Gawker
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googlephone
Google Earth on the iPhone proves Googlers can do math
Joel Johnson of Boing Boing Gadgets is shocked, shocked that the team working on Google Earth, Google's 3D interactive world map, launched a mobile app for the iPhone before writing one for Google's Android operating system, which now runs on all of one clunky phone sold by T-Mobile, the also-ran of the U.S. wireless market. He calls the decision "inexplicable." I don't think it's hard to understand at all: Google Earth programmers actually want people to use their app, rather than have gadget bloggers write posts celebrating their clever strategery.
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By Owen ThomasComment by posna: Watch it on your comments about the Google phone! I love the phone and I think it is awesome. There a... 3 Responses | Other threads
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caption contest
All your data are belong to us
At last, the Googlephone is in the wild. But what else lurks as Google lurches into the wireless world? A photo of this giant robot, based on the logo for Google's Android operating system, was fittingly captured by a T-Mobile G1 phone running Android. Can you think of a better caption? Leave your suggestions in the comments, and the best will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: LychorindaAristaeus, for "The face of a $747 strike price." (Photo by ericajoy)
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By Owen ThomasComment by DrewFinch: all your data are belong to us 3 Responses | Other threads
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dumbphones
The Googlephone has a kill switch too
Google's Android phone has something in common with Apple's iPhone: Both gadgets have a "kill switch" to uninstall unwanted applications. Buried in Google's Android legalese is a clause that says Google might "discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement... in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion." The outrage would be pretty bad if anyone actually had a Googlephone. [CNET] -
badvertising
The Googlephone's gross grammar
Apple's 3G iPhone commercials, shown here, are a big lie. But at least they're a pleasant falsehood. And they don't display a disregard for proper wordsmithing the way T-Mobile's new G1 "with Google" commercial, below, does in some misguided attempt to be irreverent, hip and Internet-trendy. Dissing the dictionary isn't hip. Ask Yahoo's Jerry Yang. "Smarterer, funnerer, connecteder?" Someone should be fireder. More » -
dumbphones
T-Mobile backs away from Googlephone bandwidth cap
The technoblogomemesphere erupted in derision when T-Mobile's plans for a one-gigabyte monthly cap on bandwidth for the new HTC phone running Google's Android OS emerged. Customers who exceeded the limit would have seen their speeds reduced by a factor of 20. Anyone who wanted to listen to Internet radio or browse YouTube while on the bus with the gadget would have quickly run up against the limit. T-Mobile now promises to lift the cap and use a different, but as yet unknown, "network management practice" to keep the system from getting clogged. "We reserve the right to temporarily reduce data throughput for a small fraction of our customers who have excessive or disproportionate usage," the company maintains. Now the only thing standing in the way of you browsing to your heart's content is T-Mobile crappy coverage and no 3G network service outside of a few major markets. (Photo by Luis Alberto Arjona Chin)
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By Jackson WestComment by posna: T-mobile rocks, I have faith! They may not have 3g everywhere, but if you live in a metro area than... more » | Other threads
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Googletards
Googlephone is kinda ugly, but we took care of that guy who dared say so
My heart goes out to MySpace employee Ulf Waschbusch, who used to be a product marketing manager for Google Mobile and therefore saw the company's Android phone in its early stages. "The reason many people see the G1 as ugly and old-fashioned is simply … because it IS!" he blogged yesterday. "It’s a design unchanged for a while." Waschbusch will spend the next month fending off accusations that he's a bitter ex-employee too short on Ph.D's to grasp the Googley beauty of the G1. Ulf, it's ok, you can come sit at our lunch table. But since you keep re-editing your post in hopes of softening the blows, here's your original text: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by WagCurious: "with Google"... as in "go with Google". It's part of the whole biblical theme that Brin is pushing down the... more » | Other threads
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clips
Brin and Page show up late, wing it at Googlephone launch
T-Mobile today launched the G1, the first phone loaded with Google's mobile operating system, Android. (Just don't call it a "Googlephone"!) Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page showed up late to the press conference and Brin began his speech with an excuse: "We had to rush here a little bit today from the Google Transit launch, and, uh, you know with all the streets being shut down and all, I don't think wheels were the best way to go." The pair winged it from there on. More »
