Monday, May 28,2007 @ 3:05pm
AT&T: Google widgets, customer experience
With the release of the iPhone expected next month, a new interview reveals that "customer experience" helped bridge the gap between Apple and AT&T on many iPhone-related issues and Google applications may be available for the iPhone. Digging for more color on the (high) price compared with other devices/phones, the interview reveals that Google may be releasing its software as "widgets" for the phone and that the (high) price could be justified because it may replace three devices--your iPod, cell phone, and Blackberry/Treo.
"I think when people get their hands on it and really experience it — the touch screen is phenomenal, this touch screen is like nothing you've ever used — to experience that, the skepticism, I think, around some of those things will go away.... There are other things — you have the widgets, some of the Google applications that are coming — there are just so many things here that the price will not be an issue."
The exec, who refused to touch upon any plans by the nation's largest wireless carrier to subsidize the iPhone, touted the wide-screen iPod functions and the phone's ease of use.
"It's the first widescreen iPod they've ever done; it is very, very good, works extremely well," he said. "I think the other thing people haven't really thought through is that Apple's so good at simplifying things. That's just what they're known for; they've really simplified the phone. The standard phone applications are really intuitive, whether it's receiving a phone call, putting that person on hold, adding another party and bringing a conference call together."