John Paczkowski

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Guess This Makes Google’s Nexus One the Kin of “Superphones”

July 19, 2010 at 2:47 pm PT

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Google has nixed its Nexus One “superphone.” In a short announcement quietly posted to the Nexus One blog Friday (when the tech media’s attention was largely focused elsewhere), the company said its most recent shipment of the phone was also its last.

“Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google,” Google (GOOG) explained.

Not much of an obituary for a phone so highly touted at its launch, but then its time on this earth was so short. In the end, Google’s first–and perhaps only–venture into the handset world ended in less than a year.

Tagged with: Android Feature, Google, handset, hardware, innovation, John Paczkowski, KIN, Nexus One, superphone

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  • http://colinscroggins.com/ Colin Scroggins

    I think if you were Google, looking at the overall growth of Android market share, along with the upgrade of older 3rd-party handsets to Android v2.0+, and the release of even more capable models than the Nexus One, you might consider this a win. The Nexus One was intended to influence the Android marketplace, not garner lots of individual share. Google's strategy is to increase mobile internet and data use, not to sell phones. I fully expect a Google reference model tablet and another phone in the future. In the meantime, I love that my Nexus One is the first phone to get new Android updates!

  • JohnDoey

    It is still surprising how few of these they sold, even though the high-end Android phone market is very small, only 25% of Android phones, and there are many choices. This is still the only phone that runs Android v2.2 and therefore the only phone that runs Adobe Flash. Where are all the Flash enthusiasts Adobe has been telling us about?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/53R4EHVC66TLAUAWWUZCWTZECU Gleason

    So Google thought that by releasing their own phone and competing directly with their hardware partners that they'd make those hardware partners churn out more phones? Really? It's one thing if Google releases the first Android phone, proves its concept, and then brings in hardware partners. It's somethign else entirely when you recruit hardware makers (liek Motorola), have them bet the farm on Android, then start competing with them.

    Google may try to spin this into a positive, and ultimately the Nexus One flop really hasn't hurt them. But there is no way they released this phone thinking it would flop like this. I mean, 135K units in 74 days at $200, when the original iPhone (at $500-600) sold 1 million units in that time, and the Moto Droid sold 1.05 million at $200? (And of course the iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million in its first three days).

    Regarding Flash, there is a certain irony to the fact that the only mobile phone that currently run a version of Flash is being discontinued.