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Comment by thickzeal: Maybe Page was lost in thought about his massive new residential compound that nobody seems to know about. more » | Other threads
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googlephone
First Android-loaded phone launches September 23
T-Mobile and Google executives will gather in New York on September 23 to to launch the HTC Dream, the first phone loaded with Google's mobile operating system Android to hit the market. Skeptics, such as ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn, say the Dream won't be a "real" Android phone. Why the quibble? More » -
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googlephone
No Androids allowed in T-Mobile's new app-dev program
That traffic jam around the Moscone Center in dowtown San Francisco is the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment trade show. T-Mobile used the event to announce a sort-of-Apple-like app store that will split revenues at least 50/50 with application makers. But T-Mob's new developer community won't support app makers using Google's Android operating system. These things are always subject to change, but CTIA would have been the place to at least announce plans for Android apps. Google's open-source phone is looking less like the new iPhone and more like the new Linux laptop. (Photo by Gizmodo)
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By Paul BoutinComment by Paul Boutin: @gkanapathy. Thanks. I blame Owen! It's the new developer program that won't support Android, as stated by the... more » | Other threads
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googlephone
Financial Times Googlephone story to spark conspiracy theories
The Financial Times's has published an article on T-Mobile's soon-to-be-released Googlephone. It paints an accurate picture, if not a pretty one: "When the first of Google’s long-anticipated Android mobile phones hit the stores in a matter of weeks, they will land with a fizzle rather than a bang." We can just imagine the lunchtime whispers at the Googleplex about it. Readymade for lunchtime consumption, here are the paranoid programmers' talking points on the anti-Google media conspiracy: More »
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Comment by westphalia: I think this article missed something... the Financial Times just lost one of their top tech execs to Google. more » | Other threads
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htc
Source: Here are the first Googlephone's specs
The AndroidGuys blog says a "trusted source" handed them this blueprint of HTC's G1, which will be the first Googlephone to hit the market this fall. Like the iPhone, it's got a touchscreen. Unlike the iPhone it also has a mini-trackball mouse and a five-row QWERTY keyboard, similar to the kind Helio built into its Sidekick devices. If it can copy and paste, the competition is over. The AndroidGuys — which is all over this beat — also landed a shooting script for the Googlephone's first commercial, proving that what might be most similar about the HTC/Google device and Apple's iPhone are the bizarre passions of their respective fanboys.
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Comment by michaellamb: MSFT bought Danger?????? where the hell have i been[www.danger.com] This looks like a cross between the sidekick and the tilt more » | Other threads
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smartphones
Presenting the Googlephone
Forget HTC's Android-running Dream, expected out this October. General Electric has brought the Googlephone to life. GE's Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications, or DECT, version 6.0, has a handy built-in Goog-411 button, to spare users the burden of dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. It's already on store shelves for $60. -
googlephone
Will electric sheep have Android Dreams?
The HTC Dream, the first fruit of Google's foray into mobile phones, will be available for preorder from T-Mobile during a one-week window starting September 17. The artificial time scarcity seems designed to create iPhone-like hype. And perhaps the Dream will succeed at that. At $150 along with a two-year contract and a new, probably more expensive, unlimited data plan, this is the first wireless device I've seen that looks like real iPhone competition. Sure, it has Google's Android operating system, a touch screen and 3G speeds, but it also has a keyboard. And it's from HTC, the Taiwanese handset manufacturer that makes really nice phones — mostly for Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system until now. But just like the iPhone, the don't-call-it-a-Googlephone won't really bust up the carrier-handset-operating-system industrial complex that has long bedeviled the mobile market. More » -
wireless
T-Mobile promises Googlephones, hopes customers will explain what they're good for
