Here is some notes from a reading in WSJ and the Consumer Forrester blog.

Few take away (speculations, nothing is confirmed by Google)…
- The phone will be directly sold to consumer (direct sale without going through the carriers, hense unlock)
- Code name: Nexus One
- Manufactured by HTC
- Running Android
- Google designed the entire software experience (applications and “look and feel”)

Challenges ?
- The move could alienate wireless carriers and handset makers that offer Android phones and do not want to compete with Google
- The move also marks a rare foray into direct sales for Google. With the exception of an appliance it markets as a search tool to businesses, the company hasn’t sold hardware in the past.
- Will the phone be sold at full retail price, or will it be subsidized? (for instance by the ads running on the device)

Disruption ?
Google could subsidized it and they would be counting on advertising revenue to repay the cost. Mobile operators can subsidize phones because they repay the cost in service fees, locked in for one or two years. How much money do carriers make with monthly subscription ? $70 ? that’s a lot of ad revenue but on the long term it might be doable. The end user is still free to change operator for a cheaper service for instance, Google does not care.

What is the next ?
If subsidizing a phone is something you can think of when you are in Google position, the logical next step would be to apply the same strategy on another market: netbooks. Google is working on a cheap – free – operating system for netbook called Chrome OS! and hardware is even cheaper. My take: both – the phone and the netbook – could be given out for free…

UPDATE: more readings:
Reuters: Nexus One Available Directly Through Google Website January 5
Exclusive: first Google Phone / Nexus One photos, Android 2.1 on-board
Why the Google Phone is Really About Google Ads
Get Ready For The Google Branded Chrome OS Netbook

I have been playing around with Jolicloud lately on a Eeepc 1008HA netbook…

What is it ? A cool new OS for your netbook… It is basically Ubuntu netbook edition with some changes (added some Prism launcher) and with the addition of a social layer. Definitively an attempt towards the “internet as an operating system” (like Chrome OS). To benefit from all nice Jolicloud features you need an account in the cloud on my.jolicloud.com (I have 10 invitations,…).

An app store. Jolicloud brings the well known concept of app store (known from Apple or Android) to the desktop/netbook. Once you log in from your netbook you can access the app store with different categories. All applications are available within a click to download and install. Really neat.

Social Yeap, you can create your own social network and add friends to your profile. You can see then what applications they have installed. Not much friends out there using Jolicloud so I could not test that in depth.

What could be done more ? While I am looking forward to try out Chrome OS, I believe this is definitively a step towards a computer that gets usable by everyone. I would still remove some icons and features (system, management,…) that should be visible only to administrator (if there is one). Also it should be plug-gable on existing social network (I am fed up to build my network every time). It does not seem to handle multiple users…

Installation. I put an image on an USB key and run the installation from there (needed to change some settings in the Bios). Easy but should be even easier for the mass market.

What else ? The Dropbox application is available in the app store, and I definitively love it!!! I installed the application, enters my username/password and here we go, all my files were available to me on the netbook. Awesome!

Still need to find out how to develop new application,…

Read more on CNET: Preview of Jolicloud: The social Netbook OS

I had to quickly found alternatives tools… on the left an iPod 1st gen (I bet you have not seen one of this for quite some time mmh ?), and on the right an HTC Magic phone. Both needed to be charged but are working just fine. The Android phone gets the preference over my good old N95 because I wanted to take the opportunity of trying out “new” Google OS.

It actually appears that a hard reboot was enough to heal my iPhone. I did not think of it at first because I am used to simply remove the battery on my N95 but it does seem quite obvious now (more and more often I do really wonder if I am really an engineer…).

I have to admit that I was a bit scarred to live without my iPhone but despite its recovery I will be testing the HTC Magic for a while… and might report here my thoughts.

The G1 won’t officially be available until October 22. [...] Reports are in that up to 1.5 million G1 devices have been pre-sold and you can bet that more will be coming in.

With that, Motorola is building a 350-persons Android team and Nokia is also around (though they have to take care of Symbian as well)…

It is going to be interesting… an open-source OS with an appealing development environment,… time to investigate further this Android thing!

Read also: 11 ways Android will kick the iPhone’s ass