Engadget: Nexus One Will Be “Invitation Only” At First

1. I need it immediately! hopefully android developers are considered first for those invites :P

   • I hope so too!

2. 4-connector 3.5mm headphone jack is also interesting. The 4th ring is usually video out.
   Also, is this the first Android phone with Wi-Fi positioning built in? If so that would be a 2.1 feature.

3. Aw, I need to get in on this invitation. :(

4. T-mobile will probably force you to combine the phone with a subscription (and I'm not a t-mobile user) or increase the price to generate some revenue.

5. I think the people who bought G1s and got Android off the cround and going should be invited. I had my G1 and Android before most of the population even knew what it was. I paid full price just to get the phone/experience since I was only a year into my contract! Show a little love to the early adopters Google. The people that have been using the phones and giving feedback and promoting the marketplace since day 1 are the people you should reward. I mean I love app developers, but at the end of the day, most of them are around hoping to make a dollar. Developers tend to not be the fanatics, and the fans are the people you should want getting your phone first!

   • Same here…great reasoning, if only they will listen. Per-orders of the G1 'OCT 09' need to be rewarded….

   • just because you got the g1 doesn't mean ur special. it just means u should've waited lol and i knew what these htc phones were… but i knew waiting for a better phone would be better. thankully the nexus is worth waiting for.

     • If not for the G1, there would not have been a N1 to be waiting for.. :P

   • And you did all of this on your own free will. No one is owed anything just because they use or buy something before others. Your decision to buy something may have been due to ego (the need to be first amongst those you know) or simply because it was what you wanted, but nonetheless, it was your decision.

6. Clearly invites ought to go to those who contribute to Android-related blogs. Clearly.

   And/or those who pre-ordered G1s. That works too.

7. By Invitation Only ? Wonderful….

   Sure, we can give kudos to those who purchase Beta-Hardware with Beta/Gamma-Software, but yet again, just when the hardware/software combo that could finally thrust the platform SIGNIFICANTLY FORWARD….some genius has to come up with the idea that "ooo, we'll make it super-desirable, by keeping it invitation-only at the beginning". Sheer genius.

   Just make the phone generally available already…..geeze, when are people going to learn ?

8. Agreed – G1 users were early adopters and in a very short time (even shorter than most technology) are way behind advancements – jumping to an invited opportunity to get a Nexus One would be fitting!

9. Too bad ATT just does not understand that this phone will provide it significant competition. Yet they are still floggin iPhone, Propietary OS and WinMob

10. I'm an early Android adopter too and am still holding on to my year-and-2-month-old G1, but I seriously doubt that those of us who bought G1s back in 2008 are going to be anywhere near the top of the invite list. I know that it's only fair that we should be, but this isn't about being fair. This is business, and Google is trying to get their phone noticed and adopted by as many people as possible. If you have been excited about Android from the very beginning and got your G1 last year like I did, you're already in Google's pocket, and Google can afford to ignore you for a while longer since they know you're either going to wait or pay premium for their latest and greatest Android offering. Google isn't worried about losing us as customers. I mean, what are you going to do, cancel your T-Mobile service and sign up with AT&T for an iPhone? pfft. I sure as hell wouldn't do that. No, G1 users are generally part of the mobile-tech-savvy minority and not the best candidates for spreading the awesomeness of the Nexus One, as was proven by the fact that the general public was still largely unaware of Android until other trendier phones, like the MyTouch3G started coming out.

11. I remember reading among the early rumors that early Gmail users would be given invites. But that was when it was rumored to be a VOIP-only phone. Maybe that meant early G1 users though? Or both? Sounds good to me! I've been using Gmail since launch and I pre-ordered the G1 also!! i'm also stuck in my contract with Tmo until Oct 2010 and can't upgrade (w/subsidy) until August.

    So if Google provides the Nexus One, unlocked, at a reasonable price (say…$200-$400)… I'm on it!!! Then I can just pop my SIM out of my G1 and be on the cutting edge again!

12. Not fair, I feel like a donkey and Google is riding me holding out a carrot in front of my nose.

13. Whoever gets them – they will be sold at ridiculously high prices on eBay soon after!

14. Nexus One sold by invitation only is a great way to prevent that people line up in those ridiculous queues in the cold to try to buy one of the devices on the first day. Thus based on where you live, Google can send you an email and tell you exacly where and when you may go and pick up your phone, which you may even have pre-paid over the Internet.

