Tuesday September 30, 2008 - Stewart Wolpin
Even though the first Google Android phone has been unveiled – the T-Mobile G1 – there are still many questions about both its initial and its ultimate functionality and capabilities.
After a brief exploration of Android, there seems to be a lot of function and capability missing. But the theory is developers will write programs addressing any consumer needs or desires and the Android operating system itself can be upgraded.
All of this speculation is premature, however. There's still a month to go before the G1 is actually available (October 22) and the Google Android Market application download store opens.
But what can we project about how Android will affect the video download and streaming market?
In the short term, it will have little affect. First, the G1 is merely the first Android-powered device. There certainly will be more, including some non-mobile phone devices. An Android-enabled cell phone is due out from Sprint early next year, but there haven’t been any announcements. And while Verizon has aligned itself with LiMo, the Linux open source mobile OS, and AT&T has the iPhone, nothing stops either carrier from adding an Android phone to their portfolio in the future. Critical mass will be, well, critical, for Android to have an impact on the video download or streaming market.
Second, Google has partnered with Amazon for music and video purchases. It makes sense, therefore, that Amazon has already confirmed an Android mobile music and video store.
It'd be better for their partnership and Amazon's aim to compete with iTunes, if the Amazon video player were part of the Android operating system rather than a separate application, but it's way too early to speculate on how this will, excuse the pun, play out. Developers also are likely to build CinemaNow and Netflix player apps, or apps to play back QuickTime, and DivX files, but who knows when – or if – that'll happen.
What we can project is that Android's ability to impact Apple's hegemony over the downloadable movie marketplace is hampered by the G1's carrier.
T-Mobile, with around 30 million subscribers, is the smallest of the four major cellphone carriers. AT&T, the largest, has around 65 million subscribers. So not only does iPhone have a 10 million unit installed base head start on the G1, the iPhone's potential sales base is more than twice as big, at least in the U.S., as the G1.
Also, T-Mobile just launched its 3G HSDPA service in the U.S. 3G is an absolute necessity for downloading large video files over-the-air to an Android device. Right now, T-Mobile has 16 3G markets active, and plans to have 22 when the G1 launches and 27 by mid-November. That's fine, but AT&T has more than 300 3G markets, and likely 350 markets by the end of the year.
Downloading movies to your desktop for transfer to the G1 may not work, either. Even if the G1 included the correct DRM technology, there is no Android desktop syncing program a la iTunes to ease content transfer.
Of course, someone – even Google – may build an Android desktop syncing application, along with all the other necessary video decoders for playing back the wide variety of video content available.
The nature of Android itself – a completely open operating system – could cause a seismic shift in the portable media player and downloadable video marketplace. In two or three years, Apple and iTunes may be fringe providers, overwhelmed by a flood of Android-powered devices and the availability of myriad downloadable video streaming or player apps.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. At the moment, Android provokes more speculation than actual business. Steve Jobs can sleep soundly, at least for a little while.
