Gizmodo: motorola android phone

Is This Motorola's First Android Phone?

John Herrman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:25:46 EDT

The first alleged spy pics of Motorola's long-rumored Android phone, the T-Mobile-branded "Morrison," have filtered their way online, and hint that the company could be taking Google's mobile OS in a new, decidedly mainstream direction.

The Morisson, if that's what we have here, is a QWERTY slider in the tradition of the G1, though judging by the bright styling, generously-size d-pad and smooth lines, it seems to be oriented toward a broader audience than its blocky T-Mobile stablemate. In fact, the Morrison would sooner pass as a messaging-centric feature phone than a full-fledged smartphone. Granted, this is a spy pic; it could just as well be either (or neither) of those things.

But think about the possibility for a minute: Android is said to be relatively scalable, it's free, and it would doubtlessly blow the half-baked proprietary OSes on the likes of the Pantech Duo out of the water. I'd say a cheap Android phone is overdue; we'll just have to see if that's what Motorola has in mind. [Mini-suit via Phandroid]

Motorola's "Focus On Android" Won't Yield an Actual Phone Before Christmas 2009

John Mahoney — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:01:05 EDT

So yesterday, Motorola comes out with some optimistic sounding news (well, unless you're getting the axe) of streamlining the operation and shifting focus to Android, an OS that is built specifically for its relative ease to bring to market. And then, one day later on their quarterly earnings call (in which they announced a staggering loss of $400 million in one quarter), new president Sanjay Jha says we won't see the first Android-powered Moto phone until Christmas of next year, notwithstanding any further delays? Yeah, I guess that's about right.

So Jha wasn't joking when he said the earliest Motorola could start to turn things around is in the second half of 2009. But to be so thoroughly tripped up on Android, a platform that is built specifically to be easily mated with a diverse range of devices with relatively few engineering headaches (and zero licensing costs, remember) is kind of shocking. I guess there is some merit in waiting until you get things right, but wow—you'd think they'd have been preparing for this since the Android SDKs have been out for, oh, a year or so already?

According to Moconews, who was on the call, Jha explained his company's sluggishness thusly:

One of the things that we need to do better is execution on software strategy. Execution has been poor. Talent we are looking for is software execution. Have great software talent around the world. Ex Good Technology staff working on forward-looking developments. In terms of time to market, once we get these platforms solidified and delivering products, will have much better oiled machine and will be competitive with other folks in the industry.

Goes to show how difficult it is to overcome the intertia of failure a wrecked corporate culture can generate. [Silicon Alley Insider, Moconews]

More Details on Motorola's Android Phone: It'll Be Better, Cheaper than G1

Kit Eaton — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:39:58 EDT

Details have been dribbling out about Motorola's upcoming Android cellphone—we already knew it was going to be social-networky—but Businessweek has quizzed Moto and garnered a few more juicy facts. Firstly it'll have a an "iPhone-like touchscreen," which is no big surprise, and it'lll have a slide-out QWERTY like the G1. But, most interestingly, it'll be specced a little higher than the G1 and will come at a lower price point.

In fact it'll apparently come at a price similar to the Krave (which it may also steal some design cues from) which currently is going for around $150 on a two-year contract. There's no more info available yet, but since Motorola has been touting spec sheets and images of the phone to cellphone carriers around the world, and speculation on a release date is centered at the second quarter of 2009 we might well expect to learn more soon. [Businessweek via BBG]