TAG | Motorola readies its own Android phone, hopes to save company |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 21 October 2008 | |
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Like the T1, Motorola’s phone will also have a slide-out keyboard, but instead of retailing for US $179, as with T-Mobile and HTC’s G1 Android gPhone, Motorola is look at a US $150. But while T-Mobile’s phone will debut in two days (US time) on the 22nd of October, Motorola’s phone isn’t due until next year. Reports suggest Motorola is hiring up to 350 people for their Android team, while putting up US $50 million, showing how seriously it is taking the Android opportunity, clearly placing a lot of faith in Google, the Open Handset Alliance and the open-source nature of Google’s platform. Motorola’s phone is also set to be marketed and presented a social networker’s dream, with links to Facebook and MySpace, but this is hardly unique – plenty of other phones now come with Facebook apps as standard, while the iPhone has Facebook and MySpace apps already. On top of that, any modern phone with web browser can simply visit the standard Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites, so if Motorola really wants to make a splash in the mobile social networking world, I hope it’s working with those companies on some quality apps to help Motorola’s phone stand apart. That said, would Facebook or MySpace want those apps to then be available for any Android based phone over the Android Market (aka App Store)? You’d think so. And as the T-Mobile G1 gPhone prepares to launch on the 22nd, there are a slew of early reviews online. One that I read lamented the fact the G1 has no on-screen keyboard, which is quite unusual for most touchscreen smartphones. Perhaps Google is hoping that an enterprising developer will write one, either offering it free of charge or for a small fee. After all, a number of ‘landscape’ style keyboard apps have appeared for the iPhone, allowing users to compose emails in keyboard landscape mode, something the iPhone itself is incapable of doing. Whatever happens, the era of the Google powered phone and handheld computer has begun – can a desktop version of Google Linux be far away?
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