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Google's gift to staffers: the HTC Dream, or G1, smartphone.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

Google Australia employees--and those in many other countries--received an HTC Dream Android phone as a holiday gift.

"We've never developed anything like the Android software before, so this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement," a Google representative told ZDNet Australia on Monday.

Apart from spreading holiday cheer, having all the employees using the phone would help make Android better, the representative added. "Giving the Dream phone to Googlers also allows us to once again dog-food a product and make it even better."

Other Australians won't have to wait long for their own Android phone, with the Agora from Kogan Technologies set to hit Australia on January 29.

Those wanting the HTC Dream will have to wait, however. There are still no official plans yet as to when the Dream will come Down Under, a representative for the handset manufacturer said Monday.

Suzanne Tindal of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

(Credit: T-Mobile)

Ever since Apple's iPhone hit the market, some people have loved using a virtual keypad. Others have hated it.

Owners of Google's new G1 Android phones could soon have a choice to use either the existing slide-out QWERTY keyboard or a virtual keyboard like the iPhone's.

Google has added "soft keyboards" to its road map of future software releases. The new software hook is expected to be available for phone manufacturers as part of the source code in the first three months of 2009.

While there are many features to love about the G1, which is the first Android phone to hit the market, there are several items missing. A virtual keypad is one of them.

Without the touchscreen keypad, people have to slide out the QWERTY keypad to send text messages, IMs, and e-mail.

T-Mobile G1, the first phone powered by Google's Android software

(Credit: T-Mobile)

It looks like T-Mobile customers trying to get one of the initial models of the first phones powered by Google's Android operating system will have to wait a bit longer.

"Sorry! Due to the overwhelming popularity of the new T-Mobile G1, upgrades are temporarily unavailable. Please try again later," the T-Mobile pre-order page told people who tried to sign up for the phone on Saturday, according to the Android Guys blog.

The G1 phone, built by HTC, was announced Tuesday and goes on sale October 22. The price is $179.99 for those who sign up for a two-year contract with T-Moble.

NEW YORK--Nearly a year after word of a "Google phone" started spreading, T-Mobile USA and the search giant are revealing the first mobile device to run on Google's Android operating system. Anticipated is a smartphone manufactured by Taiwanese electronics maker HTC called Dream. Below is CNET News' live coverage of the event here, which has concluded.

Click here for full coverage of Google Android.

10:15 a.m. ET: We're waiting for the event to start. As noted by my colleague Stephen Shankland, some photos of T-Mobile's G1 phone--also known as the HTC Dream--are emerging shortly before the official debut here.

10:30 a.m.: T-Mobile USA's chief technology and innovation officer, Cole Brodman, takes the stage and introduces everyone for the launch. Andy Rubin of Google takes the stage, as does the chief technology officer of Deutsche Telekom, Christopher Schläffer.

10:35 a.m.: Schläffer announced that Deutsche Telekom is also announcing the Android phone across the pond on T-Mobile by the end of the year. He is talking about how Deutsche Telekom has grown its data revenue by 43 percent. Traffic has grown 250 percent, and the company is ready to capitalize further.

A first official view of the G1 phone, aka the HTC Dream. Google's Android operating system, on which it runs, lets people view photos and add them as shortcuts to the phone's desktop.

(Credit: T-Mobile/CNET Networks)

10:40 a.m.: Andy Rubin takes the stage and introduces Peter Chou, CEO of HTC. He starts off by congratulating everyone, from Andy Rubin to the whole T-Mobile team. We're 15 minutes into the press conference, and we still haven't seen the phone. That said, Chou described the device and called it iconic.

10:45 a.m.: Brodman says the company is going to drive change by working with third parties. No more fuzzy pictures, and no more unsubstantiated blog posts. "Here is the G1." And he reveals it. They start to play a video on the big screen. Everyone in the crowd holds up their phones and cameras to get a picture of it.

T-Mobile's G1, aka the HTC Dream

(Credit: Boy Genius Report (used with permission))

A few hours ahead of the official launch event in New York, T-Mobile has begun showing views of its G1 phone, the HTC Dream model that will be the first to sport Google's Android operating system.

For a peek at some of the photos, we recommend a look at Boy Genius Report, which got its shots from T-Mobile's G1 site.

Also worth a peek are some shots at TmoNews and Gizmodo, which shows some comparatively rare white-case models of the handset.

The views reveal few surprises for those who've seen Google's earlier Android demonstrations, earlier leaked shots, the Dream specifications from the FCC's Web site, and a grainy video. The phone includes an orientation sensor that can shift the display from portrait to landscape mode, a sliding screen that reveals a five-row QWERTY keyboard, and a rollerball to point and click.

Also unsurprising: the phones run Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and of course Google search, which is where Google hopes to make its money off the Android project.

