There must have been thousands of rumors about the iPhone in the past few months. But has this provided the perfect quiet development time for Google to roll out its own phone? Here is a list of what the gPhone needs to makes the iPhone just another smartphone. Is it just me or are there too many phones in that last sentence…
- Touchscreen - Well that much is obvious! One of the iPhone’s main selling features is that it has a good touchscreen. Any phone planning on over taking it will need as good, if not a better and bigger touchscreen.
- Google Apps ready to roll – Gmail, Google Calendar, Maps, Search, gTalk, etc. all pre-installed and ready to use out of the shop. Enough said here.
- A full OS installed – The iPhone has Mac OS X, the Google Phone should have Ubuntu! And what better time than when Ubuntu is developing a version of its OS just for mobile devices… Also in Google HQs, Google employees use specially adapted Ubuntu distributions. Why not adapt the mobile version as well to suit Google’s needs?
- 2.9GB of an inbox! – And I don’t just mean email inbox! All text messages you receive will be stored in Gmail for viewing anywhere in the world with or without your gPhone. You’ll never have to clear out your SMS inbox again or realise you deleted that important text message from a friend or collegue confirming your meeting time and place. Of course if you still had the message and didn’t recognise the meeting place just select it and map integration will provide driving directions if you need them.
- EDGE!? Google laughs at EDGE! - Or at least it will when it buys the old 700MHz wireless spectrum which is up for auction soon. Basically with this Google could supply broadband to every device on the network (which it already does in San Francisco with Wi-Fi), which kinda kicks EDGE in the pants! Along with the iPhone! With this network Google could, if it wished, supply unlimited data for free (if you haven’t noticed it likes giving lots for free, think Gmail, Google Earth, etc.), or a high bandwidth for free and then unlimited for a flat rate. Of course, any search or homepage on this network with either be Google.com, Google.co.uk, Google.fr, Google.au… You get the picture.
- What a phone without Talk? Google Talk? – With this network Google could supply anything up to and including streaming video and audio i.e. Youtube (which it now owns) and iTunes Music Store integration. Possibly even video calls in a new and radically improved Google Talk, which hasn’t seen an update since January 1st! This update would bring SIP compatibility, video conferencing abilities, Skype and AIM communication and a linux version (if the gPhone is indeed linux-based). This new and improved Google Talk could also provide the voice calls to landlines and other mobiles not just other Google Talk users.
- More flashy than the iPhone – meant literally, the gPhone will need Adobe Flash player installed to compete with the iPhone. Rumored to be included in upcoming updates to the iPhone (or at least eventually installed onto the iPhone by a hacker) Flash will have to be installed from go or easily installed onto the gPhone.
- Full screen, stereo and all that jazz in many formats – The gPhone would of course include a media player possibly designed by Android, a company acquired by Google some time back, that would do all the usual things a media player is required to do. The iPhone does a pretty good job on video playback but isn’t it a pain when you have to re-encode your video whenever you want to put it on your phone? The gPhone could make life easier and support multiple formats and take up where the iPhone left off.
- Lets have a party! A 3rd party! – The iPhone only allows web apps to be run on it which for developers is like smacking them across the face and saying your doing it for their own good. A Linux-based gPhone would have endless development possibilities and have a low security risk due to its secure nature.
- And see that dotted line, don’t sign it. – Last but not least, the gPhones needs to be available without a contract to AT&T or any other network. It’s the first thing hackers tried to get around when the iPhone came out, and something that is putting many people off getting one. Tied to AT&T, it will cost you at least $1439.76 for the two year contract and that’s without the price of the iPhone. If the gPhone was contract-less, there would be no reason not to get one, unless of course your tied to your iPhone contract!
Of course the gPhone would also need proper Bluetooth support (on the iPhone you can’t send a photo over BT), Wifi, 2MP+ camera, Video recording (which the iPhone doesn’t have), MMS (again lacking on the iPhone), games, voice recording, 4gb/8gb options, and good battery life.
I think Google could pull this off. If they did, I could see the craze of calling things iSomething going out of fashion pretty quick. gPod anyone? 
