At the risk of adding to all the metadiscussion noise... I'm surprised to see how many people think there is something strange or nefarious going on with Verizon's launch plans for the Galaxy Nexus. I just wanted to offer a tiny bit of perspective, for what it's worth. Disclaimer: I have absolutely NO inside knowledge, just some anecdotal experience and some opinions.
During the summer of 2010 I was in the throes of a major obsession with the Samsung Fascinate. (Sounds silly now, but at the time the Galaxy S was about the hottest thing around.) For about two months, I followed every leak and rumor connected with the Fascinate and visited all of the relevant forums multiple times per day looking for any scrap of information about when the phone would be available. And it was all *exactly* like what we're going through now for the Galaxy Nexus.
I remember people wondering why the Fascinate had been "delayed" (even though no date had been announced). People wondered why Verizon was being so silent about its release plans, and some speculated that they had secretly decided to cancel the phone. Some even proposed conspiracy theories suggesting that Verizon didn't care about the Fascinate because it wasn't a Droid, and therefore they didn't really want to sell any.
So none of this is unprecedented or unusual for the Galaxy Nexus. This is just the way Verizon operates. Their decision about when to release a phone has a little to do with their marketing plans, and a lot to do with when the phone is ready to sell, and when they're ready to start selling it. Verizon tests any new phone heavily, and it isn't until after they're satisfied that they set the wheels in motion for a release date. That's a big operation that involves marketing materials sent to stores, employee training, advertising, support plans, etc., and no amount of complaining or tweets from impatient Android geeks is going to affect that process in the slightest.
The notion that Verizon wants the Galaxy Nexus to fail, or doesn't really want to sell it, is just absurd. There's a significant investment involved with any phone they decide to sell -- not just the cost of the phones they buy from the manufacturer, but the cost of shipping them, warehousing them, training sales and support staff, stocking accessories and repair parts, and so on. It costs lots of money just to have a phone in their inventory. They have a duty to their shareholders to make money from that investment. If they didn't want to sell the Galaxy Nexus, they would not be offering it. Period.
So far, this experience with the Nexus has all been very familiar to me. I remember the sequence of leaks and rumors with the Fascinate. First it showed up in Cellebrite systems. (Check.) Then third-party retailers started listing it. (Check.) Then training materials showed up at Verizon stores. (Check.) Then, two weeks after that, it was released, with the announcement only two days before. I've seen nothing so far to suggest that things will be significantly different with the Galaxy Nexus. I'm sure it's all perfectly on track and on schedule.
I'm not going to tell everyone to relax, because this post probably demonstrates that I'm spending just as much time obsessing about this phone as anyone else. This is the fun part: anticipating a new toy, feeling like a kid on Christmas Eve, hunting for clues about the release like it's some kind of scavenger hunt. But I think we should all try not to make the mistake of thinking that there's more going on than meets the eye. This is just another phone working its way through Verizon's normal corporate processes, and they will release it as soon as all the pieces are in place. That really is all there is to it.
During the summer of 2010 I was in the throes of a major obsession with the Samsung Fascinate. (Sounds silly now, but at the time the Galaxy S was about the hottest thing around.) For about two months, I followed every leak and rumor connected with the Fascinate and visited all of the relevant forums multiple times per day looking for any scrap of information about when the phone would be available. And it was all *exactly* like what we're going through now for the Galaxy Nexus.
I remember people wondering why the Fascinate had been "delayed" (even though no date had been announced). People wondered why Verizon was being so silent about its release plans, and some speculated that they had secretly decided to cancel the phone. Some even proposed conspiracy theories suggesting that Verizon didn't care about the Fascinate because it wasn't a Droid, and therefore they didn't really want to sell any.
So none of this is unprecedented or unusual for the Galaxy Nexus. This is just the way Verizon operates. Their decision about when to release a phone has a little to do with their marketing plans, and a lot to do with when the phone is ready to sell, and when they're ready to start selling it. Verizon tests any new phone heavily, and it isn't until after they're satisfied that they set the wheels in motion for a release date. That's a big operation that involves marketing materials sent to stores, employee training, advertising, support plans, etc., and no amount of complaining or tweets from impatient Android geeks is going to affect that process in the slightest.
The notion that Verizon wants the Galaxy Nexus to fail, or doesn't really want to sell it, is just absurd. There's a significant investment involved with any phone they decide to sell -- not just the cost of the phones they buy from the manufacturer, but the cost of shipping them, warehousing them, training sales and support staff, stocking accessories and repair parts, and so on. It costs lots of money just to have a phone in their inventory. They have a duty to their shareholders to make money from that investment. If they didn't want to sell the Galaxy Nexus, they would not be offering it. Period.
So far, this experience with the Nexus has all been very familiar to me. I remember the sequence of leaks and rumors with the Fascinate. First it showed up in Cellebrite systems. (Check.) Then third-party retailers started listing it. (Check.) Then training materials showed up at Verizon stores. (Check.) Then, two weeks after that, it was released, with the announcement only two days before. I've seen nothing so far to suggest that things will be significantly different with the Galaxy Nexus. I'm sure it's all perfectly on track and on schedule.
I'm not going to tell everyone to relax, because this post probably demonstrates that I'm spending just as much time obsessing about this phone as anyone else. This is the fun part: anticipating a new toy, feeling like a kid on Christmas Eve, hunting for clues about the release like it's some kind of scavenger hunt. But I think we should all try not to make the mistake of thinking that there's more going on than meets the eye. This is just another phone working its way through Verizon's normal corporate processes, and they will release it as soon as all the pieces are in place. That really is all there is to it.
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