T-Mobile myTouch 3G: Google Android Take 2

Make it work, make it mine, make it easy: Those are the three customer wishes T-Mobile aims to fulfill with its new flagship smartphone: the myTouch 3G .
The touchscreen smartphone, manufactured by HTC and based on the same Google Android operating system software as the T-Mobile G1, offers a slimmer profile than the G1 thanks to its lack of a slide-out keyboard.
Highlights of the new unit include its large library of Android applications and the multitude of ways in which it can be personalized.
"It's a very sleek device," said T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Denny Marie Post (above, left), who readily admitted that her 15-year-old son was instrumental in helping her set up her phone. "You feel very bold to experiment with it.... It becomes 100% you."
"This is our first, and our real big bet for 2009," said Cole Brodman, T-Mobile's chief technology and innovation officer (above, right) at the July 8 press event in New York. "The myTouch 3G is unique through and through."

Brodman said there were already 5,000 Android applications available for the myTouch 3G and the G1, including many location-aware utilities that take advantage of the GPS receivers built into the phones.

For example, Sherpa, from Geodelic Systems, can locate points of interest close to you as you move around. Clicking a restaurant button will generate icons for the closest eateries, complete with the addresses and the distances from where you are. Click on an icon and the phone searches for relevant information on the restaurant, such as menus, travel directions, cuisine and reviews.

Rahul Sonnad, founder and CEO of Geodelic, said Sherpa was first developed for PCs, but was ported to Android as the software platform gained traction.

Brodman described Sherpa as a "really unique recommendation and discovery engine. He noted that it remembers the user's preferences as it processes requests. "The more you use it, the smarter it becomes," he said.

Brodman said T-Mobile's sales force had been trained to help users set up and personalize their myTouch 3G phones. "Make it work, make it mine and make it easy," said Brodman, taking the role of a prospective customer.

Current T-Mobile customers can pre-order the myTouch 3G for $199 with a 2-year service plan. Those who order by July 28 will receive their units by Aug. 3. The unit will be available in T-Mobile stores Aug. 5. The myTouch 3G offers a 3.2-inch touchscreen, aWi-Fi adapter, a 3.2-megapixel digital camera, a digital music player with a preinstalled four-gigabyte microSD memory card and support for T-Mobile's fast 3G data network.

After few minutes of testing, the phone worked well. The touchscreen was responsive and the Web browser rendered pages fairly quickly. The on-screen keyboard, which can be set up to give tactile feedback when a key is touched, flips over to the side when the phone is held in landscape orientation.

Post said the myTouch 3G was poised to be a viable challenger to Apple's iPhone to date. Time will tell.

Text and photos Copyright 2009 Stadium Circle Features

T-Mobile G1: Android Alert!

So what's the big deal about the new T-Mobile G1 cell phone with the touch screen and flip-open keyboard? Yes it supports 3G and GPS and has a nifty flip-open, five-row keyboard, a usable trackball and a responsive touch screen, but we've seen all of this before, right?

Right. But that's OK. It wasn't the phone that was the star of Tuesday morning's well-attended T-Mobile/Google press conference in New York, it was Google's new Android phone operating system, a software platform destined to make major ripples in the smartphone market.

The difference between Android and other platforms like Microsoft's Windows Mobile, is that Android's code and software development kits (SDKs) are available free to software developers, thus allowing them to create innovative applications at a lower cost.

As the first phone to use Android, the T-Mobile G1 is temporarily in a class by itself, the only phone able to use the dozens of applications already written for Android.

Tuesday's press event was held under the Queensborough Bridge at Gustavino's, a high-ceilinged restaurant located about as far east as one can go in Manhattan without getting wet, but that didn't stop dozens of journalists from piling in for a first look at the new phone and operating system.

The phone features a 3.2-inch display, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot (a one-gigabyte card is included) and Bluetooth 2.0 wireless networking support.

One nifty Android application is ShopSavvy, a utility that allows you to scan product barcodes with the G1's camera, send the data over the Internet, and get a list of stores that sell that product. Thus you could walk into Store A, check the price of a product on the shelf, scan the bar code and have the phone report back with prices for the same product at other stores.

Of course Google applications and services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube and Google Maps are fully supported by the T-Mobile G1.

The phone, while offering a partially iPhone-like experience, does not aim to be a direct competitor in all aspects. It has no headphone jack and can't handle protected iTunes files, although it can play MP3s and other music formats.

As the last big cell phone carrier in the U.S. to build out a third-generation (3G) data network, T-Mobile now has a trendy phone that makes good use of it. It supports T-Mobile's HSDPA and EDGE data networks and has Wi-Fi support as well. It can even switch between Wi-Fi and the data networks depending on where the better throughput is.

The T-Mobile G1 costs $179 with a two-year service agreement. An unlimited data plan with 400 free messages is $25 per month. For $35 per month, both Web access and messaging are unlimited. The G1 will be available Oct. 22, but can be preordered now.

For more information, see the T-Mobile G1 Web site.

Text and last photo Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features

Other graphics courtesy of T-Mobile and Google.