Report: Verizon, T-Mobile to offer Motorola Android smartphones
Verizon and T-Mobile USA plan to offer Motorola smartphones running Google's Android operating system by the end of the year, according to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.
Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Journal said the new phones stem from efforts by Motorola Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha to revive the company's sluggish handset division. Motorola is hoping Android will help it win a greater slice of the cell phone market.
A Motorola representative declined to comment to the Journal. However, the report said a person familiar with the proposed T-Mobile smartphone described it as having a touch screen with a slide-out keyboard. The Android operating system will offer built-in social networking from providers such as Facebook and Twitter, the person added.
T-Mobile currently has two phones on the market running Android. The company debuted its G1 smartphone last year and recently announced a second phone, the myTouch, to hit stores in August.
Verizon has said it plans to support Android phones that would be available later this year but hasn't revealed further details.
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
The combination of Motorola's voice reception with the PDA features of the Android phones is a win-win situation for Verizon and T-Mobile customers.
There are some good Rosie screenshots here: http://phandroid.com/2009/06/03/htc-rosie-screenshots
Everything is just integrated... I have my contacts browser on my desktop and all of my contacts are linked to their facebook accounts and twitter feeds and even their flickr. And since Android can run background apps, everything just updates like it's supposed to, I don't have to "check facebook".
Even the photos that show up for the contacts are automatically updates when my friends update their facebook/flickr.
Oh yeah, and the Flash player beta is on my device too.
Rosie is only in beta right now so performance is occasionally poor. Battery life is one day of hard use, 2 days light use. Not great.
The thing rocks though. For the sake of Android success as a platform, I hope that other device makers can catch up to HTCs Rosie.
additionally: Take clue from your clients!, Rid yourself of these testy CDMA sets and move over to what the rest of the globe is using.
I need to use my phone worldwide. Anybody using CDMA is out.
JoeF2 - actually some countries have a very good CDMA infrastructure, such as Israel and, given that Verizon & ATT are arrogant to the extreme about corporate discount another carrier can simply jump in and take the business.
They offered a Samsung phone without saying that Bluetooth is crippled on it. Not even the store people knew. They replaced mine, and the new one of course had the same problem. I had to buy a USB connector to access the phone from my PC...
The only other provider with GSM is T-Mobile, and I don't like them much, either.
- by AppleSuxLeo June 23, 2009 11:09 PM PDT
- Android has been a big let-down. Nowhere near the patent portfolio of Palm.
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(15 Comments)Palm with Web OS and it`s ground breaking UI is the real news.
And all those fools who said Palm wouldn`t have multi-touch , well it turns out they have their own patents for said technology and they do multi-touch better than Apple. Palm Pre scrolls better and transitions better than the iPhone.
Web OS makes Apple and Android look out-dated and clunky.