Well, the HTC handset is around five inches long and 3 inches wide with a keypad that either slides or swivels out to make emailing, note-taking and writing Web addresses easy. The Internet is navigated via controls below the screen. So, that's just like a generic HTC phone, then.

The source of the current leak, described as "a person close to the situation" (ha!) claims that the handset will be available around the end of the year, although HTC is staying schtumm on the matter. "We cannot comment on this product," their rep said.

HTC will be facing competition from Samsung. The Korean electronics giant is, apparently, wetting its knickers to get its Google phone out before that of HTC. [Yahoo!]

For better, for worse or for Google, it sent the formerly locked-tight mobile-phone industry into an open-access hysteria. True, Android and the Open Handset Alliance are still (mostly) pretty logos and promises on paper. But for a bunch of talk, it's lead to some very real action, like helping nudge Verizon out of its ugly, red-walled garden. All this gesturing might actually change the industry.

Android aside, we can really give Google props for helping to break the mobile industry via its hard fight for open-access provisions in the 700MHz spectrum auction. The provisions themselves could change the game for all telecoms, and Google doesn't even need to win!

If anyone thought Google was approaching the limits of its growth earlier in the year, Wall Street proved 'em wrong when gPhone hype pushed its stock past the $700-per-share mark, making it the fifth most valuable company in America. It's comfortably resting now at the hype-free level of about $670, over $550 more than the initial price of around $120. (At the time, many investors say that was too high.)

Google kept up the "don't be evil" motto by pumping lots of money into green energy and green research. Maybe this is because they believe in a better tomorrow, but maybe it's just to power their Matrix-like server farms without resorting to turning runaway Microsoft employees into living batteries.

On the Google application front, its office suite is still no Office-killer, and we still have some kinks we wish could be worked out of the Reader, but Google did make our lives easier in a couple ways, like by dropping the invite requirement to Gmail, adding IMAP support and getting even more iPhone-friendly. Yay. And, just the other day, it threw down with Wikipedia by launching its latest collect-all-knowledge component, Knol, which'll pay contributors—with ads. (Surprise.)

Owning YouTube kinda caught up to Google, and we're kinda sore on that front—it got sued by Viacom, bitched at by other media companies and then had to implement a content-filtering system. But possibly even more egregious was its addition of overlay ads.

Now for even less palatable stuff: Google knows pretty much everything about you and everyone you've ever loved and that probably won't ever change, even if it is trying to be a little less creepy. For instance, Google will still have all the info you think you're erasing from Ask.com. And, it still plays nice with ethically dubious—to be generous—Chinese censorship regulations to ensure its grip on a chunk of the massive and growing market over there, which doesn't exactly line up with the "don't be evil" screed. Even Sergey thinks so.

And the ads. It's much pretty much a given the catch on any Google goodness is that there'll be some sort of advertising wedged in there—true, nothing worth paying for is totally free, and Google doesn't appear game for charging monthly fees for every little service, like Microsoft and Yahoo! now do. But Google going mobile means ads becoming an increasingly unavoidable part of your mobile life— AdSense for Mobile is all fired up. It seems the lovely mobile industry freedom Google's fighting for isn't free. It costs a buck-oh-five—or a contextual spot.

Final grade: B But we think this grade is slippery: next year, Google will either be A+ or D. What Google is doing is either a massive greed-motivated build-up or a series of initiatives intended to change the tech business (and our world) for the better. In two semesters, we think we'll know if either is true—or if both are.

We talked to AT&T Wireless CEO Ralph de la Vega shortly after the Android announcement was made and asked them whether they would join the Handset Alliance. Their answer that their networks were open, and people are free to use any handset on their network because you can just plop a SIM in and go. We decided to pass on relaying this info to you, since you didn't need to hear something you already knew. So no, AT&T didn't just fling their doors wide open; it's just as open with handsets as its always been, but everything else remains the same, for better and worse. [USA Today]

McAdam dismisses the idea that being a "founding" member of the OHA would have been anything more than a press-release opportunity for the carrier. Once the dev kit went out, though, he says his engineers were impressed.

"Clearly the Android system gives a lot of developers the opportunity to develop applications for a wide range of handsets."

The result has been what we have reported over the past week: Verizon declared its network open to all phones and devices that share its network technology, following an easy security and functionality verification process. Furthermore, Verizon will migrate to the 4G standard co-developed in Europe by its parent company Vodafone, Nokia and the 3GPP, a standard that would be in line with much of the world's wireless data network.

