This rant had very little to do with the actual Android UX, and was mostly whining about bad customer service. Not that bad service is excusable, but it doesn't have anything to do with Android itself.
The point made in the article, and which I certainly agree with, is that a product like the G1 is not just a piece of hardware, it's a package consisting of the hardware, the service, the user experience, the customer service, the purchasing experience, etc. If you fail miserably at several of those, even if you excel at the others you'll probably have a hard time becoming a commercial success.
One of the things Apple has traditionally been good at is precisely managing the "whole thing" - from the perception of the product when it is first announced, to the marketing buzz until the product is launched, the launch itself, the purchasing experience, the after-sale service, and even the after-use experience (when your iPod starts to get old - hey, you can have a brand new one that's even better!).
Google's not gonna be able to compete with the iPhone until it gets more of these right.
And following that strategy it makes perfect sense that Apple would screen the app store. It bothers me when people complain that it should be open to everything with out considering that there is a bigger picture.
I have no problem with Apple screening apps for the store. I have a problem with the opacity of the screening process, and the arbitrary, anti-competitive rejections that Apple gives developers who have spent lots of time, effort, and money to develop and have no reasonable expectation for rejection.
See: rejection of apps for competing too closely with iTunes, Mail.app, et al.
Agreed. The only thing he actually said about the phone itself was that it gets about four hours active use. He could have had the same purchasing experience for any next-gen phone. A better title would have been "The customer experience failure of T-Mobile UK".
That's not true; he spends several grafs talking about quirky inputs, bad battery life, and a less effective Google Maps interface than on the iPod Touch or his old Nokia phone.
Interesting to note is that the author's experiences are with the UK branch of T-Mobile's customer service, which was likely not as well informed, integrated, or organized as the US division due to locality of Google.
However, as a semi-loyal T-Mobile customer myself, I have to agree that the 'buzz generation' and training of local store reps are sub-par for the G1. None of my local T-Mobile stores had Google reps even on launch day, and only sport a variety of Google-branded posters and a trio of non-functional demo units (one for each color choice). As of yesterday, one of the display models even had its touch screen broken off, although likely no fault of the unit with the idiots, college students, and unsupervised children that roam the malls here...
I'm personally waiting more for Android to start functioning on the Neo Freerunner, which is apparently very close to reality [1], although the developers will still need to solve the input problem, considering the Neo lacks a hardware keyboard, and Android lacks any on-screen input options (which will supposedly be fixed 'soon' by Google).
I have no experience with the foreign branches, but considering how much emphasis is placed on customer service at TMobile USA, it's surprising how badly that was flubbed. TMobile USA pushes that they are competing to be the best service organization in the US. (Not best service of a cell phone provider, but best of any company. http://www.t-mobile.com/company/PressReleases_Article.aspx?a...
shows a bit of the push.) I'll also point out that verizon seems to have beat them in the last rankings.
I can't speak as to how well this works in practice at their actual facilities. I only went through the standard initialization after a takeover at a location that is scheduled to be closed soon. I've already found a job elsewhere, so no worries there.
For what it's worth, T-Mobile USA does pretty well in the Consumer Reports recommendations (worse than Verizon, better than AT&T and Sprint). I find it a little funny that another comment in this thread lauds Apple for focusing on every detail of the user experience, and yet Apple chose to partner exclusively with AT&T, which Consumer Reports describes as "Home of the iPhone but trails the better carriers in almost all respects."
At a different previous job, when AT&T and Cingular were merging and TMobile was the other big customer (company provided US GSM services), TMobile had the reputation of being the professional ones.
When the carrier I was talking about earlier was taken over, I saw a somewhat poorly organized IT merger, but nothing that detracted from that reputation. The original interactions were on the GSM network side, while the takeover occurred while I was in the application development/e-commerce side of the purchased company.
Consumer Reports agrees with my personal experience with each company, and as a customer of Verizon.
