I have a Nexus One. I am techy by day job, but I actually held back a few days to read the initial reports.

Meanwhile, a non-tech acquaintance purcahsed the Nexus One — she left her iPhone and AT&T service for it, but apparently didn't really hate AT&T.

She just had to have an N1.

I've since shown the Nexus One to 8 iPhone friends, and all but one has seen it for a few seconds and wanted one of their own. A friend on T-Mobile with a feature phone has wanted an iPhone, but now isn't so sure. He wants to go to a T-Mobile store in a buying mood for the N1 when it's available.

The Nexus One is pretty fabulous, so I don't think Google will hurt itself. As for hurting Android, I'm not so sure either — manufacturers are used to competition. And it looks like Google is getting into bed with more than just HTC for high end Android phones.

I've seen some criticism about Google regarding Android in FOSS forums — apparently Android isn't fully FOSS because parts of it are locked down by Google. Compare this to Symbian, which was similar as of last year, but as of today is now fully FOSS.

The carriers and manufacturers know Google has a lot of control over Android, and the contracts for the level of googlification of Android phones is obvious to them, so it seems they have bought in. We as outsiders are just getting an inkling of how it can shape up, but they all have armies of lawyers combing through every deal when looking at new tech directions.

[...] was equally dismissive of the Nexus One being branded a Google phone along with being called a Super Phone, but that was more of a coming out event rather than a legend taking the stage to one up [...]