    Nexus One has an AMOLED screen, the first 3.7" WVGA one shipping in high quantities, it might not be possible yet for HTC to manufacture unlimited amounts of them. So while the manufacturing might be ramped up over several weeks and months, Google could deploy it using the invitation method. Also, invitation-only retail sale means that Google can offer subsidized price for the unlocked Nexus One, $99 to $199 depending on who it is buying it and how much Google thinks it can monetize that specific user.

    The biggest subsidy could come to users who have been very active on many Google services for more than 2 years and who have not yet purchased a smart phone. While early adopters who already have another Android device or an iphone, may not get the largest subsidy.

    There would be only 1 unlocked device at subsidized price sold per person. If you don't like it anymore, or want to change to using another device. Google could ask you if you would like to return it and get a discount on the next model or to get a coupon to use on Google Checkout or Marketplace. This way Google would refurbish them and keep selling them at less than $100 for a while. If you get one and use it a lot, you can send out a certain number of invites to your friends.

    • The problem is, cell carriers (at least) actually cultivate those long lines… and in particular, Apple too. That's just good for business… if there's a line, it makes the nightly news, and all of a sudden, people who did not know a thing about your CNTO2D (Cool New Tech Object of Desire) are now going to the store to check it out.

      This is certainly more "the next Google Phone" than "THE Google Phone", whether they moved the Google logo from back to front or not. WVGA and AMOLED together ought to be nice, though I'm pretty happy with the DROID right now, and would have no use for lesser resolution at this point, regardless of the display tech. I agree… I'll be the display is a bottleneck in production; every other CNTO2D debuting this year with OLED had the old 480×320, which may be acceptable in a PMP, but it's not enough for a smart phone or PDA.

      The other yawner here is T-Mobile. Yeah, they're a very nice company, great service, I used them for two years. Also, no coverage in many areas, even voice and EDGE was questionable. Their 3G rollout was delayed, waiting for the whole US AWS auction to conclude. And of course, based on the latest info, this one doesn't do 3G on AT&T, which is at least a little better (well, sometimes, in some locales AT&T's cell grid is too wide for GSM). But at least it supports European AWS too…

15. I’m still waiting for the Xperia X10. It looks to have even better specs.

    • ya… buy it for 450+ dollars. i love sony too, but man, you could buy an iphone with that money. and the nexus 1 will be cheaper with tmobile plan. use your head.

16. The specs look pretty awesome, but knowing that its invite only I will just hope for a lottery type invite system. Or, maybe it will be like other Google betas (gmail, voice, and wave come to mind) where you get invited and then can send an invite to some of your friends. haha

17. I really want to know how to get an invite. I want the Nexus one hopefully people who have stuck with android will get invites. I own the G1, MT3G, and theCliq so I will keep my fingers crossed. =)

18. I was actually thinking that Google might base this on people who have a Google Voice account. They already have a phone number through Google and they could potentially use the device, out the box, via wifi without a phone carrier if it does (and it probably will) support VoIP. As people sign up and are invited to Google Voice, they get to buy a phone until it's finally open to the public. Man, those Google Voice invites would go for a premium for sure…

    • I think (and hope!) you're right–if they have aspirations of using Google Voice to "change the game" as far mobile service, it would make sense to give invites to existing GV users. It seems like a very safe assumption that anyone already using GV will take advantage of whatever GV capabilities the phone has–I know I would! This would also let Google conduct a real-world test of the system/service, and ramp up their capabilities with a minimum of glitches. Also, early-adopters will be willing to overlook any minor bumps in the road, so G can avoid PR disasters that would come from rushing the tech to market too quickly.

      Are you listening, Big G? Give me my dang N1 already!

19. wouldn't it make sense for people to get invites as long time members of tmobile lol. android is going to invite developers first. tmobile will invite possibly those who are existing customers. and the rest of you guys are gonna be waiting. and the data plans are much better priced than the limited technology of sprint so i'm happy about that. at&t/cingular may change their rates of iphone for pay per use, and verizon is always gonna be the top and most expensive provider there is. tmobile ha sa shot to be great with this phone and may have more possibilities to merge with another company to rival top mobile co's. so when everything is all said and done. i don't care much for an invite- i just know i'm gonna get it one way or the other. i mean what's a few days or weeks to buy the phone? some techies will pay top dollar for the glitches.. me? i'm gonna pay for a functionally sound product.

