GPhones Expected Soon, At February’s 3GSM Wireless Show

Next month's annual 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain may do for Google's Linux-based gPhone/Android initiative what last year's MacWorld did the iPhone. That because rumor has it the general public will get their first chance to see phones running on Google's smartphone platform at the giant trade show.
What has set the Internet rumor mill ablaze? Google has apparently reserved a couple of booths on the floor at the show, which begins on February 11th.
So at the show you may just be able to get your hands on some gPhone prototypes for the running Android, which would provide these handsets with an operating system, middleware, user-interface, and application support.
And since there isn't going to be a single gPhone (nope, Google isn’t getting into phone-hardware business) from a single manufacturer, you’ll likely see Android-based devices take on variety of different designs and form factors.
One smartphone veteran that has committed to building Android handsets is HTC, a company that has designed and built Windows Mobile devices in a wide array of form factors over the years: with and without keyboards, keypads, touch screens, etc. There’s every reason to believe it’ll bring the same type of creativity to its gPhone designs.
Some pictures of devices purported to be running an early version of Android have even already made their way out and into the wild (see top picture from Gizmodo).
Google is just one (yes, very important) member of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of over 30 manufacturers, carriers, and developers looking to leverage Android as the foundation for a new type of mobile ecosystem , one not based on proprietary hardware and software standards.
The point of the OHA is to help speed up innovation and deliver a more user-friendly and flexible user experience to consumers; an experience that may feature applications and capabilities currently not available in the wireless world.

Although Google only announced Android a couple of months ago, a software development kit (SDK) is already available and in the hands of interested developers.
Google is even running a contest backed by $10 million in price money, to be distributed in two parts, to help get developers hopping onto the Android bandwagon.
The Android Developer Challenge part I started accepting application submissions a couple of days ago, on January 2nd, and will continue to do so until March 3rd. 50 entries will receive a $25,000 to fund further development, with ten of these eligible to receive an additional $275,000 and another ten $100,000 each.
The second part of the Android Developer Challenge, where the rest of the prize money will be distributed, won't begin until the first handsets built on Google’s mobile platform become available, which is estimated to happen sometime during the second half of this year.

PDA street

how Google could rewrite the rules of Gphone

If done right, the Gphone and not the iPhone will be the one to change the face of the wireless industry.
Apple’s iPhone, at least in its initial release, has not upended the wireless industry, particularly in the United States, as much as hoped. The iPhone certainly has pushed the cell phone envelope a bit further, and it hints at what’s to come, but so far the iPhone is still playing by the rules.
Google, if it enters the fray as expected with its so-called Gphone, may truly rewrite the rules. What it plans to do is an ongoing topic of discussion and speculation on the Internet, not unlike Apple’s plans for the iPhone before its release at the end of June. The Gphone may be announced as early as next week and may debut as early as the first quarter of 2008. The anticipation will be as fervent as it was for the iPhone, without the Steve Jobs showmanship.

Why Google? Why A Phone?



Google is positioning itself for the future. It’s conquered search on the Internet, revolutionized advertising with AdSense, and opened the door for the development and acceptance of Web applications like Gmail and Gcal. At the same time Google is leading a media renaissance with the acquisitions of YouTube, Blogger, Picasa.
Google could sit tight and count its pennies, not unlike what Microsoft did during its heyday, or it could push forward, beyond the desktop and into the mobile world, where content and information are meeting voice communication and the cell phone.
It’s a natural fit. Google takes what it has pioneered on the desktop and through the browser and applies it to mobile lifestyles, providing a seamless transition for people on the go. At the same time it opens up new opportunities for search and advertising, expanding the “Googleverse” (and bottom line) even more.
Unlike Apple, which positioned itself as hardware-focused and consumer-friendly with the iPhone, Google is diving much deeper into the world of telecommunications and many wonder if it plans to become a wireless carrier just like Verizon or AT&T. Google has been lobbying the U.S. government for changes in wireless policy. While it did not achieve as much as it wanted in the planning for the upcoming 700 Mhz spectrum auction in January, it did push for the fact that consumers in the U.S. can buy any phone and use it on any carrier in the future.
Google is also expected to bid on the spectrum, pledging upwards of $5 billion in an auction that may net the government between $10 billion and $12 billion. What Google plans to do with the spectrum, and how it might fit in with Gphone plans, is the focus of media and Internet speculation.
So what will be Gphone be?
If done right, the Gphone will change the wireless industry, at least in the U.S. If not done right, the Gphone will be just another cell phone with some advanced features. Here’s what it might look like, if done right:


Tech Specs


Operating System


The big rumor is that Google is working on its own operating system, which would make sense if Google is to tie all of its applications and properties together in a cell phone. Back in 2005, Google purchased the mobile software company Android, started by Danger cofounder and former president Andy Rubin. The Android/Google team supposedly has developed a Linux-based mobile OS, which one expects will integrate tightly with Google’s interests to provide a satisfying user experience.


