Nice Phone Google, But Next Time Think About Borrowing a Page From Apple's Playbook

I try not to cross post too much between here and my TechDork blog, which I purposefully created so as to not bore you all to tears with my love for all things gadget-related, but what the heck: this was a fairly major product announcement today. I promise not to write about technology until the 26th or 27th, which appear to be the likely dates for Apple's big Tablet announcement.

Anyway, here goes, courtesy of TechDork:

Those who know me know that I love a good launch of a cool new technology product. I am generally watching the launch announcement as it is being live blogged, and if the product is decent enough (and it generally is if I am taking the time out of my busy day to actually watch a live blog) by the end I am pining to make a purchase. Or at minimum, I'm making myself crazy thinking about it.


And funny enough, that didn't occur today as I watched the debut of the Google phone, aka the Nexus One. Don't get me wrong; I think it's a terrific product and if I was a T-Mobile customer, for $179 my order would already be placed. But once the press conference was over I went about my business and didn't at all think about switching over from AT&T to T-Mobile (unlike the Droid announcement, when I came *very* close to making the switch to Verizon).

I think part of the reason for my apathy was that today's announcement was severely lacking excitement; virtually every detail about the unit had already been leaked, from products specs to pricing. There wasn't a single "one more thing" type of moment. In a nutshell, it was anticlimactic.

And from a PR perspective, that is where Google and Apple seem to differ greatly. Theatrics -- which Apple has obviously mastered -- are an important part of the game. And I'd suggest to Google that if they are in the hardware business -- and by all appearances, they are, as of today -- they should take a much keener look at Apple's playbook. Because somewhere in Cupertino, I am sure that the Big Guy is smirking to himself and thinking "that's all you got. Really?" And you can be certain that there's going to be a very big difference in terms of surprises between what was announced today and what Apple has planned for January 26th

All that being said, while the gap keeps getting tighter, I still think the iPhone is superior to Android from a tech and spec perspective. But Android is literally moving at warp speed and I expect them to catch up much sooner (technology and market share wise) than I originally thought possible.