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Google, T-Mobile Unveil New Phone
Everyone is calling it the Google Phone. In fact, Google has teamed up with T-Mobile to put Google's Android software on a phone unveiled Tuesday. Android is competing with the iPhone. T-Mobile said it will sell the phone for $179 with a two-year contract.
http://www.findnews.org/technology/57602-google-t-mobile-unveil-new-phone

T-Mobile, the country's fourth largest cell service provider, will unveil today 9-23-2008 the G1, the first mobile phone to feature Google's Android operating system. The much-anticipated device, which would be iPhone's main competitor, is now said to come with free Gmail access, targeting Blackberry users.

In a bid to sell around 400,000 Android phones by the end of the year (that would equate to 4 percent of the smartphones sold in this period) T-Mobile is said to plan on offering free Gmail access, without the need for a data plan. In contrast, Blackberry's e-mail services costs an additional $15 a month on top of the call plan. On the downside, if indeed Gmail access will be free on the G1, T-Mobile might lose many of its Blackberry users who will most likely trade in their older phones.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007790.html




T-Mobile Android phone to hit stores on Oct 17, Sprint Android phone coming next year

Android, Google’s new operating system for devices, will be officially unveiled as part of the HTC “Dream” phone launch on T-Mobile on September 23rd, at a press conference in New York. The phone, to be officially called the “G1″ will ship on October 13th and arrive in stores on October 17, sources tell us. This is a few days earlier than previous reports suggested, but otherwise fits with what we’ve been hearing.

The Android team, which has been given every resource available from Google, has until recently been expecting excited press coverage, sources say. The reason: Android’s software is like a nicely baked cake plus a container of frosting. It’s a full stack of software components for an operating system (the cake itself) that includes customizable interfaces and features such as an “app store” (the frosting). Carriers, in the Android team’s view, just need to take Android and put the frosting on the cake the way they like, so to speak.

A lot of people will expect their Android cake to be frosted like the iPhone, but somehow better. The reality is that there’s not enough accurate information out there to say how the Dream is or isn’t comparable to the iPhone. This perception problem is a result of Google’s own strategy. Google wanted to try out Android with one device and one carrier before pushing out others.

So how much does this first device really matter? Android is itself a software platform, remember, not a direct iPhone competitor. Android is meant to drive the mass market adoption of full-featured “smartphones” and applications. It intends to make the mobile web more ubiquitous so Google can get more people using its various applications and seeing its ads. For this reason, the Android team itself actually sees the iPhone as an ally of sorts.

In the meantime, if you’re looking to do an apples-to-apples comparison of an Android phone and the iPhone, it’s best to wait until more Android-based phones come to market.

Android’s leaders have already started acknowledging the iPhone-comparison perception problems. Perhaps in the light of that uneasiness, Google’s Mike Jennings showed off the Dream handset — from a distance — at a developer conference in London this morning.

http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/16/first-android-phone-to-hit-stores-on-oct-17-sprint-android-phone-coming-next-year/