Google Nexus One Available on AT&T 3G

With the Google Nexus One launch and the gadget show CES both taking place next week, it’s shaping up to be a weekend of hardware rumors. The latest requires the usual cautions: It’s a single anonymous source, and the parties involved have not commented publicly.

Nonetheless, BoyGeniusReport (which has a decent hit rate on its rumor reportage) claims that the Google Nexus One (aka “Google Phone“) will be made in an unlocked version compatible with AT&T’s 3G network:

“…we’ve heard from a source that there will be an AT&T 3G-compatible version of the Google Nexus One. Our connect described it as being a ’second’ unlocked model, with the T-Mobile-subsidized unit being locked to T-Mobile. Our tipster was so impressed by a Nexus One in person, they said they would 100% give up their T-Mobile BlackBerry 9700 for one when it’s available.”

So little is known about Google’s() deals with carriers that we’d urge caution on this until the Nexus One launch on Tuesday.

Video of Adobe Flash 10 running on Android T-Mobile G1 Google Phone

Adobe showed at the Adobe MAX 2008 developer conference Flash 10 running on Android. See a video of full flash running on the T-Mobile G1 below.
The Apple iPhone might never get Adobe Flash because it would impact Apple’s software control over the iPhone. See this new Wired article about this topic. This is a real disadvantage for the iPhone as Flash is very popular on the web especially for video playback and online games.
When the Flash Player 10 will be released on the Android OS is not known yet.

T-Mobile G1 Google Phone Security Update Released

Owners of T-Mobile G1 phones with Google should have received an over the the air update (RC29) to their phones either in text message or automatically. The new version has the browser patch that was missing in RC28.

Developers in the Android community are saying that you can upgrade through downloading a file, unzipping it and loading it on to a microSD. They warn that data can be lost in the process.

Comments suggest that is better to wait for the update to be delivered to your G1 Google phone.

T-Mobile says that they understand that many have downloaded this update and seem to have it working, T-Mobile cannot support you in doing so. If you download and attempt to install this or any other update (regardless whether its from Google or not) to your device, and it is rendered unusable, you are out of luck. Even if we do exchange it, you will be without a device for several days.

The T-Mobile G1 ‘Google Phone’ is a tweaker’s delight

At first glance, the T-Mobile G1 (US$179) doesn’t seem to merit much attention. It looks like just another bland, HTC-manufactured phone. But use the G1–the first phone to run Google’s Android operating system — for 5 minutes, and you’ll start to see why it’s one of the best-designed phones you can buy. Not only is the G1 intuitive to use, but its customization options (via Android) makes it a tweaker’s delight.

Setup

From the start, the G1 offers a different, more intuitive smart-phone experience. At boot-up, the phone displays a cartoon graphic of an android, with an animated finger pointing at the android and instructions to “touch the android to begin.”

The ensuing screens are clearly presented, and walk you through the speedy setup process. You’ll need a Google account, the phone explains, for automatic syncing of your contacts, calendar, and e-mail with your Web-based Google data.

If you don’t already have an account, you can sign up directly from the phone. Otherwise, sign in to link your existing Google account and the phone. After the initial, over-the-air synchronization finished, my Google e-mail and calendar info was available to me on the phone, and the phone was ready for use.

Design

The phone itself has a candybar design with a matte black finish and slightly rubberized plastic back. It’s narrower than its chief rival, Apple’s iPhone, but slightly thicker (the G1 measures 4.6 inches by 2.2 inches by 0.6 inch, and weighs 5.6 ounces). The 3.2-inch capacitive touch-screen display dominates the front face of the phone; the physical buttons on the phone are well chosen and clearly labeled.

The lower fifth of the phone holds an easy-glide trackball (similar to the trackball found on RIM BlackBerry devices) and five buttons: a green talk button to activate the phone itself; a home button to return you to home screen; a back button to move to the previously viewed screen in the browser and throughout the phone; a red end button; and a rectangular, context-sensitive menu button. This last button is conveniently situated beneath the screen (double press the button to quickly release the screen lock; hold it down for a couple of seconds to get a shortcut screen to recently used applications) and directly above the trackball.

