When
AT&T announced at CES in January that it would launch five Android-powered phones in the first half of 2010, it looked like the carrier might finally be coming around to the more open mobile
environment embodied by the Google platform. AT&T, along with Verizon Wireless, had been one of the initial holdouts from Google's Open Handset Alliance and is the last major carrier to support
Android.
But now that the wraps have come off the Motorola Backflip -- the first Android phone from AT&T due out Mar. 7 -- it seems like the company is simply forcing the old walled garden
approach on the Google operating system.
In a first hands-on preview of the Backflip,
Engadget reported that Google had been replaced with Yahoo as the default search engine on the phone and that it comes pre-loaded with a raft of AT&T apps and services including AllSport GPS, AT&T
Maps, AT&T Music and AT&T Navigator.
"It's crazy: the home screen widget, the browser, everything's been programmed to use Yahoo. We love us some irony, but golly, we'd prefer Google searches
most of the time," noted Engadget's Chris Ziegler. Mobile blog Phonescoop added that the only way to do a Google search on the Backflip is
to use the Android browser to go to Google.com.
Previous Android phones launched in the U.S. have typically shipped with Google installed as the default search option. As with the desktop
Web, Google accounts for about two-thirds of mobile Internet searches.
AT&T, of course, has a long-standing relationship with Yahoo, with the Web giant's oneSearch offering serving as the
default search engine for the carrier's MediaNet mobile portal. And since Android is an open-source platform, AT&T, and manufacturers like Motorola, with its Blur social networking interface, are free
to reshape it as they wish. But why use Android if you're simply going to strip out all the Google services and apps and replace them with your own?
Because it gives the appearance of being
"open" without really going beyond the close carrier deck? Some Engadget commenters quipped that AT&T's modification of Android on its phones is aimed at insuring they won't cannibalize iPhone sales.
Conspiracy theories aside, AT&T's alliance with Apple appears to remain tight, with the carrier being tapped to supply 3G service for the iPad and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson Tuesday saying the Apple
device will continue to play a key role for in its phone lineup "for quite some period of time." Needless to say, Google and Apple are engaged in a mobile turf war.
It should be interesting to
see whether AT&T continues to make Yahoo the default search provider for subsequent Android phones, or at least makes it easier to access other search options including Bing. But don't bank on it.