one of the following types (Toshiba Satellite T4900 Battery) :

• "Framed Photo" – displays a series of photos.
• "GoogleGram" – creation of special daily messages.
• "Daily Me" – displays user's current mood and feelings.
• "Free Form" – allows the user to input text and an image of their choice (Toshiba PA3399U-2BRS battery) .
• "YouTube Channel" – displays videos from a YouTube channel.
• "Personal List" – allows the user to create a list of items.
• "Countdown" – countdown timer.
• "Daily Literary Quote" – displays literature-related quotes served up by ModeRoom Press (Toshiba Satellite A200 Battery) .

Some of the developer-made gadgets include:

• "Meteo-si": displays the current weather and the weather forecast for selected area(s)
• "Ebay gadget": searches for items on Ebay (Toshiba Satellite 1200 Battery)

Throughout 2009, iGoogle released a sidebar at the side of the home page which also altered the overall appearance of the iGoogle pages. It allows users of Gmail to chat from their homepage without going to gmail.com along with organizing the iGoogle tabs vertically instead of horizontally along the top (Toshiba Satellite M300 Battery) .

The addition to this sidebar feature upset many users of iGoogle, many voicing their opinions in the Google Forums, as currently there is no way to opt out of the change to the site design.

There is a "You might also like" gadget where you can look at similar gadgets you already have WD passport essential (500GB/640GB).

Themes

iGoogle with the Winter Scape theme.

With iGoogle, users can select unique themes for their Google homepages: some themes designed by Google itself and others by the userbase WD passport essential (250GB/320GB) .

Artist themes

In April 2008, Google began offering a choice of themes by professional artists.

Experimental iGoogle

On July 8, 2008, Google announced the beginning of a testing period for a new version of iGoogle which alters some features, including replacing the tabs with left navigation, adding chat functionality, and a canvas-view gadget for RSS WD passport essential SE (750GB/1TB) .

Users were selected for this test and notified when they logged in by a link to a brief description and further links to forums. On the forums, it was explained that there was no opt-out, as a control for the test. Further, there was no information on how long the test would continue. Many expressed dissatisfaction with the new version and with the inability to opt out WD passport elite(250GB/320GB) .

On October 16, 2008, Google announced the release of this new version of iGoogle and retired its older format. The release did not initially include the persistent chat widget. It does include the left navigation in place of tabs as well as a change to widget controls, however WD passport elite(500GB/640GB) .

The stated purpose is to prepare for OpenSocial, with the new canvas view stated as playing an important role in that. InformationWeek reported "a vocal group of users" as unhappy with the changes, pointing out that many users do not want change forced on them, and that this is a general problem with cloud software under a service provider's control WD passport studio for Mac(320GB/500GB) .

A workaround to restore the original tab layout was found by attaching "?gl=all" to the end of the iGoogle URL. On June 4, 2009, this workaround was eliminated WD passport studio for Mac(500GB/640GB) .

Within days, another workaround was discovered. Changing the URL ending to "?hl=all" would again restore the original tab layout, with some missing links across the top of the home page, including "Maps" and "more". This workaround was again eliminated on November 18, 2009 WD Elements series(250GB/320GB) .

This led to an immediate resurrection of the controversy over user choice, both in the UK and world-wide, as many people unhappy with the new layout imposed on US users had switched to the UK Google site where the workarounds still worked (Dell XPS M1210 Battery) http://www.hdd-shop.co.uk .

Within hours, the most frequently asked question on the help forum was how to restore the old layout, and there was a large number of feature suggestions to the same effect on the Google product ideas page. Other solutions have come to the fore, which require adds-ons, greasemonkey scripts orbookmarklets WD Elements SE(500GB/640GB) .