For an understanding of why Google's Android operating system for cell phones — the basis of the still-nonexistent Googlephone — is set to flop, look no further than one of its biggest advocates, T-Mobile. At a wireless conference in Redwood City, T-Mobile executive Joe Sims promised an "avalanche" of Android phones sometime between October and December. But what's going to be so special about these phones, besides their Google OS? T-Mobile's phones "will be tailored to the consumer, and the consumer, in turn, will tell the carriers what they expect their mobile devices to be able to do," a Dow Jones reporter paraphrased Sims. One hopes something was lost in transcription there, because it sure sounds like T-Mobile doesn't know how to market its phones, and are hoping its customers will come up with ideas. Buying an iPhone, which at least is made by someone with a clear idea of what it's good for: that seems easier.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Josh Lowensohn: Anderoid would be nice, but 3G would be far more useful for every smartphone user on T-mob. more » | Other threads
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journalist math
Google orders up 1,788 Googlephone apps for just $2,800 apiece
There's no real market for applications written for Google's Android cell-phone operating system — the sad, software-only remnant of the abortive quest for a Googlephone — but Google's trying hard to create an artificial one. Participants in Google's Android Developer Challenge submitted 1,788 Android programs. In May, Google will award 50 semifinalists $25,000 apiece. Eventually Google will pay out $5 million in prizes, or about $2,800 per entry, according to quick bit of math. Why not actually make a Googlephone? That seems easier. (Photo by Kai Hendry)
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Comment by OttavioCatreus: I just read this article from my T-mobile G1, and I can't help but lol. more » | Other threads
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politics
AT&T spends $200,000 on three Google-hating Congressmen
Lobbying pays: AT&T has donated $200,000 to Congressmen Cliff Stearns and Fred Upton (pictured), as well as John Shimkus. All three are members of a House telecommunications subcommittee, and have criticized Google's participation in an FCC auction of wireless spectrum. They claim the government would have made more money had Google not lobbied for rules that lift restrictions on what kind of devices can use the spectrum, smoothing the way for the launch of "Googlephones" which run Google's Android software. All of which would be less of a theoretical inside-the-Beltway debate if Google actually had a Googlephone on the market. -
googlephone
A live report from Barcelona: There is still no Googlephone. A pile of circuit boards hooked up to a display, yes, but no Googlephone. [Gizmodo] -
developers, developers, developers
Money can't buy Google's Android love
Google has pushed back the deadline for its $10 million Android programming contest to April. The jackpot will go to the developer who comes up with the best application for Google's cell-phone operating system. Google says the reason is that it's made updates to Android, and it wants to let programmers take advantage of them. But doesn't it seem equally likely that Google hadn't gotten enough submissions? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Carlos: And these iphone web apps would only take 2000 years to net 10 million dollars. Even with a nonexistent... more » | Other threads
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whatsopen
First Googlephone app launched by Sergey Brin's favorite startup
Want to know what the Googlephone fuss is about? WhatsOpen.com, the first app to be built for Googlephones, has just launched in beta. The site looks much like the screenshots leaked to Valleywag last month: It's a local search engine which mashes up Google Maps with a directory of store's operating hours. Want a late-night coffee, or beer at 3 a.m.? WhatsOpen tells you which stores to go to. Here's a screenshot of the search results. More » -
wrapup
Top 5 FAILs of 2007
They were going to CHANGE EVERYTHING. Whoops. presenting five biggest technology disappointments of the past year. No, not Vista and the Kindle — you didn't expect anything there. More » -
nerdspotting
Marissa Mayer to demo Googlephone tonight?
We heard a rumor that Google executive Marissa Mayer, scheduled to appear at a Churchill Club event tonight in Palo Alto, may be demonstrating a cell phone running Google's Android operating system — that is, the fabled Googlephone. We'll believe it when we see it — so by all means, if you're going, snap a photo and send it in.
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By Owen ThomasComment by cv: It is doubtful that Marissa would be the first Google exec to unveil a working prototype of a phone running... more » | Other threads
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bug labs
Googlephone revealed, out next month
Bug Labs, a startup making an open-source mobile gadget, is releasing its first "Bug" prototype next month. Founder Peter Semmelhack tells Silicon Alley Insider that the device can run any operating system, including Google's barely released Android OS — the project many mistook for the launch of a Googlephone. By Google's definition, any phone running Android is a Googlephone. So if you want to call the Bug a Googlephone? We're totally okay with that. (Photo by Silicon Alley Insider)
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By Owen ThomasComment by schlizzag: that looks like a gameboy advance sp stacked on top of a game boy color more » | Other threads
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mysteries
Googlephone developers outed!
