Om Malik continues to fan the rumours about Google's mobile phone. According to him, the phone will have the following features:

1. Google Phone is based on a mobile variant of Linux, and is able to run Java virtual machines.

2. All applications that are supposed to run on the Google Phone are java apps. The OS has ability to run multimedia files, including video clips.

3. The user interface is similar to a UI typical of mobile phones, and the image (with red background) floating around isn't representative of the Google Phone UI. The entire UI is said to be done in Java and is very responsive. The UI, of course has a "search box."

4. There is a special browser which has pan-and-browse features that are common to modern browsers such as browsers for iPhone and Symbian phones. The entire browser is apparently written in Java. But then others have told us that the browser is based on the WebKit core, the same engine in Safari and in iPhone, and Google has been making optimizations to speed it up. This is one aspect of the Google Phone I am not sure about.

5. Initially there was one prototype, but over past few months Google has the mobile OS running on 3-to-5 devices, most of them likely made by HTC, a mobile phone maker, and all have Qwerty apps. The model that folks have seen is very similar to the T-Mobile Dash. Around 3GSM, there were rumors that Google, Orange and HTC were working together on mobile devices.

If these were true, then let me add to the rumour. :)

If the entire UI is running Java, my take is that it will be using JavaFX Mobile - the same product announced at JavaOne 2007.



I have seen the demo phone already and I'd say that it is cool! A worthy competitor to Apple's iPhone!

It wouldn't surprise me if this uses OpenMoko as the underlying OS and perhaps with Google's tweaks to make it work with Google's services, e.g., apps, maps, search (of course!), grandcentral, youtube, etc. However, the OpenMoko prototype only supports EDGE. I am hoping that the Google Phone will support HSDPA and 3G at the very least. :)

Exciting times. Crossing my fingers about the rumoured announcement in two weeks!