Buried in news of a partnership with Vodafone and Verizon is the somewhat surprising (or perhaps somewhat expected, depending on your school of thought) news that the Google Nexus One will not be headed toward Verizon anytime soon (if at all) - or at least that's how I'm reading between the lines.
Instead, the post on Google's official Nexus One blog reads: "In the US, if you’ve been waiting for the Nexus One for Verizon Wireless’ network, head over to http://phones.verizonwireless.com/htc/incredible to pre-order the Droid Incredible by HTC, a powerful new Android phone and a cousin of the Nexus One that is similarly feature-packed. It will be available in stores on April 29th."
This seems contrary to Google's original plan to sell their self-branded phone through their own online store, and frankly I'm confused. Additionally, what does this mean for the Sprint N1? When Verizon announced they would have an N1 come Spring, Sprint was quick to jump on the bandwagon and say 'We're getting the N1 too!' Now I'm beginning to wonder if the HTC EVO 4G will end up being Sprint's version of the N1.
As usual time will tell, but I'm getting increasingly interested to see what Google's plan is, and whether they have one. Perhaps the Nexus One is a concept as well as a branded device that is supposed to spur innovation among superphone makers, and if so, maybe this isn't so bad after all. If you have any insight, fell free to leave it in the comments, as usual!
Update: I don't know how I missed this the first time around, but it really seems like Google is changing their game plan in a major way. Not only is the Nexus one coming to Vodafone UK (with no plans of being sold on Verizon), but you can pre-order the phone from the Vodafone website, and not the Google store site. Go here to see what I mean. Could this be the beginning of a Nexus One migration to retail stores?