Stay tuned for CNET's live blog of the T-mobile's launch event at 7:30 a.m. PDT.

Another view shows some of the applications the phone can run.

(Credit: Boy Genius Report (used with permission))

The T-Mobile G1 can be rotated to show a portrait view.

(Credit: Boy Genius Report (used with permission))

Click here for full coverage of Google Android

Marguerite Reardon co-wrote this article.

There will be plenty of hullabaloo on Tuesday when T-Mobile unveils the first phone powered by Google's Android operating system. But the event is only the beginning of a long effort to rewrite the rules of the mobile communications industry.

The phone, a somewhat chunky model called Dream built by HTC, is expected to cost about $200 from T-Mobile and go on sale in October. Until other partners in the Google-spawned, 34-member Open Handset Alliance bring their Android products to market, this small piece of electronics will shoulder a lot of ambitions.

For T-Mobile, an Android phone could bring some Google buzz to the scrappy carrier, helping match what AT&T got from Apple's iPhone. It also could potentially persuade customers T-Mobile's new 3G network is worth paying give T-Mobile new revenue from online application sales.

For Google, Android is a tool to spread Internet-savvy phones far and wide. People with powerful networked phones use the Internet much more, and Google wants to be the top company supplying the information they demand online.

"Look at Japan, (where) we have far more usage of mobile Web. It's similar with the iPhone," said Google co-founder Sergey Brin in a meeting with reporters last week. "If the Internet is widely available, that's good for us."

What's not yet clear is how well Android phones will fare in the marketplace. Google's software is untested, and there are plenty of competitors in the mobile phone market.

But Google's advertising business is a money factory, and the company has shown it has patience to invest that money in key projects. So even if the first-generation Android phones don't entice people to line up around the block, competitors who develop mainstream phone operating systems such as Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft's Windows Mobile doubtless are taking heed.

New rules
Android is an attempt to bring some of the ways of the computing industry to the mobile phone world.

For example, taking a page from Microsoft's playbook, Google is trying to enlist countless programmers in its Android charge, relying on them to build applications for the phone. While the mobile phone business hasn't made it easy to add new applications to phones, Google wants to reverse this and bring more of the openness of PCs to the phone market.

"If you're going to be an Open Handset Alliance carrier, you can't lock it down," said John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer at Wind River Systems, a Google ally that helps phone makers build and customize Android for their phone hardware.

Open-source software is another example. The Android software, millions of lines of code that will become open-source software with the release of the first phone, employs some components familiar to the computing industry and some new ones. It employs Linux at its lowest levels to communicate with hardware, but applications running on the system are written in the Java programming language. Java is common in mobile phones, but Google diverged from the mainstream phone industry by creating its own Java foundation, called Dalvik, for running the programs.

Because much of Android is open-source software, it can be used for free, and that means those selling phones can spend their money on better hardware rather than on software license fees, Bruggeman said. In addition, other individual programmers or interested companies can help improve that open-source software, so at least theoretically Android could become an exercise in collective engineering the way Linux has been.

Wind River is contributing code of its own as part of its Android support business. Its customers' second-generation Android phones will ship in the first half of 2009, Bruggeman said, and "There's a good chance we'll make first quarter." He called the Dream a good start, but promised better power management, performance, usability, and features for the sequels.

Running the gamut
Android can be used by any phone manufacturer to build any kind of mobile phone--anything from a simple, inexpensive phone for the developing world to a power user's high-end smartphone.

Andy Rubin, head of Google's Android project.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

HTC and T-Mobile seem to have gone the smartphone route in developing the Dream, which some are calling G1. So far, neither T-Mobile nor HTC has revealed details about the new phone. But rumored specifications for the device and pictures on various blogs suggest it's chock-full of bells and whistles to help it compete in the smartphone market against devices like Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices.

Some of the features that are rumored to be included are a full QWERTY keyboard, 3G support as well as Wi-Fi, a full HTML browser, embedded GPS, easy access to Google applications such as maps, YouTube, instant messaging, e-mail, SMS texting, a 3-megapixel camera, a music player, video recorder and player, and a memory card slot.

The Dream's $200 price tag also hits the smartphone sweet spot for cost. T-Mobile is already selling both the BlackBerry 8820 and BlackBerry Curve for $199 with a two-year contract. And Apple and AT&T are offering the iPhone 3G for $200 with a two-year contract.

T-Mobile already has a decent portfolio of smartphones, including the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve, and BlackBerry 8820. It also sells two other HTC smartphones that use Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system, the T-Mobile Dash and T-Mobile Wing. But as the carrier rolls out its new 3G network, it needs a flagship device that will give consumers, who might be tempted to buy an iPhone for AT&T's network, a reason to buy a phone on T-Mobile's network.

