What next for the Nexus?

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Jan 14th 2010 at 15:00 by Will Freeman

As most of you probably know, the Google Nexus One smartphone has landed. Before it came a huge storm of hype, followed immediately by some rather underwhelming first-week sales.

So, are the 20,000 early adopters the first to taste the future, or have they wasted $500 on an unlocked phone soon to be put to the back of cupboards with Teasmades and Breville sandwich toasters.

And more importantly, will the Nexus have any significant impact on the casual gaming sector? The Android-based gadget certainly has the potential to do so, but it looks equally likely to play early swansong to Google foray into the mobile industry.

The Nexus One must have been great for PRs and marketers. On paper it looks great. It’s got a bigger, brighter screen than the iPhone. In Europe it supports multi-touch functionality, and it flies the flag for the unlocked mobile movement. It supports Flash, adding another string to the Nexus’ Apple thrashing whip, and Google is striving to deliver third-party support to trump the offering from iPhone towers, which is often bemoaned by those who have to wrangle with those employed by Steve Jobs.

Notice all those comparisons with the iPhone? That’s where the trouble starts. There’s nothing wrong with trying to ape the success of the iPhone; every other tech company is trying to do that, and we all know how many devices now allude to the Apple phone in their form.

The trouble is trying to compete with a market leader when so many potential shortcomings are in place. The Nexus One, the first proper Google phone, which is available to the public direct from a new web store, certainly justifies its expense so far as it’s raw power goes, but there are a number of problems.

With just 512mb of on-board memory in place, you’d think the Nexus’ memory card slot would give it a huge lead over the iPhone. A shame, then, that thanks to security concerns purchased applications can’t make use of what should be a potential boost to the Google phone.

That won’t be the only concern for game developers deciding whether to go with the Nexus instead of or as well as the iPhone. While UK Nexus handsets boast multi-touch, the US version doesn’t. That certainly sounds like a potential for those creating game, especially considering control design is often the downfall of otherwise great iPhone games. Presumably developers will have to create separate versions, or make sure their creation works with both.

The apparently unrivalled Flash support Nexus provides is certainly encouraging, but if the behemoth of online technology is to become a minnow when it first leaps into the telco sector, support of a platform gamers have enjoyed online for free for many years is barely a boon.

Still, the plucky Google once trooped the likes of Lycos, Freeserve and Ask, so perhaps it can do the same in the mobile market. Android still has potential, and in general competition between companies is good for the consumer, good for the creators designing games, and good for the sector as a whole.