Remarkably, in the span of one year, Google has managed to become both Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft, in that they have your computing experience by the nuts, and Apple, in that mainstream non-tech press now goes nuts for literally everything they announce.
Dial it back a bit and look at what actually happened Friday. A bunch of Google employees were given the latest version of an HTC handset. Not that big a deal – they all got a G1 two years ago, and Apple gave all its employees iPhones on the eve of the release in 2007. The phone itself is an HTC Passion, something that’s been kicking around the rumorsphere for some time – and it was inevitable that Android 2-based hardware would show up for GSM eventually. And while rumors are flying about Google selling the phone directly, nobody – NOBODY – in the United States has had success selling unlocked and unsubsidized phones to the general public. Apple came closest, when they sold the phone unsubsidized and allowed for at-home activation, and that experiment went by the boards in under a year. Unless Google is prepared to take a bath on every handset for the purpose of shipping them into as many hands as possible, they won’t have any more success than anybody else pushing a $500 handset with no service.
And yet – people are losing their minds. First they lost it for Android generally (and the Droid in particular) which sort of made sense. They lost it for Wave, which so far has turned out to be a big pile of WTF. And now they’re losing it for what is essentially a developer preview device that’s only been handed out to employees, not even third party developers let alone the broader public.
Ah well. I’m still not prepared to throw my hands in the air and say “I for one welcome our new Google overlords,” but having looked at the balance of my services, I’m more or less OK with the current state of affairs – some Google, some Apple, some self-provided (well, brother-in-law provided) service, and a smattering of other stuff from Yahoo or Evernote or Skype or Mozilla. To be honest, the notion of an 11″ netbook running Ubuntu is becoming increasingly attractive…