Tech News: Google’s Upcoming Phone: More Details

Though a number of blogs earlier this week stated the exact same thing, the New York Times today confirms that T-Mobile will be the first wireless carrier to sell a Google OS-based phone starting this fall. Videos of the new HTC “Dream” with Google’s Android OS have been circulating for the last week, and the Times claims that T-Mobile, Google and HTC all hope to officially announce the phone next month. It’s still a bit strange that Google’s wireless broadband centric OS is debuting on the least developed of all third generation carrier networks (T-Mobile’s HSDPA network has only so far been deployed in NYC and Las Vegas). 1

Software is, in fact, what will make or break this gadget, which some call the gPhone. There have been plenty of touch-screen iPhone clones already, several of them from HTC. They’ve done well, but not nearly as well as Apple’s iPhone. Could the Android phone change that? 2

Last week Brian wrote about the loud rumor buzz concerning the first Android phone allegedly heading to T-Mobile. Now comes word another milestone has been reached with a new release of the Android SDK. 3

The phone will have access to upcoming T-Mobile App Store, which will be very similar to Apple’s store featuring third-party iPhone applications. Only T-Mobile will likely place fewer restrictions on software developers, so that Android phone users may have more games and productivity apps to choose from. 4

The phone will come with Google’s advertising software pre-installed. Customers who opt in to receive mobile ads from Google may be offered to buy the phone for a lower price, and may also pay lower monthly service fees. The Google platform will serve ads based on your interests and location, provided by the phone. 5