A full QWERTY keyboard hides beneath display; when you press the middle left part of the phone, the display smoothly slides up. At the same time, the phone automatically rotates the screen’s orientation from vertical to horizontal; you have to use the horizontal orientation for data entry tasks, as the phone lacks an on-screen keyboard (unlike the Apple iPhone 3G or the RIM BlackBerry Storm).

The roomy backlit keyboard made typing easy, though the buttons felt a bit too flat for my comfort (because the flat buttons butt up against the rim of the phone, pressing the bottom row of buttons was sometimes difficult; the same issue arose with the buttons at the far right). My right thumb had to work harder than my left because, in effect, the keyboard was deeply inset (my thumb had to reach around and over the bottom fifth of the phone to reach it).

The only other physical buttons on the phone are a volume rocker switch on the upper left side, and a dedicated camera shutter button on the right side. A microSD Card slot is hidden on the left of the phone; to access it, you open the screen and press a subtle tab; the card then pops out of the side (warning: you’ll need fingernails to get it to pop out easily). T-Mobile includes a 1GB card; the device has been tested with up to 8GB microSD Cards, and should support 16GB cards when available.

The rear cover pops off to reveal the unit’s battery and SIM card. Because (like other HTC-designed handsets) the phone lacks a standard dedicated headphone jack, you have to use the included wired stereo headset, which plugs into the proprietary jack at the phone’s base–the same jack that the charger plugs into. T-Mobile plans to offer a converter at extra cost, but the dongle approach seems as bothersome and inelegant as the original Apple iPhone’s nonstandard headphone jack was. It’s too bad, because the phone is certainly a capable media player.

Phone Use

The phone feels good in the hand, and it sounded great when I tested it. I received both 3G and EDGE network coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area; audio was clear, with no background noise or hiss.

In the PC World Test Center, the battery lasted for 5 hours, 51 minutes of continuous talk time–23 minutes longer than the iPhone 3G. In my hands-on use, the battery drained a bit faster than I had expected, though: After an hour of use (including phone calls, and music and application downloads), the battery had drained by 31 percent.

The Dialer application is simple to use. The on-screen buttons are well-spaced, and I had no difficulty using the app one-handed. Unlike with the iPhone 3G, I didn’t accidentally trigger buttons by running my finger over the screen. I particularly liked the streamlined process for entering contact data, and the freedom I had to customize a contact’s info to match the fields I wanted to fill. The Voice Dialer worked well when I tried it in a quiet environment.

Hardware and Software Integration: As with Apple’s iPhone and its software, the integration of the G1’s hardware with the Android software is crucial. Here, both the phone and Android shine: Thanks to its trackball and its slide-and-glide gesture-capable touch screen, the G1 had particularly intuitive and smooth ergonomics. Displays behaved as my fingers seemed to expect them to–except that I couldn’t swipe left-to-right to scroll through pictures in my photo library, as I could with an iPhone 3G. The touch screen was usually highly responsive, but sometimes when I’d touch a hypertext link in the browser, I had to press twice for it to take. I liked being able to use my finger to drag open the Notifications status to see additional details about incoming text, instant, voice, and e-mail messages; and calendar events.

As the first Android device, the G1 teems with potential, and exploring the new interface is fun. Google’s own clean, simple Web design has clearly informed much of Android’s interface–and how you interact with the applications. You can tweak and customize everything, either through the deep and varied Settings options or through suitable apps.

The opening home screen consists of a myFaves icon at the upper left, an analog clock icon in the middle, and four primary applications: Dialer (also known as the phone), contacts, browser, and maps. Hold your finger down on an app, and the phone will vibrate once and release the icon so that you can move it to another spot on the screen.

Swipe your finger to the right, and the wallpaper continues onto a second home screen, with a Google search bar permanently fixed at its top. Press or drag the tab at the bottom of the screen (in vertical orientation; in horizontal orientation, the tab shows at right) to reveal the other applications. The icons, arrayed in rows of four, will include all of your applications. Apps are arranged alphabetically; the icons are smaller and slightly less distinctive than on the Apple iPhone, but they’re comparable to what you’d see on a Palm OS or BlackBerry OS device. Hold your finger down on an icon to duplicate the icon on the home screen.