Radio Communications


To be truly carrier agnostic and international, the Google phone will have to support CDMA and GSM standards. Could these be built into the same phone or will there be several models available for the different carriers? Come to think of it, if Google is successful in its bid for some of the 700 Mhz spectrum, what will it do with it and how will it affect the Google phone?
The Google phone most certainly will support Wi-Fi and most likely 3G for wireless data transfers. Apple has come under fire for not supporting 3G immediately in the iPhone, although this is expected to change with the phone’s next release. The use of 3G also will make the Google phone attractive internationally.
Google’s Gtalk is a VoIP service, allowing people to hold phone conversations over the Internet. Many are hoping and praying that the Google phone will support Internet telephony, either through Gtalk or maybe even Skype.


The Physical Phone





Display

While larger-screen cell phones have been around for many years, the release of the iPhone has drawn attention to an elegant, crisp display that measures a generous 3 inches by 2 inches, eclipsing all cell displays to date. With the amount of data expected to be accessed on a Google phone, it would be stupid not to include a large quality display.


Input


People are split on the subject of input. Should the Google phone have a touch screen interface like the iPhone, should it have a tiny QWERTY keyboard like a BlackBerry, should it have a stylus/touch interface like a PDA, or should it have a slide-out keyboard found on newer cell phone models?
No matter which direction Google goes, somebody will be unhappy. What Google should keep in mind is this: make input as easy and enjoyable for the user as possible. Remember: People will be interacting with the Google phone in many ways, accessing and using a large amount of data, and creating content, so crummy input will severely impair the device.


The Fun Stuff

The iPhone sports a 2 megapixel camera. Google should at least match this, or maybe go one better if it’s feasible cost-wise. One way Google could differentiate its camera from others is not through megapixels but through image stabilization, which is now found on many point-and-shoot cameras and high-end lenses for digital cameras. Camera shake is prevalent in cell phone cameras — especially, it seems, on the iPhone — and including IS would do wonders to minimize shaky, soft, and slightly blurry images.
Video cameras on cell phones are nice to have, and are becoming more relevant in the era of YouTube. But cell phone video cameras suck. The “film” is grainy and its hard to do anything with the content other than watch it on the phone. A cell phone that could shoot 640 x 480 video, in an acceptable standard (like H.264), and allow people to do something with the content (email, download to a computer, upload to YouTube) would usher in a new wave of mobile content development.
Finally, the Google phone must include GPS, which is another complaint of the iPhone. The iPhone uses Google Maps, a nice-to-have application that falls short of being truly useful without GPS capabilities. Imagine GPS on the Google phone: Addresses in Gmail or in Gcal are automatically mapped and plotted for real-time travel. Another benefit of using GPS is the coming of location-based services and proximity-based notifications.
There’s been very little speculation about the Google phone having a built in MP3 music player and video-playback features like the iPhone and iPod. Music playback is not unlikely, and one can be certain that YouTube will be built into the phone. Whether it can play other video is uncertain.


Design

It’s doubtful Google itself will design the phone. Google is expected to use overseas OEMs like HTC or maybe farm design to handset manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, or Danger, freeing Google to work with HTC on the manufacturing.
Google’s track record — as seen through its Web application development — is no thrills and minimalist. Expect the phone to be innovative and full of promise but not nearly as pretty and awe-inspiring as the iPhone.df

Applications


There’s no doubt that Google will showcase its suite of applications and properties: its many varieties of Search, Gmail, Gcal, Gtalk, Gchat, Documents and Spreadsheets (part of the so-called Goffice), Google Groups, Google Notebook, Google Maps (and maybe even Google Earth), YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, and so on.
But let’s hope that Google doesn’t go all “Googlely” on us. In other words, promote the “Googleverse” as much as possible but leave the Gphone platform open for third party developers, something that the iPhone lacks. If someone wants to use AOL’s Instant Messenger or Yahoo Chat instead of or in addition to Gchat, let them download and install applications so the phone truly fits their needs.
Google needs to be smart. It has an opportunity here to redefine the relationship between a mobile device, applications, and the customer experience. For the most part, mobile applications today are just extensions of desktop programs. Google should take the opportunity to rethink and tweak its applications to work well in mobile and desktop settings. For example:


Gmail and Gcal, as previously noted, can integrate more closely with Google Maps when people are mobile.
Docs could be integrated with Blogger, so when users are mobile and are using Docs they can update easily their blogs without having to use a separate program.
The digital camera application, Picasa, should not only upload photos directly to Picasa but also be flexible enough to upload to non-Google properties such as flickr. Picasa might also provide a few rudimentary editing and image manipulation tools.
The digital video camera application, whatever it may be called, should also upload directly to Google’s YouTube and maybe even supply rudimentary editing tools as well.
By the way, editing — cutting and pasting on a cell phone — should be as easy as possible because people will be moving information between all sorts of Google applications, including Google Groups and Google Notebook. Cutting and pasting is currently not available on the iPhone.

