Recently a rumour surfaced about Motorola and Google possibly breaking the idea of what a smartphone is and how a consumer can get one. Android and Me gave a pretty sterling report about the ideas and the work Google have put into the X Phone.
Essentially, the X Phone is going to be a game changer more-so because of how you can buy it. The phone will, according to the report, be completely off contract no matter how top-tier the device is, and will come with 4G connection.
Guy Kawasaki, ex-Apple evangelist and currently advisor for Motorola posted on Google+ asking “Wouldn’t it be great if you could personalize your phone like this?” with a video of Porsche Exclusive vehicles getting completely built by the customer.
While this may just be Guy putting it out there, becoming an advisor for Motorola and the current rumours floating about seem more than just coincidence. Impressively, we haven’t heard anything from manufacturing lines about Motorola making custom orders.
The idea is also to make a move to customisable smartphones, instead of a company developing one smartphone a year with a unibody. We don’t expect Google to allow users inside the phone post-purchase, but maybe allowing the user to pick-and-choose their features.
Perhaps allowing the user a choice of size, colour, resolution, processing power, RAM, GPU, storage, battery life and style in a few separate categories would suffice, this means all those photos of the X Phone may be dismissed.
Google’s movement could open up phones to the world by offering them at a budget price for a budget model. For some, this will be the first smartphone that is truly affordable. Considering Android has always been about openness, this does fit with the scheme.
Google recently switched Andy Rubin, founder of Android, with the leader of Chrome, possibly showing new currents in Android. In two years, we may see Google close Android’s open source OS, and make Android partners license the OS.
