An open letter to Verizon on the Galaxy Nexus

[Averix]

Not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but looks like Samsung is confirming Verizon out of the gate.
https://www.facebook.com/SamsungMobileUSA/posts/10150317622831786

 

[ottscay]

I think it's been pretty well confirmed that Verizon would get it first in the U.S. - glad to see Samsung confirming it today.

 

[kilofoxtrot]

IVerizon has been doing this sort of thing for years, on pretty much every smartphone they've shipped outside of the iPhone. It's not some sort of crazy conspiracy theory, it's just a way of life at Verizon.

Its not a crazy conspiracy... its a conspiracy theory.

If Apple can do it, why cant Samsung/Google? Apple has broke the mold, there is no reason Samsung/Google cant either.

There is too much at stake for Google to piss-off the developer community by allowing Verizon to brand/bloat a Nexus device IMO.... and it would piss them off. You dont think Google realizes this?

If Verizon has any aspirations of opening their own app store (ala Amazon), I would think they would let the dev community keep their Nexus unbranded just as other carriers have done in the past.

Who is the bigger dog here? Google or Verizon?

"You see, your absence last night was noticed." ... I noticed it too.... and I think Verizon wasn't there because they cant brand the phone. Between the Nexus, RAZR and HTC Rezound, the Nexus will get the least "love" of the 3... for the that very reason... a lack of VZW branding on the Nexus.

I guess we'll find out soon enough... I hope I am right... and what you fear is not the case.

Cheers.

 

[ottscay]

If Apple can do it, why cant Samsung/Google? Apple has broke the mold, there is no reason Samsung/Google cant either.

Absolutely. The question is whether Verizon would try to shove the geni back in the bottle, rather than allow more openness.

There is too much at stake for Google to piss-off the developer community by allowing Verizon to brand/bloat a Nexus device IMO.... and it would piss them off. You dont think Google realizes this?

Here we may differ a little - given the marketing we've seen so far, I think the Galaxy Nexus is the first serious attempt by Google to push the Nexus brand into the mainstream. The best way to reduce fragmentation would be for consumers to want to own a Nexus. That's not to say that I disagree with you - I'm sure Google very much wants a VZW Nexus to be as untouched as every other Nexus. But given Verizon's history, P3Droids comments about Verizon's absence "meaning something", and a Verizon insider on Phandroid explicitly mentioning tension between them and Google/Samsung, I was concerned that Verizon might try to play hardball to win the right to massage a bit of VZW into the Nexus.

If Verizon has any aspirations of opening their own app store (ala Amazon), I would think they would let the dev community keep their Nexus unbranded just as other carriers have done in the past.

Verizon already has its own app store. It's installed on my Droid X this very moment - it was installed "for me" when I got the Gingerbread update. As I said in my letter, if Verizon wants to do these things they should concentrate on making them attractive on their own (much as Amazon has succeeded in doing), but much of Verizon's history shows their preference for using their leverage to control what you can and cannot get to. That's a fact of the history of their smartphones, not a conspiracy.

Who is the bigger dog here? Google or Verizon?

That's a good question. The carriers certainly were bigger dogs back when they blocked the Nexus One from being sold the way Google wanted them to. But the market has changed since then, so it's not clear (to me at least) now. How much pressure Verizon feels depends directly on how many of GNs they think will sell, and what sort of contractual obligations are written in stone.

I guess we'll find out soon enough... I hope I am right... and what you fear is not the case.
Cheers.

Indeed. And I really hope you are right.

 

[greydarrah]

If Apple can do it, why cant Samsung/Google? Apple has broke the mold, there is no reason Samsung/Google cant either.

The reason Apple could do it is because they only have ONE phone. If verizon wanted to carry it, they had to bow to Job's ways. That's not the case with Android. There are a bunch of different Android phones that verizon can market. The truth is that there are only a tiny percentage of users (I'd guess less than 1%) that actually care about having a "pure vanilla" experience. I still don't think verizon is going to drop its bloat practices for those very few people. I'm guessing that we'll see a different version of this phone (loaded with bloat and not called a nexus) some time later. But I could be wrong.

 

[SpaceHippie]

I hope you guys don't seriously think Verizon will bloat this phone. There not stupid. It wouldn't be a Nexus if it wasn't stock, so please stop worrying.

 

[sushiglobster]

I think it's kind of funny and sad that everyone is so afraid of Verizon F-ing up this phone.

Here's my take:

Verizon is the largest mobile phone network in the US, at least I think it is. Anyways, their target audience is the mass-general public. Us techies....us gadget gurus and forum posters here are an extremely small percentage compared to the general public. We are VERY small.

