The G1 Google Phone is now available in Hong Kong. The phone has been imported from the US and being sold at a starting price of HK$5,680 (US$728). Also of note, the G1 can now display Chinese characters.
[Via HKPhooey]
Tag Archive for 'Google'
Tech Radar did an interview with Andy Lees, the Senior Vice-President of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business. The interview was focused around the issue of how WinMo is going to survive faced with the iPhone and Google Android.
Do your relationships with mobile operators help you compete with the iPhone and Android?
One of the things that we can do slightly differently to Apple and Google is that they have what I think of as the ‘over the top’ scenario - they’re not doing anything to enhance the mobile operator’s ability to create data plans.
They just want the operator to create the ‘$30 all you can eat’ data plan – what the number is varies around the world. Our approach is to be very operator friendly, so we offer tiered services they can use to have different price plans.
I would tend to agree with Apple in this case. “All you can eat” data plans are the only way that we’re going to get a mobile web experience comparable to what we have on a desktop. If we aren’t moving in that direction, we may as well just give up now.
[Read the interview at Tech Radar]
Former MSNBC tech correspondent Gary Krakow, is claiming that the GPhone, the Google branded phone, will be delayed until 2009. Although the phone hasn’t even been announced, Krakow is claiming that it will be delayed, sparking rumors that he’s actually referencing an Android delay.
[Via Gizmodo]
It’s long been assumed that Google would not be releasing their own phone using the Android platform, but PDAStreet has found evidence to the contrary.
An anonymous source told PBS commentator Robert X. Cringley that Google would be releasing two branded phones: a high-end smartphone and a more traditional mobile phone, both running on the Linux-based Android. According to Cringley’s source, the smartphone will look similar to a BlackBerry, bet featuring a flip-up screen that hides a keyboard. Wi-Fi will be included on both phones, and Google is in talks with Version and T-Mobile about carrying the phones, which Samsung will be building. The smartphone is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year at an unnamed price, and the mobile phone will hit in 2009 for something less than $100.
Google promised, when Android was first announced, that they would not be releasing a branded phone, so this remains very firmly in the rumor category. Still, it is a very interesting rumor, if true.
A lot is happening in the realm of Linux-based mobile platforms today.
The LiMo Foundation is planning to launch their Linux-based mobile OS sometime this March, according to IntoMobile. As if that weren’t enough, IntoMobile also found that Google is all set to release a new SDK for Android, which will include a new UI interface, amongst other things.
Between these two and Palm’s upcoming Linux-based OS, it’s certainly a good time to like open source software.
News and rumor site Brighthand has discovered that Dell may soon reveal plans to release a smartphone.
The story comes from MarketingWeek, who were told by “senior industry sources” that Dell’s phone, which will be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress next month, would be running Google’s new mobile OS called Android.
You can check the original article for some background on Dell’s previous mobile phone business and some more information on Android.