Google's Android stand at Mobile World Congress has been getting men of a certain age and scruffiness hot under the collar all week with its giant green robots and collectable pin-badges. But women? INQ CEO Frank Meehan thinks Android still isn't androgynous enough.
"If you go to a nightclub in any city in the world, the pretty girl has an iPhone or a BlackBerry," he tells Mashable. "She doesn't have an Android phone. She has no emotional attachment to an Android phone. It's too complicated. It's a geek device, it's all wrong."
Hang on a minute. Doesn't INQ make Android phones? It certainly does: the company has just unveiled its Cloud Q and Cloud Touch handsets, which both run Google's OS. The former is a BlackBerry-style smart phone with a Qwerty keyboard, while the latter is a touchscreen device. Both come with Facebook and Spotify deeply integrated.
Their actual specs aren't as powerful as some of their Android rivals, but Meehan thinks this is because other manufacturers are missing the point. "Android manufacturers are all just focused utterly on the tech, because they're all hardware guys. They don't get software. They've tried to outdo Apple with hardware, but the problem is the customer doesn't care," he says.
"The Samsung Galaxy has done pretty well, but it's just price-driven. It's not desire-driven. There are no lines out the door to get a Galaxy. They've done all this work on branding, but the name doesn't mean anything to consumers. It's like calling a phone 'Alpha Centauri' or 'Uranus'."
We suspect few manufacturers are queuing up to bag the latter name. INQ's handsets are clearly targeting a more mainstream audience. Will the Cloud Q and Cloud Touch be enough to tempt women away from their iPhones and BlackBerries? Has Meehan got this all wrong? Are a female Android user, insulted by his comments? Let us know your thoughts in a comment, whatever your gender or level of beautification.
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Comments 28
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skapete 18 February, 2011 12:02
This guy has a point indeed. Although quite how people enjoy the disgusting blackberry software is beyond me!
oimikey 18 February, 2011 12:03
lol @ uranus
1000123837 18 February, 2011 12:59
Blackberries are hideous but maybe I just realise that becuase I am an informed tech enthusiast AKA geek? Perhaps he has a point. Most people don't really care as long as it looks trendy and does what they expect it to do. I think that is one of the reasons the iPhone is so popular, if over priced (and why they get away with charging so much).
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 13:04
iPhones appeal because they're almost idiot-proof ;) Fashion victims are still lining up to buy one too
BBs appeal because women can waste away their day chatting rubbish on BBM!
Watching a woman try to use a touch screen with fake nails on is pretty entertaing though
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 13:11
Generalisation amounting to nonsense. Ugly sexism in the suggestion that 'pretty girls' can't deal with/don't want anything 'too complicated' and in tagging females to their appearance, which should be as utterly irrelevant is it is when talking about males. I am female and specifically chose Android for its higher level of functionality and personalisation.
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 14:01
I don't know why femi-nazi want to get all reactionary about the truth. A lot of pretty and image conscious women could careless about the android and don't want to get a headache figuring out any geek gadgets. Then there is the cute and popularity factor, that women are more likely to go along with...
And I'm a woman.
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 14:10
I'm a woman and I think this INQ chap has a point. I do have an Android phone, but I munt for Britain.
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 15:09
I object to people who clearly can't know the meaning of 'feminist' or 'nazi' flinging such terms around as though they are trivial.
Fine - there exist image-conscious women who don't choose Android because it is 'geeky' or supposedly 'complicated' . But there are also plenty of women who do not conform to this stereotype and object to being lumped in with a generalised group.
Women consistently have to put up with being characterised by reference to physical appearance, whereas men don't. Using 'pretty' as the differentiator here is a classic example of this. We might hope for better from a figure of authority in the public eye with the power to influence.
The fight for equality continues.
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 15:59
This guy is close but he hasn't quite worked it out.
Superficial girls like status symbols.
iPhone is currently a status symbol.
Android is not yet a status symbol.
This is the true reason - it is all about status - it is nothing to do with the operating system, it is to do with the marketing.
Apple is excellent at making dumb people desire crap products.
anonymous 18 February, 2011 16:48
"Superficial PEOPLE like status symbols"
Fixed it for you
iddrisu6 18 February, 2011 16:59
blackberry are for girls because of the bbm for chatting and gossiping and guys who uses blackberry like playing around (players). do ur research. INQ CEO Frank Meehan. hahaha
fillip2k 18 February, 2011 17:06
I'd love to put a nice new Uranus to my ear...
