Google’s First Android Phone Coming Next Month
The first phone to use Google’s new Android operating system aims to be the first real competitor to Apple’s iPhone.
The G1 phone will be introduced to customers on Oct. 22 through T-Mobile service. HTC Corp, the phones maker, introduced the phone on Tuesday.
The G1 phone features a touch-sensitive screen, computer-like Qwerty keyboard and Wi-Fi connections.
The phone comes in three colors ““ black, white and brown ““ and will be available for $179 with a two-year contract ““ that’s $20 less than Apple’s iPhone.
The phone will be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third-generation wireless data network. By launch, that will be 21 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami.
Consumers in other regions will be able to buy the phone from T-Mobile’s Web site.
The handset will be available in the UK in time for Christmas.
Google announced its plans for the Android phone software in November 2007 with a declared aim of making it easier to get at the web while on the move.
To help develop Android, Google also unveiled the Open Handset Alliance – a partnership of more than 30 firms that would work to make phone software easier to work with.
Google is giving away Android, the software that underlies the G1, for free, and opening the operating system to third-party developers who can create their own programs.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google’s founders, made a surprise appearance at the launch event.
"It’s just very exciting for me as a computer geek to be able to have a phone that I can play with and modify and innovate upon just like I have with computers in the past," Brin said.
Brin said he’d written an application for Android already: When a user throws the phone into the air, the program records how long it takes until it lands, using the phone’s built-in motion sensor. He acknowledged that the wisdom of including such a program with an expensive phone is dubious.
"We did not include that one by default," he said.
The data plan for the phone will add an extra $25 per month on to the price of the calling service.
"The G1 doesn’t threaten Apple now, but Android has raised the bar for competing mobile platforms. The bigger concern here is for Microsoft and Nokia if Google can win over the hearts and minds of operators and developers," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst with British firm CCS Insight.
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