14 February 2008
Google made its name making the web easy to use, and its new operating system is expected to do just the same for mobile phones.
The new device nicknamed the 'Gphone', is a simple, stripped back device which puts ease of use above everything else.
The device had been designed so that you rarely need to use more than three keys for any function: 'select', 'up/down/left/right' and 'back'. All the rest is intuitive. A picture of the globe is the Internet. (Microsoft may consider this a small success as the icon closely resembles that of Internet Explorer). A musical note is the music player. An envelope is mail.
The first thing that you notice is how fast it moves. The delayed and disjointed processing of even some of the faster phones has been removed, demonstrating the efficiency of the operating system which Google has helped to design. Even the Internet is noticeably faster than that of rival phones.
Text, contacts, Internet, maps and so on are displayed in a bar at the bottom of the main page, which boasts a photo background. One of the icons leads to a bigger menu (similar to the iPhone) where more specialised icons, like one for YouTube, are laid out.
The phone by default will obviously be very 'Google-ised', however this isn’t to say the user cannot customise it to their liking. That's the best bit of Google's operating system, (Android) it's wholly customisable.
Although, don’t be mistaken, this is not 'a Google phone'. Google has only helped design the software, which operators and handset manufacturers will be free to adapt how they like.
Google, meanwhile, has not ruled out bringing out its own phone. All Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, has said that if Google were to produce its own device, Android would make a good platform for it to run on.
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