Though this could be showboating for the FCC in the period leading up to the 700MHz spectrum auction, BusinessWeek points out the same impression that we've had, that the openness model is inevitable, and that "market demand for open networks would be impossible to hold back indefinitely." You hear that, AT&T? [BusinessWeek]

Of course AT&T and Google have "talked" about OHA—note the past tense, and that de la Vega hasn't met with Google himself. Also, neither AT&T nor Verizon will publicly shut out joining—via the WSJ there were similar rumors about Verizon "weighing" the option. But there's too much against it happening.

Wilson broke down why Sprint and T-Mobile joined and the two largest carriers didn't. There's also the wildly conflicting interests, which seem to have gotten still more intense this past week. Sure, AT&T could still buddy up. And so could Microsoft. [Mercury News via Broadband Reports]

The Droid family of fonts consists of Droid Sans, Droid Sans Mono and Droid Serif. Each contains extensive character set coverage including Western Europe, Eastern/Central Europe, Baltic, Cyrillic, Greek and Turkish support. The Droid Sans regular font also includes support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean support for the GB2312, Big 5, JIS 0208 and KSC 5601 character sets respectively.

What do you guys think of what they've already got? [Typophile via Daring Fireball]

The only companies that join consortia are the ones who are too stupid or shitty to make a great product on their own. It's like, Hey, we've got forty spazzo companies that can't fuck their way out of a paper bag; let's put them all together and maybe they'll magically become some kind of big bad powerhouse.

There are, of course, numerous cons to the singular "hand of God" approach, but the problems with consortia that FSJ lays out are real. It's hard for everyone to agree, and rarely do all involved push for the "greater good" at their individual expense. It might be different this time around, but with so much at stake, martyrs for the Alliance probably won't exactly be lining up. And oh yeah, there's no phone to wrap our hands around yet. [FSJ via Daring Fireball]

He added:

"There's 10, 15, 20, maybe 25 different Linux platforms out there. It sometimes appears that Linux is fragmenting faster than it unifies."

"I think if you look at the market share slides you'll see we're no stranger to competing with big brands... We're the market leader, and we aim to remain the market leader."

Another niggling issue for the juggernaut pair is Google's probable bid for wireless spectrum in the FCC's upcoming 700Mhz auction. If it winds up turning up its chunk into a mobile network, it'd be pulling a Microsoft by competing and partnering with them simultaneously, which apparently they don't take too kindly to.

Of course, this is on top of all the other reasons they weren't exactly clamoring to jump aboard in the first place. [WSJ]

For starters, Sprint and T-Mobile are big companies but they don't have the momentum or subscribers that Verizon Wireless and AT&T do. T-Mo's the baby with 26 million, though that is part of a global subscriber base that's vastly larger (over 109 million). Sprint has an impressive 54 million subscribers, but is currently in a public panic about waning performance. Both, contending with bigger gorillas, have reason to latch on to the biggest of them all, Google.

There's a second reason for T-Mo and Sprint to be onboard: HTC. HTC has had a good run with both of those carriers, introducing two of the coolest recent products exclusively on them: T-Mobile's Shadow and Sprint's Touch. Verizon and AT&T have relationships with HTC as well, but it's easy to see how HTC would feel comfortable developing an Android product for the two smaller carriers.

Qualcomm's high-level involvement in OHA is actually very surprising, both because it is such a close partner of Verizon, and because it is one of the biggest architects of the closed application-and-service environment that you see in US carriers. Brew is Qualcomm's baby, a closed Java equivalent that may be easy for developers to work with but comes with strings attached.

Clearly, though, Qualcomm's participation signals something else, that it is time for even the master walled gardener to embrace the open field. At least, that's what I hope it means, because its presence means that a Verizon Android handset can't be too far off. (Verizon today told us that it "shares the goal of more open mobile application development," and that this competitive move on Google's part shows that innovation comes without the need for "legislation nor regulation," so here's hoping.)

The point is, even if you're neither a Sprint or a T-Mobile customer, you should be happy with today's announcement. Google said explicitly that the OHA is open to everyone, and that the absence of partners (for example, AT&T and Verizon) should not be taken as exclusion. But having Sprint and T-Mo ensures equal development time for both networks, GSM/HSDPA side and CDMA/EV-DO. T-Mobile promises to have their HSDPA (3G) network up by early next year, in time for any Android smartphone to take advantage.

