Nexus S’s Success Testament to Our Bloatware Hate

By now every single one of you, if I put up a poll on this, would vote that you friggin’ hate carrier bloatware which is why some of you are glad you got an iPhone, a Windows Phone, a Nexus One, why you learned how to root or you just put up with crap in life. Nobody likes carrier bloatware except the carriers because they either don’t’ know any better or because they know some truth about profitability that doesn’t jive with consumer satisfaction.

With what up until now has been minor exception to the Nexus project, Google has pretty much surrendered to carriers and OEMs doing whatever they want to pervert the devices thanks to the whole open thing, a cost of doing FOSS business. I’m not one of them but many would identify the Nexus One as a failure (I regard it as “an enlightening experiment” – and a hell of a phone), one from which Google must have gotten their land legs on how to do the flagship “Google Experience” phone thing with their pals at T-Mobile and at least get what they expect to get more or less in terms of the Nexus S’s sales.

I don’t know what they’re expecting. In the States it’s going to the least popular of the four carriers, though that fine young lady (you know who I’m talking about) in their commercials is turning out to be a game changer in addition to a head turner judging by their Q3 figures. I haven’t seen one ad for this Nexus. Just saw another MyTouch 4G ad and the launch is tomorrow, and I like that actually. At least they made this for the Youtube crowd:

I like the apparent lack of promotion, just like its very-soon-to-be predecessor, because I want to see if disenfranchised Android owners, disillusioned by nothing about Android but the carrier bloatware, gravitate on over to this phone even if it means switching carriers. Specifically the crowd of people who’d otherwise be attracted to AT&T’s Captivate, a similar phone but with an unpleasant taste of the AT&T and Samsung experience muddying up the Google experience. I want to see how this phone fairs against the Captivate, another phone for which I don’t recall seeing any ads, a phone on a much larger network than T-Mobile and on a carrier without any other noteworthy Android phone (whereas T-Mobile has plenty, phones which are often on television). That’s really the selling point on this point as there’s nothing extraordinary about the hardware versus the other top shelf Android phones. Doesn’t even have HSPA+ or dual core.

I am suggesting that if the Nexus S can meet general expectations and either edge out the Captivate’s sales by factoring in AT&T’s base’s size relative to T-Mobile’s — or without doing that at all, just a straight up race, if the phone can do that, it will be a much needed statement to carriers and OEMs that when they put their crap on devices they’re about to sell, they make those devices worse, worse enough that they risk driving sales to carriers who offer a virgin phone like the Nexus S. Maybe some of these asses will get the drift finally. And yes, I applaud Apple and Microsoft for getting a platform out while successfully resisting this garbage. But you’re no better than me, Focus owners, my phone came clean and though most Android phones aren’t Nexus Ones, most Windows phones aren’t Focuses or any of the WP7 devices, not by a longshot. We both have work to do in this department.

Conversely, if consumers don’t see anything special about this phone over the other options and it sells accordingly, that’s affirmation to the carriers to keep on doing their thing, bastards.

I don’t know what the Captivate’s sales figures look like nor am I sure how easily I can find data on Nexus S sales eventually but I am open to taking a thirty dollar bet with one of you on the Nexus S outselling the Captivate off the bat. Doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment, but hey, the Nexus operation doesn’t exactly have a history of getting people to camp out on the streets.

Man I hate bloatware. Fortunately, I’ve forgotten what that suffering is like with my trusty Nexus One toward which I am beginning to amass a whole lot of guilt. I’m rationalizing it to myself as my phone’s not having a T-Mobile radio, not any significant deficiency with the phone itself relative to the Nexus S, and man oh man does AT&T still suck, believe you me.

So, thirty bucks anyone? And how do you think it will hold up against the MyTouch? Parenthetically, I’m concerned Samsung may have switched up the softkey lineup, but whatever. It had better not feel dinky, that’s all I’m saying.

Doug Simmons