More details emerge on the mythical Google phone?

Now that the iPhone has moved from rumor limbo into the land of the living (at least we think so -- how many people have actually touched one?), we obviously need another mythical mobile to drool over and speculate about -- and the natural candidate is, of course, the so-called Google phone. While the big G has been making inroads on your handset with mobile versions of its search, email, and mapping software for some time, there has been growing speculation that the company is working on its own hardware -- speculation that only intensified when we published that pic of a supposed Google / Samsung collaboration called the Switch (pictured above, as a refresher). Well the latest juicy G-phone morsels to hit our plate come courtesy of Simeon Simeonov (no relation to the deceased Bulgarian soccer player, we think) and his HighContrast blog, whose always-reliable "inside source" broke down some of the anticipated specs. According to Simeonov's tipster, we can expect a "Blackberry-like, slick device" (QWERTY?) running Java on a C++ core with perhaps a Linux bootstrap. For graphics, Google is said to be leveraging the 2005 purchase of little known company name Skia that developed a 2D engine capable of rendering "state-of-the-art" images on low-power devices. Finally, Google is said to be offering carriers a deal wherein the search giant will sell and market the phone online, relying on the carriers for their networks only and subsequently driving down their costs. Combined with Google's tradition of offering almost everything for free, there's a good chance that you'll be able to pick up your G-phone for much less than your precious iPhone -- although lets hope the tradeoff isn't being forced to listen to ads every time we want to make a damn call.

[Wellard @ Mar 6th 2007 8:37AM]

@Cadilicsp123: What the heck does this have to do with the mythical Google phone? Did you read TFA?

[Gil @ Mar 6th 2007 8:08AM]

""Blackberry-like, slick device" (QWERTY?) running Java on a C++ core with perhaps a Linux bootstrap.
...
developed a 2D engine capable of rendering "state-of-the-art" images on low-power devices"

Mmm... Technobabble

[ayan4m1 @ Mar 6th 2007 8:13AM]

For what it's worth... Wikipedia says that Skia was the codename for QuickDraw GX, Apple's graphics engine for OS 8/9. Hopefully that isn't what their insider is talking about.

[Das @ Mar 6th 2007 9:27AM]

I could go gay for google.

[GalaXy @ Mar 6th 2007 9:29AM]

As a complete and total Google whore, I cannot wait for more details, and/or confirmation that such a phone is actually going to exist.

[Aaron @ Mar 6th 2007 9:51AM]

The big thing here is, in my opinion, the price. The iPhone is way too much money, and I don't think Google would be nearly as greedy. I hope they really make this thing.

Plus, G-phone sounds infinitely cooler than iPhone.

[Dave @ Mar 6th 2007 10:22AM]

While I agree that cheaper is better, how can you say Apple is being greedy? Just because the parts are about half of what the iPhone will sell for does not mean thats all it costs apple in the end. How about research and development? licensing? marketing? etc etc etc.

But... don't get me wrong.. I'd LOVE to see the Google phone come in much cheaper and cause some serious competition between them and the iPhone.

It's just my personal opinion, but I think for what you get, the iPhone is totally worth the price.

[Eric Law @ Mar 6th 2007 10:16AM]

everyone talks about how slick the iPhone is, and now the gPhone,
but I'm not terribly interested in the phone aspect...
I want a shiny black dark chocolate bar with full screen touch screen...
(with some decent apps).

[Aaron @ Mar 6th 2007 10:32AM]

I get what you're saying, and I know that a lot of people feel that the iPhone has enough nifty features to be worth the steep pricetag... But for me, charging twice the manufacturing cost is kind of messed up. You're right about there being other costs involved, but damn, think how many they're going to sell! And imagine how many MORE they would sell if it was cheaper. Obviously I don't have the numbers, but I suspect they would make up all those additional costs and then some.

Either way, competition is good for everybody. I too would love to see Google make their phone.

[gz @ Mar 6th 2007 10:28AM]

This is the beginning of the end for the big mobile carriers - phones as we know them will soon be equivalent to typewriters:

http://blog.nextblitz.com/blog/2007/03/google_phone.html

[Becca @ Mar 6th 2007 11:06AM]

None of these phones have streaming, live TV on them. Meanwhile, Verizon just rolled it out in 20 states, according to:
http://advancedmediacommittee.typepad.com/emmyadvancedmedia/2007/03/media_30_news_e.html

They will obviously do the whole country.

The iPhone and Google Phone looks cool -- but aren't they missing the "next big thing"?

- Becca

[Chasqui @ Mar 6th 2007 11:44AM]

Becca - I never understood Verizon's V-cast or how paring to watch TV on a 1 inch by 1 inch screen could be the next big thing. Yea, it might be cool once - just to see it work... but then, aren't there TV's just about everywhere?
Next best thing? That will come with bandwidth - maybe then the camera on the phone can be used for video-conferencing, not just crappy stills.

[SpecialK23 @ Mar 6th 2007 2:18PM]

It called ORB. I've been streaming video (including live and recorded tv) to my phone for months. Verizon is a greedy company. BREW and VCAST are bullshit for the uninformed. Get a At&t or Sprint Power Vis phone and use ORB. As an added bonus you'll open your phone to a wide range of free J2ME applications that Verizon phones cant touch.....eg Google Maps Mobile.

I see no reason why the Google phone won't be able to stream TV. Unlike the I-phone, I'm confident it'll have a 3G chip suited for large data streams. Google Rocks!