High hopes
But the big question is whether the Dream can live up to expectations.

The iPhone set the bar for what customers should expect from a smartphone. Apple then raised the bar this summer with the iPhone 3G and a new App Store that allows people to buy and download thousands of applications.

Since the iPhone was first launched in 2007 exclusively on AT&T's network, wireless operators have been scrambling to find a cool device to compete. Last year, Verizon Wireless introduced the LG Voyager, which has a touch screen that flips up to expose a QWERTY keypad. Earlier this year, in anticipation of an iPhone with 3G, Verizon launched the LG Dare, a 3G touch-screen phone with a mobile browser.

In June, just a few weeks before the iPhone 3G went on sale, Sprint Nextel launched the Samsung Instinct, a touch-screen 3G smartphone designed to give iPhone a run for its money.

The HTC Dream is T-Mobile's iPhone slayer, or so the company hopes. Because the software has been developed by glamorous Google there are a lot of expectations. And some believe that Android could also be a game-changer, just like the iPhone before it.

Like Apple, Google plans a central site to distribute and sell applications. In August, it announced plans for the Android Market, an online center where people can find, buy, download, and rate applications and other content for Android phones. Initially, the site will only support distribution for free applications. An update later will handle different versions of applications, support different profiles of Android phones, and include analytics to help developers track adoption, Google has said.

Bruggeman, though, doesn't see Google's crosshairs painted on Apple's back.

"I don't think it's an iPhone killer. As long as Apple continues to innovate and create a good user experiences and sexy devices, there's always a place for that," Bruggeman said. "If the mobile phone market is 3 billion units and Apple has 15 million, they are a pimple on the mobile phone landscape. There will always be a room for a pimple on the landscape. Google is playing for the rest of the enchilada."

This post was co-written by staff writer Marguerite Reardon.

The soon-to-be announced, first-ever Google Android phone will be priced at $200 with a two-year contract, according to a blog post on TechCrunch.

The tech blog said an "insider" had confirmed the $200 price tag, which is reasonable considering that AT&T is selling the iPhone 3G for the subsidized price of $199. That said, it's still about $50 more than what we had expected. Earlier reports were that the phone would cost $150 with a two-year contract and $399 without a contract.

The HTC Dream will be the first phone that uses Google's open-source operating system called Android. T-Mobile USA will be the first carrier to the offer the new phone, which is expected to be announced on Tuesday. Stay tuned for more rumors and details as the countdown to Android continues.

T-Mobile declined to comment.

Click here for full coverage of Google Android

Journalists and developers at the Google Developer Day event in London Tuesday were treated to an unexpected demonstration of the upcoming Android handset.

Mike Jennings from Google, who was giving the demonstration, covered up the phone's branding with tape, but it seemed pretty obvious that it's probably the HTC Dream. Not too much is revealed about the device itself, but we did get a sneak peek at what looks to be the final version of the Android OS. Consensus seems to be that it's a lot more polished than previous demonstrations, and though we can't tell too much from the blurry video, it looks to be true. It definitely got us ramped up again for the eventual release of the device. Check out this YouTube video someone captured of the demo, and see for yourself.

(Via Gizmodo and TechRadar)

The blog "Android Guys" has published an engineering drawing of T-Mobile's soon to be released Android phone codenamed the T-Mobile G1.

The images show more information about the device than any of the other mock-ups that have zipped around the blogosphere.

One of the more interesting tidbits from the drawing is a slight tilt of the bottom part of the phone where the trackball is located. The device has a full QWERTY keyboard with nicely spaced buttons. The Android Guys note this is reminiscent of recent Sidekick designs, and the site gives it a thumbs-up.

The blog "Android Community" has used the drawing to calculate the phone's dimensions and reports that the thickness of the G1, also known as the HTC Dream, is approximately 0.64-inches or 16.35mm. Apple's iPhone, which doesn't have a flip-out screen, is 12.3 mm thick. It also looks like the G1's screen size is comparable to the iPhone's 3.5-inch screen.

There is also a "menu" button on the G1, according to the drawing, which will likely be used to launch Google services.

The HTC phone, which is expected to be widely available on T-Mobile's network in October, is the first phone that will use Google's Android operating system. Rumors about the phone have been flying through cyberspace for months in anticipation of its launch.

The device is expected to be priced at about $399 full retail or about $150 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile. One blog reports that the device will go on sale October 13, 2008, with pre-orders for existing T-Mobile customers to begin September 17.

Some of the rumored specs for the device include: a full QWERTY keyboard; 3G/Wi-Fi; full HTML browser; easy access to Google apps, maps (with Street View); YouTube; IM and text; e-mail; 3-megapixel camera; video playback; a music player plus a memory card slot; and an application store.

Click here for full coverage of Google Android