The ace-in-the-hole that no one seems to be talking much about is native Google support. Gmail has such an enormous market penetration (I dunno, millions? bazillions of users now?) that just having built-in Gmail and calendar stuff will be huge for a lot of people (like me).
Gmail actually isn't anywhere NEAR as popular as most techies think. To be sure, it's one of the largest and fastest growing webmail platforms for sure. But it still trails more established email services like Yahoo/Live by a WIDE margin when it comes to user base.
But I do agree with your general point. For those looking for tighter integration with their existing phone it'll be a nice feature. It's always been frustrating to me to not have YahooGo-like platform for Google (although Android will obviously have much more in-depth integration.)
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The ace-in-the-hole that no one seems to be talking much about is native Google support. Gmail has such an enormous market penetration (I dunno, millions? bazillions of users now?) that just having built-in Gmail and calendar stuff will be huge for a lot of people (like me).
Gmail actually isn't anywhere NEAR as popular as most techies think. To be sure, it's one of the largest and fastest growing webmail platforms for sure. But it still trails more established email services like Yahoo/Live by a WIDE margin when it comes to user base.
http://www.hitwise.com/datacenter/rankings.php
But I do agree with your general point. For those looking for tighter integration with their existing phone it'll be a nice feature. It's always been frustrating to me to not have YahooGo-like platform for Google (although Android will obviously have much more in-depth integration.)