The phone has both assisted GPS and GPS. The Google Maps app built-in uses both, but in my casual tests in San Francisco, it didn’t exhibit the same level of accuracy in picking up my location as an iPhone 3G’s Google Maps app did.

At launch, the G1 doesn’t support the stereo Bluetooth profile, according to T-Mobile; however, the phone may support stereo Bluetooth at some future time.

Applications: The phone comes with a number of apps preinstalled–and you can add tons more via the Android Market. The versatile IM lets you configure instant messaging with AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Because Android permits multitasking–and no app actually closes–you can receive IMs after you’ve left the IM app to browse the Web, for example. (With the iPhone, you won’t get your messages if you leave the IM app, and you have to log in again each time.)

Mail from Gmail gets its own icon, but you can set up other POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts as well, in just a couple of steps (the software automatically configures the server settings). The calendar syncs with your Google Calendar. I had no trouble viewing the various calendar entries I’m privy to, or adding an entry to my calendar, but I couldn’t add an entry to other Google Calendars that I have rights to. And bizarrely, Android has no Google Docs support at launch; the only way you can access Google Docs is through the Web browser–a bit of a pain. You can view Microsoft Word and Excel documents through Gmail, but you can’t save and view these docs through the Web browser. Similarly, you can open and read PDF files received through Gmail.

The Web browser handled much of what I threw at it, but it balked at some tasks (for example, it lacks in-browser Flash support). I missed having discrete forward and backward controls (you can go back only by clicking the universal hardware back button) and an option for offline viewing (as on a Palm OS-based Treo), but adding and retrieving bookmarks was simple.

Multimedia

The Amazon MP3 app is a useful alternative to iTunes, and music downloaded quickly and easily. I could queue up the DRM-free tracks for download, which occurred in the background as I did other things with the phone. Unfortunately, the selection is less extensive than the one on iTunes.

The music player application is easy to navigate, and great for finding and playing back music. Music sounded okay when piped through the built-in speaker (on a par with the iPhone 3G’s speaker). But the lack of a standard headphone jack limits the G1’s potential as a music player.

The camera app is a big disappointment. Though the device has a 3-megapixel camera, it lacks a flash, a zoom, and any controls for adjust image quality, white balance, or the like. There’s no camcorder, either, though T-Mobile says that the imaging sensor can capture video if someone writes a video capture app and offers it on the Android Market.

Final Analysis

T-Mobile’s Android-based G1 isn’t especially sexy or eye-catching, but it does a lot of things right. It’s a strong first-generation Android device, but the absence of a standard headphone jack, a video camera, and Google Docs (and support for Word and Excel) at launch are notable detractions. Still, I would recommend this versatile phone over countless other smart-phones; Android’s intuitive ease-of-use raises this phone above most Windows Mobile- and BlackBerry-based devices.

T-Mobile G1 Google phone Users Guide Video

The all new T-Mobile G1 Google phone is available as of tomorrow and we know T-Mobile stores in the states will be packed solid.

Yes like the iPhone 3G release all O2 stores in the UK was jam-packed, October 22, Wednesday will be a busy day in the U.S and October 31st will be busy for us in the UK.

Anyway below we have a video for you to watch called the T-Mobile G1 Google phone Users Guide, pretty nice video to watch and gives you the basics of how the phone works, right I will shut up now and let you watch the video for yourself. Please do post your comments.

Getting Inside Google’s GPhone

Still coming to terms with Apple’s iPhone invasion, the cellular industry now finds itself bracing for yet another intrusion by a mighty outsider bent on altering the way wireless does business. This time it’s Google.