I know many girls with android phones, none of them "munt for Britian" maybe on a regional level though. Also why does he only call upon pretty girls, I'm a very pretty boy and I have an android phone... I have emotional attachment to it, it lets me speak to all my pretty friends and arrange pretty-ness parades. I might start a dating service for pretty android users kind of like cupidtino or whatever it's was called...
Also has his company not produced a phone most adults would not really be interested in? The software might be nice but his phones look like the kind of thing a teenager would use, not something a pretty girl will flash in a nightclub to try and attract a new back account to pillage, I mean mate...
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 19:44
Has google ever had a real campaign or marketed android under any kind of overall umbrella term? No adds I can remember apart from the nexus but its always been kind of low key, nothing like the s**tstorm that crapple creates. I only learnt about android through phones like the hero via blogs. . Whatever android has got it has created through little more than word of mouth and techy blogs. Its not about the product its about the marketing. it has never really tried to capture the public imagination. Indeed I have met people with android phones who didnt know there was a generic name for them.
ace9988 18 February, 2011 22:23
1st of all i know plenty of pretty girls who have android phones....secondly, this person is just wasting time by putting up such a useless comment about the software HIS COMPANY uses on it's handsets
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 22:38
"If you go to a nightclub in any city in the world, the pretty girl has an iPhone or a BlackBerry,"
Simple, it matches their purse or shoes!!!
Anonymous 18 February, 2011 22:40
I'm female with a Droid and a Color Nook that I rooted.
My best friend (female) played around with my Color Nook. A week later she wrote to ask me the name of that "gadget" because she wants one.
Maybe we aren't pretty?
Anonymous 19 February, 2011 00:01
Im a female who wanted blackberries n iphones..now its yesterday for me..i love android
Anonymous 19 February, 2011 10:15
Meehan's right. I've only ever seen dogs using Android. Just because your a woman and use Android and *think* you're pretty doesn't mean you are. You're probably rough. Just look at your man. If he's a minger so are you probably. People of similar attractiveness levels end up together, unless money comes into it. Stop deluding yourselves, ugly ladies. Sent from my iPhone.
AppleRocks16 19 February, 2011 11:18
I think it would depend on personal preference . I have seen quite a few girls with Android devices, so saying that pretty girls go for iPhones is possibly a bit exaggerated.
Anonymous 20 February, 2011 14:02
yechhh, have you seen how UGLY INQ phones are????? and of course. 'pretty ladies' beoieve anything thier managers tell them, they hardly know how to use a phone, so they get a 'pretty' one...
Anonymous 20 February, 2011 14:09
"use a touch screen with fake nails" - blame them for not using a *resistive* touch screen, that use CAN use fake nails with!! - maybe why the 5800 is still popular, though old..
It is easy to tell who are the girls with a good brain here.. So guys, look for the girl with an android, If you want *intelligent* chat... :)
slaguru666 21 February, 2011 11:45
The fact is that bad toothed, BO smelling geeks use android phones.
They sit on tech forums shouting iPhone users are shallow, dumb, stupid, sheep, blah blah blah.
They shout about how many wifi hotspots they can make, they dribble at how many gigahertz a phone has, they come over all funny when they see another update is 'Planned' in the future. They get crazy at the thought of 'rooting' and 'Roms'.
This guy talks in stereotypes, but from the look of some of the comments here so do many others.
If girls like iPhones and BB's they like them for a reason. Saying that its because its a status symbol is as sexist as saying pretty girls love iPhones.
People like what they like, its called choice and freedom.
Anonymous 21 February, 2011 12:38
My wife uses an HTC Wildfire, has chosen a selection of useful and entertaining apps, added an SD Micro card and filled it with her tunes so she doesn't need to tote her iPod as well. And she's gorgeous. Also smart like you wouldn't believe. Oh, and funny.
Apple products are technically nothing special, but are well styled and marketed carefully to people to whom style is more important than function. Which is fine, because let's face it that covers 90+% of consumer products anyway. No point getting all wound up about it. Meehan is however an inconsiderate fool for the generalisations me makes and the language he uses.
Anonymous 21 February, 2011 12:43
The fact they prefer BlackBerrys and iPhones ins't going to help INQ much. All PR is supposedly good PR but I he's barking up the wrong tree and at the wrong people if he wants to sell his phones. I would probably add that calling something a Cloud is as pointeless and irrelevant as sticking it up Uranus!
Anonymous 25 February, 2011 13:24
And, what about gay preferences?
bk93 25 February, 2011 14:37
my girlfriend is pretty and she uses an android
olivierm 26 February, 2011 15:05
Wow, and if at work I blabber around like an idiot more, I also become a CEO of a consumer electronics giant ? Way to go......
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