Google's Nexus One

A lot of people are speculating about Google’s new “mobile lab”, which is a phone that was commissioned from HTC that Google is giving to select worldwide Google employees in order to test some new Android features. At least, that’s what I gathered from Google’s actual statement on the matter.

“We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.

Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.”

Of course, the media isn’t satisfied with this reasonable explanation, so the articles are pouring in speculating that Mobile Lab (code-named Nexus One) is the “G-Phone” that was supposed to happen several years ago but didn’t. The theory is that Google will betray all its business partners currently selling Android phones and instead just brand one of its own, effectively killing the chances of the Droid, or the Eros, etc. succeeding in any capacity.

Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s exactly what Microsoft did with Plays for Sure and the Zune. And we all know how that worked out.

To add more fuel to the fire, some have even speculated that the G-phone won’t be tied to any carrier, but be sold directly by Google. Sure. Because everyone wants to pay $700 for a new phone that they’re only going to be able to use on one carrier, anyway.

When are people going to realize that there is no single phone in existence that can run on both Verizon and AT&T? The choice is an illusion, people.

But this time it’s Google making a monumental blunder, not Microsoft, so everything is going to work out just fine. That is, if Google is actually dumb enough to make this blunder, which I’m not convinced it is. I think perhaps Google is just testing some new features for Android, which it will then make available to all Android phone manufacturers. They may debut these new killer features on a specific phone, but that phone will most likely be tied to a contract of some sort, and exclusive to one carrier in the U.S., at least at first.

Any way you slice it, Android isn’t going to make any inroads at beating the iPhone anytime soon. If that were the goal, Google would have a major problem on its hands. If the goal of Android is instead to simply make Google services more ubiquitous across mobile handsets everywhere by putting the final nail into the coffin of Windows Mobile, then I think Android has already succeeded.

If Google is thinking that it has already succeeded at killing Windows Mobile, and it’s wondering what to do next, I’d suggest that pissing on its business partners in a ill-advised attempt to take down Apple would be a poor choice. It’s one of those things that sounds good on paper to Apple/AT&T haters, but it would be a really dumb move for Google. For one, it wouldn’t succeed. Google simply doesn’t have the product design sense nor the hardware/software experience to go head-to-head with Apple on merit. And for another, the iPhone already does a better job than any other mobile device at pushing out Google services to the masses.More people do Google searches on iPhones than they do on all Android phones combined. They also use Google Maps, Google Reader, Google Docs, etc. Google is supposed to throw all that away because Apple didn’t approve it’s Google Voice app? I don’t buy it.