New signals and speculation about Google’s (GOOG) mobile initiatives emerge daily, but with no clear proclamations as yet from the Web search leader. One day there’s buzz that Google will follow Apple’s (AAPL) lead by introducing its own mobile device, the gPhone. Next comes word the company has developed its own mobile operating system or Web browser. Against this uncertain backdrop, providers of wireless service, handsets, and software have been left to guess anxiously at Google’s true intentions, not unlike children gathered about a campfire, scanning for monsters in the shadowy forest.

Google Platform?
So what’s really lurking behind those trees? A source familiar with the situation tells BusinessWeek.com that Google may be preparing a new mobile platform, a would-be rival to the Nokia-dominated (NOK) Symbian OS, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile, mobile Linux, Palm (PALM), and other operating systems.

The new operating system, which may be named gPhone, was developed in part with know-how Google acquired with a startup named Android in 2005. The platform is designed to enable lower-priced “smartphones” featuring more robust Web browsing and multimedia applications. Most importantly for Google, it will work hand in glove with the company’s mobile search engine and other Google applications that are already popular on personal computers. And it would allow Google to bring new applications to the wireless market faster. Google declined to confirm or deny this information.

A number of handset makers have already created prototypes of lower-cost phones based on the Google platform, the source says. These handsets, expected to sell for about $100, are being shopped around to carriers worldwide, including those in the U.S. On top of the lower price tag, Google also hopes to attract customers with the promise of lower monthly cell bills. But in Google style, that means users will have to agree to receive ads on their mobile phones, an approach that’s enjoyed some limited success in certain trials by other companies with far less clout than Google. In effect, Google will attempt to introduce not just a new platform, but also a new business model for the wireless-services industry.

Yahoo’s Mobile Search Success
This project marks just one of the many ambitious mobile initiatives Google has undertaken. The search giant has indicated it would likely bid in a federal auction to use new swaths of the public airwaves for wireless services. The plan would be to either build its own cellular network or to partner with another company to do so. All the while, Google keeps beefing up its arsenal of mobile applications. On Aug. 30, the U.S. Patent Office published a patent filed by a Google inventor for a mobile payment system designed to allow people to pay for goods and services via text messages. Consider also that Google currently has 67 openings on its Web site for mobile-related positions, mostly in wireless software development, and it becomes clear that something big is afoot.

It’s easy to see why Google is turning so much energy toward wireless. The company generated nearly all of last year’s $10.6 billion in revenue from online search advertising. But while it dominates that arena with a 62.7% market share, according to research by the consultancy Compete, the company is lagging Microsoft and Yahoo (YHOO) in mobile search and other applications for the cell phone.

More than 20 million devices will ship this year with either Mobile Windows or other Microsoft software on them, according to the Yankee Group. But Google—despite deals with handset makers including Motorola (MOT) and LG and carriers such as Sprint Nextel (S)—won’t come anywhere near to that sort of distribution, figures John Jackson, an analyst at Yankee.

Yahoo has also enjoyed more success in its wireless endeavors. Thanks to its new mobile search engine, oneSearch, Yahoo has actually stolen some business away from Google. In January, Opera replaced Google with oneSearch as the default search engine on its browser for mobile devices. Though Opera’s share of the mobile browser isn’t huge, such developments could spell trouble if, as some experts expect, Web searches on mobile devices begin to exceed those on PCs. To protect its core business, then, Google needs to carve its spot in the cell market now.

A Slice of Apple’s Approach
This might have been easier to accomplish had Google not forged a somewhat acrimonious relationship with big cellular carriers such as AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless (VZ). Even before Google revealed its plan to compete directly with them in the wireless auction, the company rankled the cellular establishment with its decision to build a Wi-Fi broadband network in Mountain View, Calif., and join EarthLink (ELNK) in constructing a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco (a plan that’s since unraveled).

Now, as it charts more of an independent course, Google may even use the gPhone as Apple has the iPhone, stoking discontent with the current state of mobile Web access. Today’s cellular providers, to prevent their customers from wandering the Internet freely on phones as they do on computers, herd users to their own branded mobile portals and a limited selection of approved partner sites—a model reminiscent of the “walled garden” that AOL thrived on a decade ago until customers rebelled. Thanks to such obstacles, while 15% of U.S. wireless users have browsed Web pages on their mobile phones, only 3% have used a mobile search engine, according to JupiterResearch.