20. I don't see anything in the hardware specs that is Earth-shatteringly different that it would require thousands of employees to dog-food it. I also can't think of a reason why a piece of hardware should be sold by invitation only (assuming that to be true). There was a reason why GMail, GVoice and GWave were rolled-out by invitation only: so that Google could gradually ramp up the cloud infrastructure to support those services, fix early bugs, AND get information about which user is "e-related" to which other user (social network map).

    Where am I going with this comment? I wonder if there is a hidden feature or service, beyond the mere N1 hardware itself, that warrants dog-fooding and necessitates the gradual build-up with an invitation-only roll-out. Any guesses on what such a service or feature might be?

    • Has anyone seen any other product on the market with a 3.7" WVGA capacitative AMOLED touch screen? I think this might be the first such device with such a screen. Samsung Omnia HD only has a 640×360 resolution. AMOLED screen technology is more expensive to manufacture than LCD, thus also more limited the quantities that can be manufactured on-demand.

      Also, if Google wants to provide $199 and cheaper pricing, doing it by invitation only is a great way to do that.

      Also, January is cold, Google doesn't want people to queue up for days and hours in front of the stores to get one. So instead just pre-order your unit if you have an invite and be sure that yours is reserved for you to pick up at the Google-partnering retail store at the specific time.

    • I don't think there's much to the notion they're dogfooding the device. They're dogfooding the OS… at least, presumably, calling it 2.1 is saying, yeah, there's more than just a bug fix in here. At least based on 1.5 to 1.6, etc. Maybe, by dropping this on the latest cool phone (and in particular, one with a SIM card slot, so all those iPhoners left at Google could at least play along), they get more active participation from the employees, since now they're carrying the most sought after unreleased tech device of the month.

      Rolling these out by invitation… well, that's kind of a Google S.O.P. now. It's not technically necessary with the phone, but hey, they will be limited by supplies, particularly if HTC is still doing production ramp-up on this. The display is the only really new component (that we know of), and it may well be in short supply. So by making this "invitation only", they can spin this as an careful and controlled tech rollout, with a special phone only going to those special people. A general release too soon, and they get bad press if the supplies are not there.

21. yeah, i've read and heard of something ground-breaking that hasn't been devulged yet. they are doing a great job keeping it secret. guess we'll find out soon.

22. If it is invite only, I hope I get invited. Early G1 owners should definitely be on that list. TMO actually getting a decent android phone again will be nice. Ideally it comes out SOON. I can't wait till my phone can keep up with the software. Cyanogenmod makes my phone great, but the hardware can only do so much.

23. What a poor decision to make it invite-only at first. Too much hype about this phone to not make it readily available to the consumer without the dumb idea to make it available to a select few special folk. I don't even want to speculate over who should have it first. I think everyone should get a crack at it.

    • Keeping it as invite only first will build the feeling of exclusivity for the phone. People inherently want that which they can not have.

24. I don't know about the rest of you, but every time I've been interested in a piece of google technology, I've been able to get an invite within a few days. That goes for gmail, googlewave, google voice, you name it, I've never had to wait more than a couple of weeks to get onboard. Making it invite only prevents people like my dad or sister from jumping on the bandwagon.

    I have a feeling if you are posting here or reading this, you will get an invite quickly because you are no doubt already well entrenched in google's systems.

    • i got my wave, voice and even gmail invites the old fashioned way: I begged for them :)

25. hell yeah i pre ordered my g1 and had to get 3 of them before i got one that wasnt DOA after 3 days…and im still an android fan and supporter that has a mytouch that needs a hot girlfriend named nexus

26. But the good news is it will hopefully be rooted by the time it hits our hands :D

27. Question under the spec sheet i noticed that it has WAVE listed as a feature… Is it safe to assume they mean Google Wave or am I reading too much into that?

    • @meanmcclean: Reading too much, that's under audio decoder, means it can read audio wave or .wav. Not interesting, really

28. Don't get too excited, it is listed under Audio Decoders section so WAVE probably means WAV

29. I believe the more Google services and time spent/interact with them will dictate if you get an invite or not. So start waving and call someone with your voice number.

30. Wow I guess if engadget said it, it must be true. You guys are so gullible.

31. cool's think :D

32. nice man.. this is a very great move..

33. Aw, I need to get in on this invitation. :(

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