Being Social

To be truly revolutionary, the Google phone should play nice with the other kids, especially in a social setting. Not everybody is using Google’s social network, Dodgeball; in fact, many people use more than one social network — MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Twitter — and these should be available on the Gphone through third party developers. Google is rumored to be working on a social aggregator as well, which could certainly work on the phone.

Advertising

It’s the giant smelly monster sitting in the middle of the room. If there’s going to be a Google phone, and it looks like that’s a distinct possibility, expect advertising along the lines of AdSense and the recently introduced “ticker ads” Google is now placing on certain YouTube videos.
Mobile advertising revenue is another billion-dollar cash cow for Google. Some people could care less if there is advertising on the phone, as long as their monthly bill and the cost of the phone are cheaper than they are today. Some people hate advertising and swear that if there are ads on their phone they will not use Google. They’d rather pay higher prices for the phone and their service.
It’s doubtful, but perhaps Google comes out with two flavors: one with advertising, lowering initial purchase costs and monthly bills, and one that has no advertising but costs more to purchase and has higher monthly fees.

Verdict

So what if Google doesn’t deliver the right Gphone? What if it has only some of the features and functions discussed above? The Gphone could still revolutionize the wireless industry, but not by itself.
What if Google and Apple are in cahoots? Google’s Eric Schmidt already sits on Apple’s board of directors. And there’s cozy integration between Google and Apple in the iPhone, AppleTV, and in iLife ‘08. Could Google and Apple — two outsiders — take on the wireless industry and change it? We’ll find out, as soon as Google delivers the Gphone.

Concept Credit: The Gphone concepts were contributed by Lorin Wood, a previsualization designer who specializes in concepts and ideation for Hollywood. His portfolio and art direction can be found at his Web site (he also maintains a blog). Wood’s concepts for last100 explored how Google applications, and its advertising, might look like on the Gphone. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you a comment ^^

The debut of Gphone my will be in Barcelona

We’re all waiting anxiously for what Google is going to have in store for us. In fact we’re biting our fingernails down to the quick in anticipation. But as it would seem, it may not be too long a wait. Google, as it would appear, has booked a couple of booths down at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. We’re all presuming that they’re bringing along a few (at the very least) Google Goodies in terms of handsets with their new Android Platform incorporated into them.

Come February 11th 2008 and we should be able to get a much clearer idea on what to expect from the guys down at our friendly neighborhood search engine. Check out the YouTube Android demo video.

GPhone soon! February in Barcelona!

Alarm horns and sirens going off all over the blogosphere as sleuths at APC and TechCrunch put together data points and predict a possible debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Feb 11. The possible tip-off? Google has booked two floor stands at the event.Of course, any GPhone debut will really just be the debut of third-party devices running Android--such as Bug Labs "Bug," which we published pictures of last month. And those two booths on the Barcelona floor will likely mostly be about whipping up developer and handset manufacturer support for Android.(If you have any time on your hands over the holidays, you might want to get a head start on coding. Google has offered $10 million in prize money for the best Apps. APC:
The first stage of the Android Developer Challenge, running from January 2nd to March 3rd 2008, will see "the 50 most promising entries... that make use of Android's capabilities to deliver a better mobile experience" score a US$25,000 handout "to fund further development". As the apps come into fruition, Google will dole out 20 follow-up awards, ten of US$275,000 and ten of US$100,000).APC says Android is built on a Linux kernel and has multiple screenshots of the purported Android screen interface. It also reprints Gizmodo's picture of a "dog-ugly" brick running Android (below):

