T-Mobile G1 Hands-On
10:14 AM: Google founders showed up. They are talking now. Sergey Brin just called himself a geek. He wrote a silly application for it He likes that the phoen can be modified.
They are enjoying the G1 device so far. Giving a lot of feedback to the Android team. The possibilities that you have to use the Internet are endless. He called the G1 a very good computer. It represents a tremendous opportunity.
The speed difference is still large between regular Internet and the mobile Internet. They think being able to perform searches quickly is very important.
They think we'll see amazing things happen, especially with location-based services.
10:09 AM: It is dual-band 1700MHz and 2100 MHz UMTS and quad-band GSM/EDGE.
10:09 AM: T-Mobile believes the device will have mass appeal. They think youth segments and consumers rather than business users will want to use the phone.
It has a robust Gmail experience. ALlows you to search your email. They've optimized it for Android. This will be the first implementation of online presence with the Google Talk phone book.
It supports AAC, MP3, WMA, but it doesn't sync with iTunes and won't support DRM-locked files from the iTunes Music Store.
10:06 AM: T-Mobile believes that $179 is a really attractive price point, and they've locked it to the T-Mobile network.
What about marketing? Google and T-Mobile have an integrated marketing campaign to be sure people know about it.
The device syncs with Google services. It supports hands-free Bluetooth, but not stereo Bluetooth right now.
The browswer is based on Webkit, which is also the foundation for Chrome, but the G1 will have its own browser to start.
10:03 AM: Will it function as a tethered modem? What are the voice and data plans? T-Mo says no tethering, data plans require a voice plan with T-Mobile.
Any support for MSFT files, viewing, editing? It can read Word and PDF and Excel support. No Exchange support right now. The open market place is what T-Mobile thinks will bring new features to the phone.
The Phone will be SIM-locked to T-Mobile.
Will it be push email, or IMAP? Gmail will be push, and IMAP services will be pulled email.
Will there be an accompanying desktop app? No, everything will sync with the cloud.
T-Mobile believes that the best experiences will be in 3G covered areas, but the device of course supports 2G networks.
9:59 AM: Will also be launching the device in Europe as well. Starting in the UK in early November, and across Europe in 2009.
Andy Rubin says that Google is going to open source the entire platform. Beyond that it is pretty focused roadmap by rolling out more features and services.
9:57 AM: Looks like it is Q&A time. They are going to run some questions from the press and analysts here.
Q on pricing, it will cost $179. Existing T-Mobile customers can order them through the Internet and have it shipped when it becomes available. Commercial launch date is October 22.
Will also have two data messaging plan options. $25 with limited Web and messaging, and $35 will have unlimited Web messaging.
9:56 AM: They are showing off some of the application developers. Right now they are talking about Eco-Reo, an application that lets you keep track of your carbon footprint.
Next up is an application called Shop Savvy that turns the phone into a barcode scanner. You can get comparative pricing by scanning any barcode and checking it against other prices on the Internet. Very neat.
9:54 AM: The Google Street Views application ha a built in compass mode. Ad you move, so does the Street View automatically rotate with you. You can see live images of where you are, or where you are going.
9:53 AM: Any developer can create applications for Android. Ultimately, it is a completely open platform, so there is no third party who' going to say "you can't do that."
9:52 AM: T-Mobile, HTC and partners hope to bring a lot of new applications and services to the mobile phone. They think open source is a big part of that.
9:52 AM: The G1 demo they showed up on the video showed off a very fast UI.Using your finger, you can swipe from screen to screen, application to application, quickly. It looks very sharp.
Liveblog starting in just a few minutes...
Executives from HTC, Google and Deutsche Telekom have spoken so far. Now the CTO of T-Mobile USA is speaking about the future of mobile services.
They want to embrace third parties to complete new and compelling applications for the mobile internet. Want to provide an array of new devices, applications and service so that people embrace the mobile Internet all over the world.
We are finally here to introduce the T-Mobile G-1 with Google.
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