Motorola's Android

Motorola’s Android: 2nd Quarter 09

Posted by Sam Churchill on October 20th, 2008

Motorola has been showing spec sheets and images of their Android phone to carriers around the world in the past two months, says Business Week, and is likely to introduce the handset in the U.S. sometime in the second quarter of 2009.

It takes some of the design cues from Motorola’s Krave ZN4 (right), the first touch-screen phone from Motorola. It was launched with Verizon Wireless on Oct. 14, but it’s not certain whether the Android phone screen will feature Krave’s distinctive clear flip screen. The Android handset will feature a touch screen about the size of those on the iPhone, people familiar with the phone say. Using Facebook and MySpace.com, the phone will let users message friends from phone contact lists and utilize the applications being developed around the Android platform.

The Washington Post explains; the G1 already imports your contacts from Gmail into the phone. It wouldn’t be too hard for the Motorola Android to import your friends’ list from Facebook or MySpace directly into the phone’s address book, and let you IM them and see their status updates and activity streams on your phone. Kind of like the Facebook app on the iPhone lets you do already, except that you wouldn’t necessarily need to launch a separate app.

“We’re excited about the innovation possibilities on Android and look forward to delivering great products in partnership with Google”, said the company in a statement. Motorola hopes to revive a loss-making handset division that has forfeited market share and their stock is hovering near a 16-year low.

Wednesday is G-Day. On Oct. 22, T-Mobile and Google make the G1 official. The T-Mobile G1, made by HTC, is only the first Android phone (wikipedia). Sprint and others are expected to have their own versions in the coming months.

source : dailywireless.org