Google is teaming with T-Mobile and HTC to launch a new interactive smart phone in the US, a UPI report, citing various sources, said.
The phone will feature a touch screen and a slide-out, five-row keyboard, The New York Times reported.
The phone will run on Google's Android software and, like Apple's iPhone, allow consumers to download new applications.
The phone requires a Federal Communications Commission review to ensure it meets industry standards. But, the companies plan to have the phone launched in time for the holiday shopping season, the Times reported.
The development is a 'milestone' in part because, a Google versus Apple rivalry in the mobile phone market 'forces others to innovate faster,' Richard Wong a venture capitalist with Accel Partners, quoted by the New York Times report, said.
However, there have been many complaints, on both sides of the Atlantic, about the iPhone's habit of dropping the signal mid session. Hardware (thought to be Intel's Infineon chipset) and an immature protocol stack have been blamed. It remains to be seen whether Android-based phones will fare any better: the software has been a rushed job involving lots of disparate partners and my experiences with HTC touchscreen phones poor indeed. 'We can make more money on mobile than we do on the desktop, eventually,' Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a recent CNBC interview. This sounds like the naivety with which so many players - including Google - have approached mobile search and advertising. There has been little success in either so far. The biggest problem so far for all Apple's would-be rivals is that none of them has come up with anything that works so well or is so easy to use or such a design triumph.