Though its brand doesn’t generate the same passions among consumers as Apple’s, Google may hope its new platform will present an irresistible attraction to handset makers and carriers seeking the next “it” phone, replicating at least some of success the iPhone has managed since its U.S. launch through AT&T.

Google’s new, ad-supported business model may ultimately appeal to the carriers as they struggle to boost revenues in markets where the price competition is fierce and first-time users are becoming scarce. “The addition of new business models simply creates more opportunities for all companies in the industry to sell more products,” says John Starkweather, general manager of mobile communications at Microsoft.

Boost to Wireless Broadband?
While analysts have long frowned on the idea of mobile ads, Virgin Mobile recently reported that 330,000 of its 4.8 million subscribers have agreed to view ads in exchange for free calling minutes (BusinessWeek.com, 07/09/07).

When a small carrier named Revel recently gave 5,000 subscribers a one-time $10 discount for agreeing to receive ads on their phones for a 12-week trial, “the satisfaction levels were off the charts,” says Jon Jackson, CEO of Mobile Posse, the ad technology provider in the trial. In fact, Mobile Posse’s research shows that marketing on mobile phones can generate up to $40 in ad revenue per month—which isn’t very far from the $50-plus that carriers generate from monthly service plans. Mobile Posse says it’s now conducting trials with two other larger carriers, offering free text-messaging and mobile data access to users who’ll accept ads.

Meanwhile, if Google succeeds in bringing a lower-priced yet more robust phone to the market, the gPhone could have some broader impact than the iPhone, which still costs $400 after a recent price cut. “Today, the overall mobile experience, candidly, is not great,” says Shawn Freeman, chief technology officer at Handango, a provider of mobile content and applications. With better Web-surfing and search capabilities, such a handset could fill a void in developing markets where many people can’t afford computers. Elsewhere, by increasing interest in mobile Web access, Google also might speed consumer adoption of wireless broadband. “If they produce something that’s a good experience, the whole market will rise,” says Barry West, chief technology officer at Sprint. “Google is a big name on the Internet. This reaffirms that the Internet is going mobile.”

But the main goal for Google is to provide mobile phone users with devices that smoothly integrate all Google applications so that, at a push of a button, they can launch a search or use the mobile payment service. Today, carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless only provide access to a smattering of Google applications, such as Google Maps and YouTube video, and not on all phones.

Wireless Players Gearing Up
Yet by launching its own operating system, Google faces a disadvantage in terms of the limited number of applications that will be available for that platform. It will take time to build the sort of ecosystem that surrounds Symbian and Windows Mobile, where there are thousands of third-party applications to choose from and more being written by software developers every day. “If you have a smaller platform, it’s harder to get people to develop for it,” says Julie Ask, an analyst at JupiterResearch.

It is possible to build a mobile platform from scratch without having a ubiquitous operating system like Windows as your foundation. Symbian says it now commands a 72% share of the smartphone market. But it has taken 10 years and more than $750 million in investment to get there. “It’s fairly easy for someone to trivialize creating a feature-rich operating system, but there’s a lot of man-years involved,” says Jerry Panagrossi, vice-president of U.S. operations at Symbian.

Despite such hurdles, there’s no doubt that major wireless players are factoring in the potential game-changing tactics of Google and Apple as they compete with their traditional rivals. On Aug. 29, Nokia unveiled a new suite of mobile Internet services called Ovi. And at a recent investment conference, a Microsoft executive hinted that his company may be working on a phone version of its Zune music player. “Competition breeds innovation,” says Rich Nespola, founder of consultancy TMNG (TMNG). “If Google is planning on entering this business, everyone gets prepared.”

It’s important to remember Google’s end goal, though: changing the wireless business. “They want the carriers to open up,” says Handango’s Freeman. “This is another way to drive the market in the direction they want to go.”

Google GPhone Used by Linux power?