What I'm saying is, how does a large company like Verizon market a "developer phone" to the mass public? No bloatware, no skins, the NEXUS brand which I bet if you ask people at a local mall here in the US the majority of people would have no idea what a NEXUS phone is. So the simple answer to massively market a NEXUS phone on Verizon is, you don't.

The Nexus phone will be in the background a kind of black sheep that Verizon knows they can't make a whole lot of money off of because of no bloatware....no skins....no BS. It's there, we acknowledge it, and if you know what's up (like us) then good for you, buy the Nexus then.

You guys need to think and consider the fact that this Nexus phone is not as marketable to US general public as a Droid branded phone.

I'm sure we will see a PR release about this phone and maybe a few mentions here, but I don't expect to see a marketing campaign for this phone that rivals the Droid phones.

 

[VideoEngineerAJS]

People really need to stop freaking out. As so many have said, it wouldn't be a Nexus if it was loaded down with bloat. The only thing that may be different is possibly Google Wallet. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all together with the ISIS project so that's they only reason I could see them possibly not wanting Google Wallet to be advertised or on the phone out of the box, but I can't see any other objection Verizon would have with this phone.

 

[zhawks]

With three weeks till Nov. 10th (the most recent alleged date it goes on sale), I'm guessing we will have an official Verizon announcement a week or two before it goes on sale. After all, pre-orders for the Droid Razr start on the Oct 27th if I'm not mistaken. So maybe Verizon is just building up extra hype for the Razr since it is more marketable to the general public like some folks have already commented on. Verizon could easily market the Nexus as the first ICS phone to drive sales - granted that will likely be meaningless to the average person and confuse them. As for the threat of possible Verizon bloat being put on the Nexus? They did just announce a feature in ICS that lets the user disable unwanted apps (assuming Verizon lets it fly). Even if this worst case scenario happens, couldn't those of us who buy the Nexus go to Google as say "Give me some GasX - I'm bloated!!" Then BAM - clean unadulterated ICS sans VZW bloat.

Personally not being able to get rid of Twitter would be more annoying to me than VZW bloatware, but that's just my opinion.

 

[ejaymd11]

What part of "Nexus" are you constant complainers not understand?

 

[qnet]

I think it's kind of funny and sad that everyone is so afraid of Verizon F-ing up this phone.

Here's my take:

Verizon is the largest mobile phone network in the US, at least I think it is. Anyways, their target audience is the mass-general public. Us techies....us gadget gurus and forum posters here are an extremely small percentage compared to the general public. We are VERY small.

What I'm saying is, how does a large company like Verizon market a "developer phone" to the mass public? No bloatware, no skins, the NEXUS brand which I bet if you ask people at a local mall here in the US the majority of people would have no idea what a NEXUS phone is. So the simple answer to massively market a NEXUS phone on Verizon is, you don't.

The Nexus phone will be in the background a kind of black sheep that Verizon knows they can't make a whole lot of money off of because of no bloatware....no skins....no BS. It's there, we acknowledge it, and if you know what's up (like us) then good for you, buy the Nexus then.

You guys need to think and consider the fact that this Nexus phone is not as marketable to US general public as a Droid branded phone.

I'm sure we will see a PR release about this phone and maybe a few mentions here, but I don't expect to see a marketing campaign for this phone that rivals the Droid phones.

I think you nailed it. The general public doesn't have any idea about the Nexus phones. Every time I've had one, people will ask, what is that? is that a droid? it's the same way they always confuse my Xoom for a Ipad.

 

[recDNA]

OP

So are you insinuating that VZW will be the first carrier to load bloatware on a Nexus device? First carrier to lockdown a Nexus device?

I really think you are making a much to do over nothing. Kinda "Chicken Little" if you ask me.

Name the other vzw.smart.phones that are bloatware free with unlocked.bootloaders. I think it is a reasonable concern....in fact I will be amazed if this phone is totally unlocked or bloatware free.

I'm not complaining. I'm concerned.

I WILL be complaining to vzw if u guyz are right. Why should I have to void my warranty to get rid of bloatware when nexus doesn't have any? I wont be the only one.

 

[greydarrah]

What part of "Nexus" are you constant complainers not understand?

I understand what Nexus means, and I'm not even complaining...not about Nexus or Verizon. I'm just saying that I don't believe that Verizon is going to let a true Nexus (bloat free vanilla) device on it's network. Just like the Nexus 1 (even though everyone thought the N1 was coming to Verizon), you're going to see it go to another carrier. Verizon wont give up the bloat. There's no business incentive for them to do it.

