T-Mobile, Google Unveil the G1 Android-Based Handset

How many times can one word crop up in a launch event? In case you didn’t realize this, Google Inc.’s G1 handset from T-Mobile USA, the world’s first to be built on the Google Android open development platform, is ... drumroll ... open. That’s right folks: Open source, open development (just not open network).

The presenters at today’s launch event used the term “open” so many times you would forget that it’s possible to close a door, let alone an ecosystem. It was a peculiar form of brainwashing.

Even so, it’s clear that Google is putting its money where its mouth is, quite literally, in the G1, manufactured by Taiwanese device-maker HTC. The device, which will retail for the mass-market friendly price of $179 beginning Oct. 22, falls along previously leaked lines, with some surprises. (Ah, unsubstantiated blog posts. Like the National Enquirer, they tend to get it right despite the bad rep.)

And open it surely will be. Much was made of the third-party developer strategy at Tuesday’s launch presentation in New York. Essentially, Android is available for download in order for developers to: a) write any application for the G1 that they want to and make it available via the Android application site; and b) totally pimp the phone. If you’re that guy with the mad development chops, the device you buy might look nothing like the device you customize it into.

That’s a far cry from the iPhone. Apple Inc. runs a tight ship when it comes to which applications it will offer at the App Store, and has been catching some flak for it lately. Also, the basic user interface and OS of the iPhone can’t really be tweaked.

But Google has an idea that by offering no limits, there will be an explosion of applications, a free market of ideas, which in turn will feed the market what it wants. In other words, the mobile Internet will experience the same long-tail phenomenon the wired Internet has seen (without a dot-com bust in the middle, one hopes). Anything that can be dreamt, third-party developers can create. DVD support? Sure, if someone writes it. Games? Mais bien sur. Anything, really. And with more and more 3G deployed, making slow network speeds less of a gating issue, Google hopes to light a spark under the currently anemic 16 percent mobile Internet penetration rate in the United States.

There is one non-open aspect: the G1 will be SIM-locked to the T-Mobile network. It was also stressed on Tuesday that the G1 was not meant to be used as an external modem for laptops, but it was unclear whether T-Mobile or Google would block such a functionality.

While waiting for developers to come through with cool applications, the G1 comes preloaded with all the Google applications, optimized for mobile, like a push version of Gmail and a version of Google Maps that can be launched from the browser or address book (with street view, which can come in extremely handy when you need to see a landmark to find your way). It also has AmazonMusic for MP3 downloads and a bevy of other apps, like ShopSavvy, which allows you to scan a barcode with the built-in video camera; and the application will comparison shop, then let you know if the item is available elsewhere for cheaper. All the applications come as widgets that can be dragged and dropped to the home screen.

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