Preview the Google Phone

by Volker Weber

Mitch sent me an interesting link today: Precursor to GPhone? On My Blackberry?. Use your mobile phone and go to standard Google mobile page. You should get a page which looks similar to those:

googlewm5 googlebb8800

Notice how Google offers a few links for Windows Mobile, but five applications for the BlackBerry 8800: Google Search, Google Maps, GMail, Google News and GTalk. (Actually GTalk is on a different page for the BlackBerry). These are all Java apps, and Microsoft is not delivering a JVM with Windows Mobile. Isn't it funny how Microsoft stubbornly tries to keep out of the mainstream on mobile devices? On the BlackBerry, Google offers you a rather small install:

googlebb8800install

These applications might give you an idea, what a "Google Phone" is all about.

2007-04-04 :: email :: bookmark :: digg

Comments

It seems that Google use the Blackberry as their mobile device of preference, I use the Google Apps for my domain to run my mail etc and, bizarrely, the Gmail Mobile app is only available for the Blackberry currently whereas the free Gmail Mobile runs on most Java enabled phones.

My guess is that these new Java apps will be rolled out to other Java enabled phones within a fairly short time.

Matt

Matt, I run Gmail on my palm 650, I installed the IBM websphere everyplace JAva engine and Gmail runs fine. It's documented on Googles site how to do it.

That is a 45 MB download. Is IBM kidding me? And then it is a Windows installer. Do you see a CAB file for Windows Mobile 5.0 anywhere?

Volker, could you please post the direct link for the Google Services package download visible in the third screenshot? Unfortunately I can't download it using my 8800 cause my BlackBerry browser is always redirected to the German version of the website. The German version of mobile.google.com does not offer the application download.

Abdelkader Boui, 2007-04-04 21:38

45MB? Are you sure he didn't mean this (for PalmOS)?

Good news for us old school 8700 users; the same Google Services are available for us as well.

Ken Porter, 2007-04-05 00:54

Volker,

the menu is also dependant on the phone - and maybe the carrier.

I have Mobile Windows 5.0 on the MDA Vario 2 with T-Mobile in Germany. Google is recognizing it as a MDA Compact and offers also "Google Mail" as a download and SMS which is more or less an expensive way to get Google-results via SMS (send a SMS to 31010 in Germany with the search in the body of the SMS).

Bernd Schuster, 2007-04-11 14:01

Post a comment











Shall I remember this for you?




Use your full name and a working email address. Unless you want your comment to be removed. No kidding.



Recent comments

Flemming Riis on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 18:47
Marco Foellmer on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 13:46
Volker Weber on So how bad is the iPhone 3G battery? And other first impressions ... at 12:45
Axel Koerv on So how bad is the iPhone 3G battery? And other first impressions ... at 12:30
Volker Weber on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 09:19
Ben Poole on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 09:18
ingo harpel on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 09:05
Timo Zimmermann on So how bad is the iPhone 3G battery? And other first impressions ... at 08:41
Bryan Lehr on Three more iPhone push servers. Plus one open source ActiveSync implementation. at 06:49
Craig Wiseman on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 04:42
Lance Spellman on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 02:19
Volker Weber on So how bad is the iPhone 3G battery? And other first impressions ... at 00:32
Volker Weber on Sometimes you have to touch it at 00:27
Michael Sedlaczek on So how bad is the iPhone 3G battery? And other first impressions ... at 00:26
Volker Weber on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 00:26
Ben Poole on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 00:15
Henry Ferlauto on Sometimes you have to touch it at 22:50
Alex Boschmans on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 22:49
Craig Wiseman on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 22:11
David Leedy on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 21:42
Sascha Mohr on New toy: iPhone 3G in white at 21:38
Frank Koehntopp on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 21:38
Pieterjan Lansbergen on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 21:26
Volker Weber on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 20:56
Ben Poole on iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi at 20:48

Ceci n'est pas un blog

vowe.net is a personal website published by Volker Weber a.k.a. vowe. I am an author, consultant and systems architect based in Darmstadt, Germany.

rss Click here to subscribe

Hello

About me
Contact
Publications
Certificates
Frequently asked questions

Twitter Updates

More >

Poll

Mobile phones on a plane?

Getting poll results. Please wait...

Local time is 12:31

visitors.gif
153 visitors online

News

Other sources of news, imported into my own format to make them more accessible:

Heise Online
Schlagzeilen
Weather

Archives

As most of my articles roll off the front page rather quickly, I am making an archive of previous posts available here. You can also use the handy search box at the top of the page if you are looking for something particular.

Last 30 days
More archives

Got the T-shirt?

Got the T-shirt?
Are you buying from the US?

Systems Architecture

This site runs on an Apache web server on top of the Linux operating system. The content is managed with MovableType 2.661 which is implemented in Perl. Last but not least the HTML code your browser sees is put together with PHP.

© 1992-2008 Volker Weber.
All Rights Reserved.

Impressum