On Tuesday, Google revealed it's newest product...G1. Eerily similar in style to Apple's iPhone, T-Mobile showcased the G1, calling attention to it's large touch screen, trackball, slide-out keyboard, Wi-Fi connection ability and quick access to Google's email and mapping programs.
The phone is set to be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third generation wireless data network. On the planned device launch date, of October 22nd, that will include 21 cities. Included in those cities are New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami. The phone will be available in other areas for purchase, and does run on T-Mobile's slower data network, but it is optimized for the faster networks.
The G1 will retail for $179, which is conveniently $20 less than Apple's iPhone!
Google believes that in the future, they could potentially bring in more revenue on the mobile front, rather than on PCs, a channel that will generate about $20 billion in revenue this year. Because of this, the G1 features "Android", a free software, that is a crucial building block in Google's efforts to extend their search reach and other services to the mobile platform.
In an effort to keep up and prevent Google from extending it's dominance, both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also investing heavily into the mobile market.
On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything all that remarkable when compared to other phones out on the market. But Google is banking on the device to unleash the creativity of the software developing community, who are free to write applications for it. Developers will be able to submit applciation to an online store, run by Google, which will apply minimal testing and inspections. Apple has a similar online store for their iPhone, but they keep a much tighter grip as to what applications are available to users. Any program that is similar to it's own, gets blocked.
Similar to how software programmers can write and create programs for their PC, they will be able to manipulate their phone in the same way, allowing them to modify and innovate.
What will Google think of next?!
