The recent trend among major smartphone OEMs has been to try to emulate Apple and create a distinctive user experience, tightly tied to their hardware. This has led to fragmentation of the Android base ‘ for instance, Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC’s Sense look very little like the standard Android experience, and increasingly some of the vendors’ hardware capabilities are tied into TouchWiz or Sense functions. Even worse for Google, some UEs, especially in China, exclude its search and other services entirely, making Android a Google-free zone.
Google has tried to regain control of its Android UE on several occasions ‘ clumsily when it launched the first tablet version, Honeycomb, only to a few close allies; more creatively by designing the Nexus range. This tempts developers and cutting edge users by showcasing the latest Android releases ahead of the rest of the market, but with a vanilla UE. Several vendors have created Nexus devices for Google, and of course, it may develop an even more integrated and closely controlled hardware/software platform via its Motorola Mobility unit, whose first major handset designed under its new parent’s watch will debut soon.
However, before that launch, there is another initiative designed to raise the profile of the pure Android UE among consumers and OEMs. Samsung, HTC and now, reportedly, Sony have been launching versions of their flagship devices touting their support for the ‘Google Experience’ ‘ a pure build of Android. Sony is reported to be readying a variant of the Xperia Z to join the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition and HTC One Google Edition.
Assuming Experience is a Google-directed process ‘ it has not publicly associated itself with these phones in the way it does with Nexus, which it sells and markets directly ‘ it suggests that there is a market for ‘pure’ Android, and the handset makers feel the need to support this as well as their own UEs, no matter how they would like to copy Apple and tie users into their own distinctive experience, bypassing Google. A choice of UEs is good for consumers, but there is potential confusion between Nexus and Experience.
This may show how Google plans gradually to diversify the way it reaches out to customers. Nexus is the vehicle for testing new software and also new channels. The original Nexus, made by HTC, famously tried to sideline the cellcos and sell directly to consumers via a Google website. Nexus may also be charged with broadening the Google base with midrange pricing. The Nexus 4 sells for $299 to $349 and the tablets sell from $199. Like Amazon, Google is adopting low costs in order to sell more content and services, but in the case of Google Experience, it does not have control over the pricing. So the Samsung and HTC variants sell for the same amount as the versions with vendor-specific skins – $600 or more unsubsidized. The advantage to Google is that top range smartphones are available showcasing its pure Android UE, rather than this being confined to models from lower end vendors without the resource to create their own overlays.
Like Apple, Google has been focusing more on software enhancements than new hardware recently, though the Motorola launch may change that. It is said to be on the brink of paying about $1.1bn to acquire mapping application start-up Waze to boost its armory in a key competitive area, location services ‘ a sector where Apple has stumbled so far, but where Facebook and Nokia are expanding.
It is vital for Google to retain leadership in mapping because that is so important to mobile advertising, its main revenue stream, and location is increasingly tied into other key drivers like social networking. That will have made it keen to acquire Waze rather than let it go to a competitor like Facebook, which was said to have offered almost $1bn for the smaller company last month.
Founded in Israel, Waze developed an iOS and Android app which alerts users to potential traffic problems such as road works or congestion, and suggests alternative routes. It generates revenues from location aware advertising. Its investors include Microsoft and Qualcomm Ventures, and it raised $30m in a 2011 round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Horizons Ventures Hong Kong.