Google's Debut 'Not Just Another iPhone Clone'

Android-based Dream will include physical, other features missing from Apple hit

By Clay Dillow, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 23, 2008 11:42 AM CDT

(Newser) – The long-anticipated Google phone debuts today, and it’s “not just another iPhone clone,” Anita Hamilton writes in Time. The $179 HTC Dream from T-Mobile is the first handheld to run Android, Google’s mobile platform offering 3G connectivity and a similar application-driven interface. But the Dream offers both a touch-screen and a physical keyboard, and offers the flexibility of running more than one application at once.

Google’s Android Market, the equivalent of Apple’s App Store, allows creators to upload applications without Google’s blessing (Apple approves all apps before posting), allowing favorites to emerge more democratically—and unlike the App Store, all programs will be free. While T-Mobile is the only carrier currently offering a phone running Android, Google has invited all carriers to build handsets for the platform.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

Google founer Sergey Brin at Google's California headquarters. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, file)

Android's street view, courtesy of Google Maps. ((c) ronin691)

Google's Android operating software for smartphones debuts today on T-Mobile's Dream phone. ((c) ronin691)

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Whatever the Dream may lack in flair, it's no less of a breakthrough when it comes to giving mobile-phone buyers more ways to connect on the go. - Anita Hamilton, on Google's entry
into the cell-phone market

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Google's Debut 'Not Just Another iPhone Clone'