How Google’s New Moto X Will Transform the Smartphone Landscape—and Threaten Google’s Partners
The new phone will appeal to the masses.
Google has finally unveiled the Moto X “superphone” that the company has been teasing for months. As predicted by the many leaks that preceded today’s announcement, the Moto X is not an ultra high-end Android smartphone intended to go head-to-head with the top phones from Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony. Rather, it’s a thoughtful “mid-range” smartphone that will appeal to the masses.
But the Moto X has a number of unique features—many of which turn it into analways-on sensor cluster that monitors your every motion and verbalization. And these features have, in light of overwhelmingly positive early reviews, the potential to turn it into one of the most popular Android smartphones ever.
That would be great for Motorola, the Google subsidiary that manufactures the phone and which has been losing quite a lot of money of late. But it would be a nightmare for Google’s partners, namely Samsung and LG, which are the #1 and #2 makers of Android handsets, and could also crowd out new entrants like Asus and struggling manufacturers like HTC.