Get ready, again, for the Google phone

Nobody knows a thing about the gPhone, but that won't squelch speculation.

Published September 19, 2007 4:32PM (EDT)

You've heard about the gPhone, right? Call it Google's answer to the iPhone, call it Google's effort to take on the carriers, call it Google's plan for world domination -- call it whatever you want because nobody knows much of anything about it, other than that it's coming. Maybe.

Today we get another report. DigiTimes, the Taiwanese outlet that's plugged in with Asian supply-chain sources, says that Google will "definitely" launch its own phone -- but the company has "yet to finalize" much of anything at all about the product.

According to DigiTimes' anonymous "Taiwan handset maker" sources, Google is still working out the phone's specifications, its operating system, who will produce it, and which carriers it will work on.

DigiTimes says Google had once planned to make the phone an EDGE device -- the same not-very-fast wireless data system that the iPhone uses -- but now it's thinking about releasing a gPhone with fast 3G capabilities.

Google is considering contracting the manufacture of the phone to Taiwanese device maker HTC, DigiTimes says. In line with previous reports, DigiTimes adds that Google is developing its own mobile operating system for the phone.


By Farhad Manjoo

Farhad Manjoo is a Salon staff writer and the author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.

MORE FROM Farhad Manjoo


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