[gardoglee]

Google is an American company, but cell phone innovation is not an American concept. It will be released first in Europe, and probably several other places, because they have the networks in place to support the really good features, and they have the competition in place to bring new products sucessfully to market. What we have is aging infrastructure with second rate obsolete technology which the accounting department will not allow any carriers to replace until it is fully depreciated, as in sometime after we are all retired. Add to that the carrier economic model, which could be called Creative Indentured Servitude, and there is no incentive for innovative product there. If there were, you could run your iPhone on the carrier of your choice.

If you want to have the new toys first, you also have to have a leading edge network on which to deploy them. If instead you live in the capital of the fading empire (e.g., here in the United States of Obsolescence), you only get the good stuff when the manufacturer has already milked all the good money out of Europe, Japan and the Western Pacific Rim. Do you really think the US carriers are ready to have an open platform which would force real competition? They'd like you to think so, even while they are doing everything they can to make sure it doesn't happen.