Today’s the big day for the Google Phone. T-Mobile will announce the availability of the G1 today, the HTC-manufactured phone featuring Google’s Android mobile platform. The phone is expected to be the top competitor for Apple’s iPhone, and will supposedly cost $199 with a two-year contract.
While we still await the official announcement, the Boy Genius Report has scored some screenshots of the phone, providing a good look into the phone itself as well as the operating system. “The desktop shot looks roughly similar to the Android desktop shots that we’ve seen from the beginning, with a collection of customizable widgets that display a variety of at-a-glance info and access to commonly used applications,” writes Joshua Karp at the site. “The presence of a MyFaves icon ensures compatibility with T-Mobile’s unlimited calling service.”
The real question is just how competitive the market is going to get as a result of Google being involved. “While search won’t necessarily play the identical role in mobile it does online, it will still be a prominent part of the mobile Internet experience,” says Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land. “You can bet Google is banking on that.” Sterling also has an in depth look at said market, taking into account data from Nielsen as well as Android Co-founder Andy Rubin’s recent “future of mobile” post on the Google Blog.
Either way, the G1 should be a strong weapon for T-Mobile, provided it doesn’t face any iPhone 3G-like issues. Hopefully they can at least avoid the false advertising controversy. For all the G1 info you want, the T-Mobile press conference starts at 10:30 AM (with an on-demand version being made available just after).
