Google unveiled its new “Google phone”, along with its Android operating system, at the company’s Developer Day conference, giving attendees a brief glance of how to design software for the new device.
The official launch of the “Google Phone” is set for next Tuesday in New York.
Mike Jennings, a member of the Android operating system development team, led a brief demonstration by creating a simple game that showed a blue dot bouncing around the phone’s display that moved as the handset was tilted.
Although hidden by masking tape, the new phone reportedly resembles the Dream, a handset developed by Taiwanese firm HTC, which is expected to be the first commercially available phone to run the Android operating system.
Google and T-Mobile will hold a joint press conference next Tuesday in New York, during which they are expected to confirm the launch of the HTC Dream and disclose further pricing details as well as information about the Dream’s operating system.
HTC has said it expects to ship around 600,000 to 700,000 phones this year.
The Android operating system is designed to move desktop computing to mobile devices by allowing users to surf the Web and conduct everyday applications in a mobile environment. Android is open source, meaning that anyone can build software to run on the device.
It will offer easy access to Gmail, Google’s web-based email service, and other Google services and applications such as the productivity suite Docs and Google Maps.
The Dream is believed to contain a GPS chip, which would it allow it to also function as a mobile sat-nav. The company may also provide additional tools to push travel updates, weather forecasts, restaurant recommendations and other location-specific information to users.
Android phone users will also be able to download additional applications, similar to the way iPhone users add extra software to their handset.
The launch of the “Google phone” will pit the Internet search leader in direct competition with the likes of the BlackBerry mobile email device and Apple’s popular iPhone.
Android will also compete with other mobile phone operating systems, such as Windows Mobile, which is available on many HTC handsets, and Symbian, widely used on Nokia devices.
