“We told you the Google phone was confirmed. And now some Googler’s seem to be confirming it, too,” Michael Arrington reports for TechCrunch. “There is a lot of chatter on Twitter about Google employees with HTC-built unlocked Google Phones running Android 2.1. And the devices look to be coming out in January.”
Arrington reports, “It looks to us like Google may have handed out a lot of the new Google Phone devices today to employees, and naturally they’re showing it to friends.”
Full article here.
John Biggs writes for CrunchGear, “What if Google starts to sell this thing? This is “a big deal” on the level of Neo learning Kung Fu in The Matrix. This means Google is making hardware.”
Biggs writes, “For nigh on three decades computer manufacturers have been secure in their positions of power… But suddenly service providers are doing hardware. Amazon has the Kindle, Barnes&Noble has a lumpen Nook, and now Google has a phone. What’s next? The Credit Suisse Fondue Set?”
Biggs writes, ” When Dell launches a phone, it’s news. When Google launches a phone it’s a Moon Shot.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Puleeze. Potential users of fake iPhones rejoice (maybe), but enough with the massively overblown hype already. “Moon Shot,” our asses. All we ask is for at least a little bit of perspective.
[UPDATE: 5:45pm ET: Mario Queiroz, Vice President, Product Management, Google, explains via The Official Google Blog:
At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test these products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements in a process we call dogfooding (from “eating your own dogfood”). Well this holiday season, we are taking dogfooding to a new level.
We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.
Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.]
MacDailyNews Take: That doesn’t sound like an imminent Google Phone to us.