Google’s first mobile phone will run a Linux operating system on a Texas Instruments “Edge” chipset, and will likely ship to T-Mobile and Orange customers in the Spring of 2008, according to unconfirmed reports. “GPhone” call minutes and text messages reportedly will be funded by mobile advertising.

News of the so-called “GPhone” or “G-Phone” broke quietly about two weeks ago in the island nation of Singapore, where Jennifer Tan of Reuters subsidiary Anian Research filed a report on July 12.

Tan cited “industry sources,” “U.S. sources,” and “manufacturing and component supply chain sources” in backing her assertion that after year-long delays finding a manufacturer, Google contracted Taiwan-based smartphone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) to design its phone hardware. HTC is best-known for its Windows Mobile smartphones, however, and Tan offered no conjecture about who might supply the phone’s Linux-based operating system.

Additional details reported by Tan include:

• The G-Phone will have a large color screen with a predictive Qwerty keypad to simplify Google searching
• A follow-up 3G-capable model (Edge is considered “2.75G”) will use a Qualcomm chipset
• Scheduled for production in Q1 of 2006, the Google phone will hit retail shelves next spring
• Call minutes and text messages are to be funded by “mobile advertising”
• Google originally hoped to launch a phone this year, but was delayed by “difficulties in nailing down a deal with a handset maker”
• T-Mobile will carrier the phone in the U.S., along with (possibly) Orange in other markets

Tan quotes Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marianne Wolk as having said, “A mobile offering would be consistent with Google’s goal to make search accessible. We believe Google would design a solution to facilitate greater use of Google Search and other applications like Google Talk, Gmail, Google Maps, encourage wireless video, and leverage this usage to hasten the market for mobile advertising.”

Google itself has declined to comment on rumors it plans to produce a phone, Tan reported.

Tan’s coverage also includes an overview of Google’s financial outlook, and its prospects for success in the mobile phone marketplace.

About G Phone’s 10 Things That We Did Not Expect Until the Launch Event

Now that the press event held by T-Mobile in New York is over (and they promise we’ll be able to watch the video from the event again later at the official website) I must admit that we have seen quite a number of surprises and unpredicted things about G Phone. There were good surprises when things we expected actually appeared to be better or something we did not expect at all was introduced. But there were also bad surprises when something we really hoped would happen was not even mentioned.

So let’s forget about our guesses and expectations – the device has been officially introduced and everything is more or less clear about it now. So what are the surprises?

Price – $179

This is no doubt the biggest surprise. The price announced today is lower than that of iPhone and lower than what we expected for T-Mobile G1 – $199. Instead they chose a lower price for the device – $179. I suspected pricing would be where Google, HTC, and T-Mobile would make some big surprise and this is exactly what happened with the price clearly intended for G1 to be competitive against Apple iPhone in pricing as well.

But there’s one unpleasant exception here: this price is only valid for new T-Mobile subscribers while existing ones will have to pay $299 for the upgrade. (UPDATE: $179 price is valid for all T-Mobile customers that are not bound by an existing contract.) But it does not stop T-Mobile subscribers from ordering the phones from the website now that the pre-ordering is open for them.

So while HTC CEO at the press conference constantly repeated his mantra about the power of mobile internet and the opportunities it offers to consumers, it is quite obvious that this low price is not about making mobile internet really affordable but about grabbing a market share from Apple and possibly Blackberry as well.

The device price is accompanied with two options for data plans (both affordable but anyway required on top of voice plan): $25 for unlimited internet and limited messaging or $35 for unlimited plan.

Official shipment date – October 22

We had two shipment dates predicted in the blogosphere – October 17 and October 20 with some people already making plans about when exactly they will need to arrive to their local T-Mobile stores to grab their G1 phones. Now the official date is announced and it is October 22, Wednesday, almost a month from now.

Existing T-Mobile customers can actually pre-order the phone on the website (for $299) to have it delivered when it is available in stores.

Anyway while we have not guessed the exact date, at least the expectation to see the phone selling in October proves to be the right one.

