Google reported by blog post on Saturday that their internal developers are using an unreleased Android based phone, as contradictory rumors about a “Google Phone” flew back and forth across the Internet.
Google's Nexus One Cell Phone
Mere hours after Google posted a blog about an unnamed Android device that it gave its employees, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that the device will in fact be sold to consumers as the Nexus One. This is the real, actual, Google Phone, and it will be available in early 2010.
Google employees who asked not to be identified confirmed recently that the company was indeed developing new hardware and software for Android phones and coming up with new ways to get those phones into the hands of consumers, but they would not give more details. One Google employee said the new phone, which is being made by HTC, a major Taiwanese cellphone maker, was designed from the ground up by Google.
The Internet search leader may be sounding a challenge to wireless carriers such as Sprint and Verizon, as well as smartphone makers like Apple. It marks a departure for the leader in Web advertising, which has rarely sold devices directly to consumers.
The device will run Android version 2.1 and will run special software not available to current Android devices. The WSJ reports, “Google designed virtually the entire software experience behind the phone, from the applications that run on it to the look and feel of each screen.
TechCrunch says that a new phone “will be called the Google Phone” and will be sold directly by Google, independently of any wireless carrier.