More Than Just the iPhone

Looking at the world of embedded and mobile devices from the outside, one could be forgiven for thinking that the year 2007 was sponsored by the letters G and I. After all, between the hype over Apple Computer’s iPhone—which started at the January Macworld Expo and has only now begun to quiet down—and the frantic baying of the media hounds over what we all thought was going to be the Gphone, it’s been a full year of handsets that became bigger stars than the spokesmodels.
Granted, the iPhone’s global presence is more sizzle than steak, with worldwide rollouts continuing into next year and an SDK slated for 2008 that could very well ensure the platform’s usefulness for business users as well as music and video lovers. Meanwhile, the Open Handset Alliance—which is pushing the Android platform that the rumored Google phone turned out to be—is just getting started and expects to deliver the first version of its platform next year.
But those superstars represent just the tip of the iceberg for embedded and mobile developers. The year 2007 saw Eclipse become the development platform of choice for an increasing number of coders, as vendors realized the strengths of the open source tool set. Multicore hardware began presenting embedded developers with challenges that their colleagues developing for big iron have faced for years.
Virtualization was hot in every other aspect of IT in 2007, and it was no surprise that it’s being adopted for embedded development as well. XenSource’s September announcement of a virtualization platform for OEMs may herald the day when most mobile devices use virtualization technology to abstract the hardware from the application platform, making devices more flexible and useful.
But perhaps the item with the most long-term impact on embedded and mobile development is Linux. There’s always going to be a role for internally developed operating systems that are explicitly designed for a specific bit of hardware—they’re just becoming more capable, as seen by Symbian’s addition of Java support to its Series 40 platform for mass-market devices.
Nevertheless, it’s becoming clear that Linux is proving flexible enough and robust enough to be useful as an embedded or mobile platform. For example, MontaVista Software was able to talk up the performance of its Linux-based Pro 5, claiming that it could beat real-time requirements in a number of cases.
Meanwhile, in recognition of the strength of numbers, industry players set up the LiMo Foundation with the aim of promoting Linux as a platform for mobile devices, and welcomed a second wave of members that ranged from carriers to chip makers. Even Intel caught the community bug, releasing the latest version of its Mobile Platform SDK as an open source project in July.
Although the embedded and mobile space will always be far more fragmented than the laptop, desktop or server markets, one thing is clear: The overlap of technology between the first group and the second is greater than ever before. 2008 should see even more work in that direction.

My Gphone ?!

Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we're not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing -- the Open Handset Alliance and Android -- is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today.Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile. Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.We see Android as an important part of our strategy of furthering Google's goal of providing access to information to users wherever they are. We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone. Our goals must be independent of device or even platform. For this reason, Android will complement, but not replace, our longstanding mobile strategy of developing useful and compelling mobile services and driving adoption of these products through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile operators around the world.It's important to recognize that the Open Handset Alliance and Android have the potential to be major changes from the status quo -- one which will take patience and much investment by the various players before you'll see the first benefits. But we feel the potential gains for mobile customers around the world are worth the effort. If you’re a developer and this approach sounds exciting, give us a week or so and we’ll have an SDK available. If you’re a mobile user, you’ll have to wait a little longer, but some of our partners are targeting the second half of 2008 to ship phones based on the Android platform. And if you already have a phone you know and love, check out mobile.google.com and make sure you have Google Maps for mobile, Gmail and our other great applications on your phone. We'll continue to make these services better and add plenty of exciting new features, applications and services, too.What would your phone do?

Google in Advanced Talks with Verizon & Sprint

The latest info from our good friends those “people familiar with the matter” is that Google is in advanced talks with two U.S. cellphone operators: Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. The talks, of course, are revolving around the two companies offering new Google-powered mobile phones. Google has to get some major wireless operators to sign on to this project if it’s to reach its rumor-generated goal of getting Gphones in front of consumers by the middle of next year.
This wouldn’t be a bad entry into the market, as Verizon is the No. 2 carrier, and Sprint is the No. 3 carrier (in the U.S. by subscribers). And let’s not forget that Google has loads of cash right now (not to mention a stock that’s about to hit $700). The speculation is that this partnership might allow the big bad cellphone companies to offer cheaper phones, since Google’s licensing fees (for its software and operating system) are probably going to be lower than the industry standard. The search giant is more likely to cash in on cellphone advertising when/if it becomes the next big thing (or so shareholders are hoping by paying that inflated price for the stock).
But since the phones would be open to third party application development, Google is still working out the details on how it will protect cellphone consumers within the context of privacy and security. The other detail being worked on is the advertising itself. Just because wireless carriers will likely be paying a much smaller licensing fee to Google (versus the other alternatives already out there) doesn’t mean they don’t want a piece of the cellphone advertising pie. And how will the consumer react to cellphone advertising? These are all questions currently being pondered by executives in large conference rooms.
An interesting side story is the fact that Verizon and Google were recently fighting a battle in Washington over whether wireless carriers should open up their networks. Verizon was in the process of trying to overturn certain new rules the FCC agreed to because of Google. But last week Verizon dropped its appeal. While a spokesman for Verizon said there was no link between the lawsuit dropped and discussions with Google, well, it does seem like a coincidence that the two companies are now playing nice in the sandbox…