Quite reasonable launch dates on markets other than the US

The phone is scheduled to be launched in the UK in November and it will appear in other select European markets next year as well. So unlike with iPhone we won’t have to wait for ages to grab a device for ourselves as well – the main limitation to consider will be availability of 3G network that is the pre-requisite for G Phone to perform best (with WiFi connectivity winning in quality over both 2G and 3G, we are told).

And while there are no details about carriers HTC and Google will work with in Europe, we will sure start to get details very soon with the launch dates imminent.

Browser not exactly Chrome

We used to suspect that the primary purpose of Google’s Chrome browser would be for use on Android operating system. But what we have seen at the presentation as the browser is not actually Chrome and it hardly even resembles Chrome at all. So while we are told the browser can be dubbed Chrome mini, it has very few visual (or functional from what I’ve noticed) resemblances to Chrome at all – not even the icon we associate the browser with.

The similarity is that both browsers – the desktop Chrome and the mobile G1 browser – are also based on the same WebKit rendering engine. So this guess was also wrong – the browser is not exactly Chrome which must mean that Android and Chrome may have two very different destinations in the end.

No free email

We really hoped it would be true and we would see free access to Gmail on T-Mobile G1 as rumors had it. Better yet, I suggested access to all ad-supported Google applications could be free for users (and users could still opt for ad-free paid versions if they did not want any ads on their mobile devices). But no, this is a disappointment but it is here – no free access anywhere with a data plan required. But since the data plan is a requirement anyway and both options for a data plan stipulate for unlimited web usage, I guess it does not make sense to have access to any applications preferential and free – since you will have to buy a data plan and it will have to be unlimited anyway.

No Amazon videos

We already knew that the camera of the device would not support video capturing but we hoped that there would be some non-YouTube videos available for download by default – and the candidate to provide those videos was Amazon mobile application we heard rumors about. We suggested that a good idea would be to have Amazon’s Video On Demand service as part of the mobile Amazon application so that users could purchase and download movies and TV shows from Amazon when on the go. Unfortunately we are not seeing this happening and Amazon application will only be used to purchase mp3 music to play on the device.

Super accessibility of search

Google is a search company (at its core, at least), after all, so they have made sure that search is easily accessible on the device with just one key on the keyboard. This key will initiate the search process depending on what you do with the device at any given moment – for example, if you browse the internet, it will launch internet search for you while when you browse your contacts, it will start searching within your contacts instead.

Presence building using Gmail

At the press conference a new concept has been introduced by Google – online presence building. Gmail application along with Google Talk application running on G1 Phone (both the defaults) will work together to ensure continuous online presence for any user where you won’t have to be away any more.

While we don’t have details for now, it sure sounds intriguing – and a little scary as well. We’ll see what the concept actually looks like when in operation.

DRM-free content only

A user will only be able to use the device to play DRM-free music and videos. I believe it is part of the partnership with Amazon for music sales and an additional way to compete with iPhone with its default iTunes functionality.

Clear targeting at the general feature phones market, not smartphones only

This one may be the last (since it was the one I noted last) but it looks like the most important one for the market. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made an unexpected and stunning appearance at the presentation themselves to share their own (understandably positive only) experience of using G1 phones. But the intriguing part was Larry describing how he admires the market of mobile devices with 3 billion existing devices and 1 billion new devices per year. And he did not mention his admiration with the size of smartphones market or anything similar at all. I believe these words are a clear indication that Google is not planning to limit Android for smartphones market to compete with iPhone and Blackberry only – the bigger game is in the regular feature phones that are purchased in much higher numbers.

Basically I think we should expect cell phone manufacturers announcing partnerships with Google one by one now that the first device is announced and almost ready to be shipped.

These are a few things that surprised me (some in a good – others in a bad way) at today’s press conference where T-Mobile introduced the long-awaited and much-hyped already G1 T-Mobile phone with Google. I am sure we will start getting more information now that the companies will be open for comments during the month preceding the shipment date. But even though we have heard some disappointed voices on Twitter already, we have also seen people pre-ordering the device when they can – and this must be a good indication of a good start of the marketing campaign that T-Mobile promises will be the largest campaign for a mobile device it ever had. We’ll see how it works but for now we have all the reasons to be excited.