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The long wait for the first Android phone should be over this fall, when T-Mobile is expected to release an HTC phone based on the Google-backed mobile operating system called the Dream. Following up on growing rumors online, the New York Times has confirmed that T-Mobile is hoping for a pre-holiday launch. (FCC approvals seem to be the last hurdle). The Dream is expected to have a Sidekick-like keyboard that slides out, and will be the first phone to run Android apps. There is even a shaky YouTube video going around purporting to show the Dream (see below)

Originally there were supposed to be a whole slew of Android phones by the end of the year, but they were all pushed out until 2009, with the sole exception of T-Mobile. Add to this another rumor that T-Mobile is going to offer an iTunes-like App store for mobile software across all of the phones it carries, and you can start to see how things are going to change in the mobile industry. Of course, if T-Mobile does replace the conventional deck on its phones with a more iPhone-like selection of apps, the most fully-featured (i.e., Android ones) will shine.

But don’t expect the HTC Dream to outshine the iPhone. This will be the first of many Android phones, and it won’t have the benefit of being designed soup-to-nuts by one detail-obsessed company. It will take an army of Android phones across many carriers and countries to start to seriously challenge the iPhone.

And frankly, it is difficult to find mobile software startups excited about making Android apps at this point. This is a platform war. If there are no compelling apps for Android, nobody will buy the phones. All of that could change the instant that an Android phone is on the market, but my sense is that most developers are taking a wait-and-see approach. (Especially since very few of them have access to the latest Android software developer kit—a sure-fire way to frustrate and alienate them).

Last month at the TechCrunch Mobile Web Wars roundtable, nobody seemed to care much about Android. It was like pulling teeth just to get people to talk about Android. Watch the video below from that panel with Pandora CTO Tony Conrad and Michael Arrington debating how important Android is, or isn’t:

And here’s that dreamy video of the HTC Dream (or not):

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: Erick Schonfeld

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var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/HTC_s_Google_phone_hitting_T_Mobile_by_Christmas’; Here we go folks. The New York Times is reporting that T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer Android. According to “people briefed on the company’s plans,” the HTC phone will go on sale in the US “before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.” The NYT’s sources also say that the 5-row QWERTY slider from that Dream video (embedded after the break) matches the HTC device that T-Mobile will sell. The device is still waiting for FCC approval with a three-way Google, T-Mobile, and HTC announcement coming as early as September. The deal is expected to be exclusive making it the only Android phone available in the US this year.

Of course you know what this means? It’s the birth of the Android fanboy — sure you love ‘em at First!, but then they never shutup about Street View.

Continue reading New York Times: T-Mobile to sell HTC Android phone as early as October

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Source: Thomas Ricker

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Filed under: Cellphones

With all the Touch Diamond / Touch Pro news surfacing for these US CDMA carriers, quite a few AT&T subscribers are beginning to get restless. Calm down, folks — it seems the AT&T Touch Pro is a reality waiting to happen after all. Based on some admittedly dodgy claims and even dodgier photographs, one particular soul has apparently paid $900 for a pre-release Touch Pro with North American 3G. Only time will tell if he got duped, but we’re going to believe that AT&T wouldn’t let this gem pass it by for too much longer until proven wrong.

[Via wmpoweruser]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Cellphones

Not that we’d view the actual Touch Diamond as IF or anything, but the Diamond J6 is more along the lines of I3. In all seriousness, this thing isn’t too far from being spot-on identical (maybe it’s an HTC thing?), with a 2.8-inch display, built-in camera, multimedia player, Bluetooth and a microSD card slot. And for $160, we’re almost inclined to fall in love here… almost.

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Announcements, Cellphones

We had a little thumb-print orgy with the new HTC Touch Diamond immediately following its launch. Light and small, the Touch Diamond comes off as a unit with promise. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a while to get our hands on this via a US carrier, but Orange users in the UK will no doubt be pretty happy with this new handset, the first of its kind to use Windows Mobile 6.1.

Check out the gallery below, complete with comments and interface walk-through. A couple vids after the break, too!

Continue reading HTC Touch Diamond hands-on

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Source: Joshua Fruhlinger

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Filed under: Cellphones

We’ve got some hands-on shots and impressions with the newly announced HTC Touch Diamond that we’ll be sharing with you shortly, but here are some official press shots to whet your appetite. Tell it to us one more time, HTC. VGA? You really do love us.

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Source: Paul Miller

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Filed under: Announcements, Cellphones

Here we are in London at the Soho Hotel with HTC, and we are among the first to see their new Diamond handset. While we thought we may see three new products in three different form factors, HTC Prez and CEO Peter Chou led-off the event by mentioning that they would be launching just one product today. He peppered his intro by talking about the Touch, so we were prepared to see an update on that product utilizing their TouchFLO tech.

The device has some pretty nice interface tech that they’re calling TouchFLO 3D that heavily emphasizes one-touch browsing and single-finger dialing. They emphasized web accessibility, zoom-in navigation with “just one hand” and not too many fingers. As expected, the device is loaded with Windows Mobile 6.1, a VGA screen and HSDPA 7.2, among other nice specs.

Updates, specs, and pics after the break!Continue reading HTC unveils new HTC Touch Diamond, “not too big, not too small”

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Source: Joshua Fruhlinger

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Filed under: Handhelds

Harris Corp’s HTC-made Census handheld may only be a shadow of its former self now that the Census Bureau has decided not to use it for any actual census-taking, but that doesn’t mean it can hang its head in shame forever, and it’s now popped up to make an encore appearance at the FCC. Thankfully, this time around the FCC folks have snapped plenty of pics of the device, including a look at its innards, which you can find at the link below. Otherwise, the device appears to be mostly unchanged, with it still boasting the same fingerprint security, and EVDO and WiFi connectivity, albeit without any voice capabilities. One of the few things getting changed, it seems, is the device’s battery — which, given recent developments, is likely one of the last upgrades it needed.

[Via Register Hardware, thanks Michael]

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Source: Donald Melanson

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