When it matters, there will be HTC (and perhaps Motorola, LG and Samsung) phones that work on the networks of all four carriers. It's a sped-up version of the Treo or BlackBerry scenario: once a handset gains a certain level of popularity, even the mega carriers must yield to their demanding customers. When the Treo or BlackBerry first came out, there was no CDMA version so Sprint and Verizon customers got the shaft, and it took years of development, not just a quick port, to give them what they wanted. Thankfully that will not be the case with Android.

The iPhone is different: it was developed for GSM/EDGE only, and with an exclusive deal with the largest US GSM carrier. Although Apple hasn't confirmed the 5-year exclusivity rumor, it could easily remain locked out of everyone else's hands, in spite of unprecedented demand.

Speaking of locked, while we can assume that the early Sprint Android handsets will be partial to their carrier because of the lack of SIM cards with CDMA phones, HTC told us that it will sell unlocked Android phones directly to consumers, so that anyone with an AT&T contract who wants in can get in early.

There's also a difference between Google's and Apple's approach. By creating an open platform, Google is trying to make money not on software or hardware sales, but by creating vast hordes of ad-susceptible phone users. Google can be less selfish about design, and less worried about stumbles on the road to perfection. Google boss Eric Schmidt told us today that they would not be in the business of clamping down on independent development, and from the sound of it, would be encouraging carriers to adopt a hands-off policy toward third-party development.

What Google is saying to carriers is that customers are grown-ups. They can own a PC for years before it's chock-full of viruses, malware and memory hogging crap they don't need. Why not give them access to a world's worth of software—and expose them to the same acknowledged risks—with their phones? iPhone owners should be happy that Google's move simply adds pressure on Apple to open the SDK faster. But the larger question we should ask is this: Why will Android succeed where Symbian, Palm OS and Windows Mobile have failed?

It is possible that Google's muscle, outspoken pledge of openness, ability to bring much of the familiar PC experience to the Android phone, and vast think tank of collaborators who can avoid the mistakes of the smartphones that failed, the carriers that squeezed too hard and lost their grip, and of that famous experiment in gadget lust and contractual obligation that is the iPhone. But then again, it could be no more than the fragmented world of Linux development, without much mainstream splash.

Second, since the TouchFlo interface they placed on top of Windows Mobile phones worked so well at simplifying features to make it more usable for consumers, they're going to continue this and develop software for the new platform as well. It's still too early to say exactly what type of hardware will be inside and what kind of software will run on top of these phones made by HTC, but they did say there was no mandatory hardware spec. This means each manufacturer can choose to go nuts and put loads of feature in their phone, or gimp it and load it with meager beaver features as well. It's essentially Linux for your phone.

•They're hoping to make a better phone, ultimately. (And sell a ton of ads and services, of course, along the way.)
•Android, an open system for handset dev, is the first joint project and core product of the alliance.
•There are 34 members of the group, including NVIDIA, Intel, Texas Instruments, Synaptics (haptics!), Marvell, Qualcomm (chips), Motorola, Samsung, TMO, Sprint, LG, HTC, KDDI and DOCOMO from Japan and China Mobile Comm. Corp.. Basically, a lot of companies sick of Windows Mobile Slop and other closed up phone systems like the iPhone.
•Who's missing is interesting: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Blackberry/RIM, Apple, Verizon, and AT&T. Oh, did I forget to mention Microsoft?
•Handsets coming in 2008, second half.
•Nov 12th, the Android early look SDK drops.
•Android built on Linux, made available as open source via the Apache v2 License.
•Companies can dev custom functionality to Android without contributing the source code back to the community.
• HTC's first prototype is the dream. It's the first set of hardware details we've heard of.
•Chen's rounded up Gphone details from a couple of mainstream publications. There's nothing you haven't read above, but a few more quotes.
•Couple of Videos on the Android. One by devs, one by kids.

I'll update this post as more comes. Just got off a conference call, actually. No new details. This is the basic outline of what we have for now.

[All gPhone stories on Giz]

HTC's CEO, who makes lots of Windows Mobile phones for business users, says the resulting phone by Google and its 34 friends will be targeted toward consumers. The SDK for developers will be available by November 12, which will then enable people to hit that 2H 2008 launch date. The software's actually been in development for three years, starting from the Google acquisition of a company called Android Inc. The most important part of this is that the platform will be free for handset manufacturers to load onto their phones, beating out other operating systems like Windows Mobile, Palm, and Symbian in terms of price. [NYTimes - USA Today - CNN]