 

[ottscay]

People really need to stop freaking out. As so many have said, it wouldn't be a Nexus if it was loaded down with bloat. The only thing that may be different is possibly Google Wallet. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all together with the ISIS project so that's they only reason I could see them possibly not wanting Google Wallet to be advertised or on the phone out of the box, but I can't see any other objection Verizon would have with this phone.

Lacking Google Wallet would be enough reason for me to leave. I really want Google wallet, and I'm not impressed with ISIS so far. If they simply don't want it marketed I can understand that, but if they bar it from being used...tough luck for VZW then.

 

[ottscay]

Here's my take:

Verizon is the largest mobile phone network in the US, at least I think it is. Anyways, their target audience is the mass-general public. Us techies....us gadget gurus and forum posters here are an extremely small percentage compared to the general public. We are VERY small.

What I'm saying is, how does a large company like Verizon market a "developer phone" to the mass public? No bloatware, no skins, the NEXUS brand which I bet if you ask people at a local mall here in the US the majority of people would have no idea what a NEXUS phone is. So the simple answer to massively market a NEXUS phone on Verizon is, you don't.

I think your assumption is wrong. The Nexus One wasn't originally intended to be just a developer device, it was supposed to help empower normal consumers to be able to buy one phone first and then shop around for the best deal. The carriers (most especially Verizon) told them to go to hell, and Google had to scramble to get the phone sold at all. The result was a huge mess that had no marketing and mostly only sold to developers (and of course I/O attendees that year got one for free).

The Nexus S seems to have been intended more as a niche product, and if you recall it was announced with a lot less fanfare. But this time around the Galaxy Nexus is clearly intended as a mass market phone. It's meant to sell on all the carriers (much like the Galaxy series of phones), it has an new OS that is meant to show broad appeal to more casual users, and it's being marketed as a device that makes people enchanted and more awesome.

This is NOT intended to be a mere developer phone.

The Nexus phone will be in the background a kind of black sheep that Verizon knows they can't make a whole lot of money off of because of no bloatware....no skins....no BS. It's there, we acknowledge it, and if you know what's up (like us) then good for you, buy the Nexus then.

I seriously doubt this. Verizon explicitly turned down the hottest selling family of Android phones (the GS2) saying they had something coming that would better compete against the new iPhone. Nothing in Verizon's previous actions, nor Google or Samsung's handling of this phone suggests a niche, black-sheep sort of developer-only phone is in store. This is supposed to be a break-out device. Hence why I expect Verizon to want to play hardball over it.

 

[ottscay]

And not to burst any bubbles, but from the official Samsung Facebook thread: "Samsung Janel: My mistake, no U.S. carrier has been determined yet. Stay tuned for updates."

Do you guys the importance of a reversal like this? If the phone wasn't important then they would just ignore a comment like this, even if it's earlier than intended. Some rep on Facebook having to reverse herself for confirming a phone that's already been seen means that the companies are on high alert over the state of their negotiations, and almost certainly means that Verizon is playing hardball over something (i.e. threatening to delay or otherwise screw with the release timeline).

Obviously we can't know what for sure, and I've already shared by concerns above.

 

[kharrigan]

IIRC, ICS has the ability to easily remove apps - so even if Verizon decided to add apps, owners can simply remove them.

-KLH

 

[ottscay]

IIRC, ICS has the ability to easily remove apps - so even if Verizon decided to add apps, owners can simply remove them.

-KLH

Sort of - it allows you to mute the apps, not uninstall them. But you're right that it's more a concern about whether Verizon would bar owners from doing things, or installing apps or services they don't like.

 

[MetalPhoenix79]

I definitely fall on the side of Verizon not putting bloat on this for three reasons. Those that believe there is a chance of bloat believe it because it is "a feeling" or because someone in the know might have a feeling. I have yet to hear from anyone that this will have bloat. I follow P3droid, Kellex, and others. Two, when a dump of all the files from the Verizon's Nexus came out the only thing on it was Verizon disabling tethering. Let's please take a wait and see attitude. Rumors get taken as fact a lot on forums. Three, I honestly believe Google is the bigger dog here. They can release the phone on all the other US carriers, not to mention worldwide. Although Verizon is the biggest US carrier they are not the only game in town. I also believe Google still wants to keep the Nexus pure. My 2 cents.

 

[Mooem]

Well this is certainly disheartening...
Is Verizon getting the Galaxy Nexus?

Mind you these are the same people who released the system dump for ICS (for those of you know who know of P3Droid and TBH), so they obviously have connections.