Get ready for the long predicted of arrival of the “ad supported” google phone. Google is placing big bets on mobile search and advertising and this move is just the beginning.
SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc.’s vision for how a mobile phone should be made and sold will likely raise the stakes in the Internet search leader’s bid to gain more control over how people surf the Web while they’re on the go.
The catalyst in Google’s latest attempt to shake up the mobile market apparently will be the Nexus One, the first smart phone designed by the company’s own engineers.
Google has said little about the phone except to confirm that its workers received the handsets three weeks ago for a final round of internal testing. Google is expected to provide the first concrete details about the phone, along with the company’s vision for how such devices should be made and sold, during a press conference on Tuesday at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
In its invitation to the event, Google said the wireless market had only seen “the beginning of what’s possible” with the free Android operating system that it introduced for mobile phones in late 2007.
Android was designed to make it easier to interact on a mobile phone with Web sites and services, including Google’s, while providing an egalitarian platform to run applications developed by outside programmers.
The applications don’t have to go through an extensive review before they can be distributed to Android-powered devices, a contrast from the control that Apple Inc. holds on its hot-selling iPhone.
Until now, Google has been content to let other companies design the devices relying on Android. And those devices thus far have largely been distributed like most other mobile phones, tethered to major wireless carriers that typically require buyers to lock into two-year contracts in return for discounts on the handsets.
But Google now appears to be ready to push its operating system in a new direction while trying to give consumers more flexibility to connect a mobile phone with the wireless carrier of their choice.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Technology Writer