Responding to my call for developers working with Google's Android phone platform, retrogamer Jeff Katz emailed to say he's porting his game, RoTwist, to Android. Paul Scholz went one better and emailed us screenshots of his rotating menus, seen after the jump. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Swifter: The 3D interface works on Windows Mobile right now, but is being ported to Android. After all, the Android SDK... more » | Other threads
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By Owen ThomasComment by the_limey: As well as the hair, maybe she loves the unbelievably deadpan delivery of the words "I'm excited". So ironic. more » | Other threads
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google
Googlephone Developers! Developers! Developers! Wanted
"I don't know of a single developer who has had his/her hands on Android," says Valleywag honorary staffer Robert Scoble, referring to the open-source software development kit for Google's new phone platform. I don't know of any, either. That's odd, because ponytailed hackers usually make it a point to tell me about these things as a way to rub their snob status in the face of the hated, hated mainstream media. Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah: If you're actually working with Android code and aren't at Google, drop me a line.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Hraesvelg: Well the Web 2.0 droogs too, and any droog within a 40 mile radius of the Valley. East Coast firmwareheads... more » | Other threads
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whatsopen
Developers of first Googlephone app playing down Google ties
WhatsOpen, the stealth startup behind the first known Googlephone app, is quietly admitting to people in the industry that it is using Google's Android OS for cell phones for its mobile app which tells users which nearby stores are open. As the wags at Gizmodo noted, the killer app for Android is figuring out where to get a beer at 3 a.m. Other than that, WhatsOpen's secretive founders are anxious to downplay their ties to Google. After Google billionaire Sergey Brin was spotted asking a WhatsOpen executive to keep his company under wraps, people widely expected a noiseless Google takeover. More » -
john dvorak
Dvorak on the Googlephone, the 100-word version
For all you crybabies who complained that we quoted him out of context mwah mwah mwah, here's the long version of the short version of the wit and wisdom of John C. Dvorak. The guy impresses me, to be honest. He's made a career of pretending to have idiotic, badly-written contrarian opinions. He drives irony-challenged tech workers berserk. Their angry clicks turn Johnny the C's publishers a tidy profit. And like skunk-chasing dogs, the geekboys come back for more. After the jump, a Dvorak twofer: He tees off Apple and Google kooks in one post. Which I've edited, so you can get back to work. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Hraesvelg: Sure he's an attention whore, but unlike, oh say Scoble, he's actually entertaining, with kicking sarcasm sting and actually has... more » | Other threads
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john dvorak
Dvorak on Googlephone — the 7-word version
I I've I I I me I
Fun Fact: Failed airport novelist John C. Dvorak did not invent the Dvorak keyboard.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Paul Boutin: Whoops, the article has a second page: I've I I I more » | Other threads
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mysteries
Why isn't the Googlephone guy rich?
There's one thing in last Sunday's New York Times profile of Andy Rubin, the man responsible for Google's nonexistent Googlephone, that did not compute. Why isn't Rubin loaded? After all, he cofounded WebTV, which Microsoft bought in 1997 for $400 million. He should have raked in more than enough from that success to fund Android, the mobile-phone startup Google bought in 2005. Instead, Rubin had to hit up his friend and WebTV cofounder Steve Perlman for a $100,000 loan. Where did the money go? One insider sneers, "Too many ex-wives cleaned him out." Anyone know if that's all there is to the story? (Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
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By Owen ThomasComment by nirreskeya: @billo: "millions of dollars == rich", only in Idaho, Montana, and the like. Even there in "flyover" country, it's... more » | Other threads
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exclusive
Screenshots of first Googlephone app
Remember WhatsOpen.com, the stealth search startup that piqued Google cofounder Sergey Brin's interest last month? Brin was so intrigued he told the founders to keep the company hush-hush. Now, however, a source has leaked screenshots of WhatsOpen's secret project. The company has a Web application which shows users nearby stores and their operating hours — "what's open." But I'm told by a source that WhatsOpen has also written the first wireless app for Google's new Android operating system. (You may know Android better as the software behind the still-mythical Googlephone.) Demo screenshots after the jump. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by WagCurious: That's kinda weird, to write software for a platform that doesn't really do much and also doesn't run on any... more » | Other threads
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rumormonger
Who's got their hands on the Googlephone? Not you
Do electric sheep dream of Androids? The announcement of Google's gadgetless phone alliance yesterday started the rumors flying: Journalists already have them! Scoble didn't get one! Well, true, he didn't. But the credible rumor is that the only lucky people who've got them are developers. Java developers. The most elitist, snotty kind of developers, Java coders are to the Valley what bisexual Green Party bicycle activists are to San Francisco. Which seems dumb, given how easy Java is compared to, say, C back before they put the plus-plus training wheels on it. Anyway, the point is that if you don't already have a Googlephone, you aren't going to get one.