[J @ Mar 6th 2007 11:55AM]

Chasqui - We have been able to use the camera for video confrence for years on all 3G phones, at least in Europe. Its a neat feature but not that great, TV on the phone is pretty neat, though only Sky provides channels at the moment afaik.

[Charles @ Mar 6th 2007 2:01PM]

Some additional information on the Skia graphics technology that Google acquired. This doesn't necessarily mean that Google is using Skia, just that the bright folks at Skia now work at Google.

http://www.satine.org/archives/2007/03/05/the-skia-source-code-dilemma/

[MWCrowley @ Mar 6th 2007 2:31PM]

What if we're looking at this all wrong. I mean what if this is really actually alot bigger than we think or it's still a prototype. This could be the thing that Apple and Google are supposedly working on. Who knows we could have another very interesting keynote soon.

[lt.milo @ Mar 6th 2007 2:54PM]

the big thing that the gphone has been rumored to have is: unlimited storage through google servers. That means it would only work when you have an internet connection, but that could definitely be the "next big thing".

[Anthony @ Mar 6th 2007 7:33PM]

Someone needs to take a course in Marketing 101 and Intro to Accounting. Guess what?! Most manufactured goods sell for twice what they are worth in materials. Why? Cost of labor, fixed cost of machinery, R&D, company-to-distributor mark-up (a decent guess is 25%), a mark-up from distributor to reseller, and a mark-up from reseller to the customer/end-user.

Neglecting everything but the mark-up chain. Starting off at half of $600... $300 * 1.25 * 1.25 * 1.25 = $586. Heck, the iPhone may only cost $100 in material. But adding R&D and all other variable and fixed costs, $600 to the end-user sounds like a fairly good deal.

Anyhow, back to topic, let's find out more about the Google phone. That's definitely a better alternative than the iPhone, in my eyes. And I haven't even heard the specs on the Google variety yet!

[Paul @ Mar 6th 2007 8:51PM]

i would much rather have the big G than an apple phone
Google comes out with a phone, i would buy it right away

[billyboy @ Mar 6th 2007 8:57PM]

Gosh, I really wish people wouldn't just keep repeating random made up specs regarding the pricing of iPhone's hardware costs.

Some silly report comes out with a speculative cost of the materials in the iPhone (including a 'license for osx'?... like you could ever put a price on something that will never be sold)... and the tech community takes it as gospel, and then goes on to judge the company for the potential 'profit' being made.

So, just to be sure, there is no known final spec list for the guts of the iPhone. Now, take the price of the device and its functionality and decide if it's a fair price for yourself. No? Fine, then it's too expensive for you, don't buy it.

As for myself, I like to look at the total cost of using a device. Like, the last cheap phone I've gotten, I've spent over $2000 over the past 2 years to use it. And it's a sucky phone for sure. I'd GLADLY pay $2500 over the same time period for a much more funtional and easy to use device.

[PEZ @ Mar 6th 2007 10:41PM]

The rumor is, Google and Dell will buy Palm (screw Nokia) and release newly branded phones. Since the hardware is already there, along with the momentum machine, it shoul dbe pretty easy to overtake peoples interest in the iPhone, and most other full screen phones with this new concept.

[engadget.com @ Mar 7th 2007 10:00AM]

They'll record all of your conversations and store them indefinitely, even if you delete them...

[fitinferno @ Mar 15th 2007 10:25PM]

If this thing doesn't come w/a flippin' removable battery, I will explode...

Apple's iPhone is a great ploy...buy it at a ridiculously expensive price and when the battery gets crap in a year, buy our newest one or pay the cost of a different brand's phone replacing the battery?!? Please, please do better than this Google!

[rgu6757 @ Mar 17th 2007 2:01AM]

Google in my mind will not get into the handset business.It is not their core competency.
They don't know how to sell to the consumer like Nokia or Moto knows.

I think they are developing a platform with Samsung but eventually they will (could - after all this is a speculation) release the design to the market while giving Samsung a time to market lead.

Samsung is a low cost manufacturer and will be able to maintain its position as a leader in this market against Nokia, Moto, RIMM and others who
rely on Microsoft O.S. for Smartphones.

Google essentially wants to do to the Cellphone what IBM did to the PC back at the eightees when it relased the PC design to the public and will concentrate on the SW side.
The results of that move created Microsoft and google wants to be in Microsoft position but this time with 1B devices released to the market every year and growing.

This will be very cheap or almost free device like Eric Schmidt visioned in one of his talks to the media due to the competition between OEM's and due to the subsidy of advertising.

There will be room for gPhone and iPhone in the market like there is a room for a MAC and a PC in the market.

One will be cheap network device and the other will be reach expensive multimedia capable device.

Google will expropriate the smartphone and eventually the Celular handset market from the current manufacturers and give it to the wide market to drive the device cost lower excatly like what happend in the PC market.

iPhone could be to the gPhone what MAC is to the PC

[Ratnakar Garikipati @ Mar 19th 2007 11:43PM]

the situation is getting extremely interesting...heard lately about Zune featuring a phone which runs windows mobile 6.0 (crossbow) and integrates with xbox??? this presumably is set to be released during the next holiday season.....

[Sivalingam @ Mar 22nd 2007 1:33AM]

gphone is a pure competative products of iphone ,
each one having their own standards.
Price fixed according to thier quality,brandname, manufacturing etc ..
dont evaluate their efficeny accodring to the price offered,
their implementation and technic was different.We cant guess or judge their quality,efficency? before using it