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By Paul BoutinComment by kingryan: Java programmers are not the most elitist and snotty of programmers- LISP programmers are. more » | Other threads
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iphone
Why Apple will be bigger than Google
Time has named Apple's iPhone its invention of the year. The iPhone is a big deal, but not for any of the reasons Time cites. The nonrelease of the Googlephone just highlights what Apple gets about consumers, and what Google doesn't. Apple knows how to design not just gadgets, but the businesses that go around them. And as a result, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is worth more than Google within two years. More » -
bad ideas
The Googlephone's missing business model
Now that we all understand that there will be no Googlephone, what are we to make of the laughable "industry initiative" Google has come up with in its place? The most notable thing about it is not who's in the Open Handset Alliance group, but who's out: Microsoft and Nokia. And why are they out? Because they already make cell-phone operating systems. Much has been made of the notion that Google will license its new cell-phone OS, Android, for free. And much has been made of the possibility that Google will introduce compelling new mobile apps. But will either promise amount to much? More » -
priorities
What Gizmodo and Valleywag talk about when they're not working
Gizmodo editor Brian Lam and I had the following conversation on AIM this morning:GadgetFanBoi google is talking about the gphone
More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by harrington: Techcrunch whiffed this one! They claimed today's big announcement would be Open Social. [www.techcrunch.com] more » | Other threads
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confirmed
Google announces that there is no Googlephone
Google has announced a sweeping alliance with 33 companies in the wireless business — but no Googlephone:The company's announcement could prove a short-term disappointment for consumers who were eager for more details - and photos - of what some have termed the "Google Phone" or the "Gphone." The company didn't announce the creation of any single Google-powered device or show what one would look like.
Why am I not surprised? -
andy rubin
Meet the man who's not making the Googlephone
You'll learn many things from the New York Times profile of Andy Rubin, the Google employee in charge of its secretive wireless project. That he has a retinal scanner on his front door, for example. Or that he almost struck a deal with telecom pioneer Craig McCaw before Google bought his latest startup, Android. What you won't learn? That Rubin actually has a Googlephone coming to the market. That, of course, is because there is no Googlephone More » -
rumormonger
T-Mobile, Google to announce wireless deal Monday?
Ready for a Googlephone? Wait until Monday. A source in the wireless industry tells me that Google is already quietly briefing reporters, under embargo, on its mobile plans — and that an announcement could come as soon as next week. The first partner? T-Mobile. It makes perfect sense. In 2005, Google bought Android, a startup founded by Andy Rubin. Before Android, Rubin ran Danger Research, the designer of T-Mobile's Sidekick. But if you're all hopped up for a Google-designed piece of hardware, you'll be disappointed by the announcement, whenever it comes. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by nXt: Awesome! I love T-Mobile, they need an awesome phone. Better be sexy as heck :) more » | Other threads
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google
Google has more mobile plans, but still no Googlephone
Here's the newsflash: Not only is Google not making its own cell phone, it's hoping other people will do most of the work of coming up with new software. Honestly, are you people dense? I don't know how many times I have to tell you this: Google is not coming out with a Googlephone. But the idea is clearly so entrancing that tech reporters keep returning to it, as in a new Wall Street Journal article. The short version: Google will announce plans that, instead of involving its own models of cell phones, will work with existing carriers and handset makers. More » -
wireless
Confirmed! There is no Googlephone
I've been saying it for ages: There is no Googlephone. Last week, at the Web 2.0 Summit conference, I finally got confirmation that Google's not getting into the cell-phone business. How? I overheard a rep from Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, chatting up a vice president at Google. Now, I know this particular executive is utterly guileless; she wouldn't lie. And when the Foxconn rep tried to pitch her on getting a contract to make the Googlephone, she replied, flat-out, "We're not making a Googlephone." More » -
google
HTC to ship 50,000 pointless Googlephones
A UBS analyst is spreading rumors that Taiwanese manufacturer HTC will ship 50,000 cell phones running Google's mobile operating system by the end of the year. That's not so hard to believe. Just don't call the devices Googlephones. We've been saying for months there is no such thing as a Googlephone, or an OS, really — instead, it's just cell-phone-optimized services from Google. The low order number just confirms that Google knows it can't be a player in the hardware business. Expect the user interface on the phones to look a lot like Google Docs for Mobile, a wireless version of Google's Web-apps suite launched today. And here's a question: If we can run Google Docs on any phone, why would we — or Google — need a Googlephone? Right. That's what we've been telling you all along.
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Comment by Mocheeze: @cv: Yeah, I'm interested in seeing how that's going turn out too. The java rumor is definitely my least favorite... more » | Other threads
valleywag
San Francisco, 6:35 AM
Fri Jul 10
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