Androids in the Home!
Google’s Android platform, while starting slow, shows a great deal of potential and has piqued the interest of many phone vendors and carriers. In the NY Times’ piece T-Mobile to Use Google Software in Devices for Home, Ashley Vance discusses new T-Mobile devices planned for Android.
T-Mobile plans to sell a home phone early next year and soon after a tablet computer, both running Android, according to confidential documents obtained from one of the company’s partners. The phone will plug into a docking station and come with another device that handles data synchronization as it recharges the phone’s battery.
There have been many rumors of netbooks adopting Android, in part because it is expected the brand power of Google would be strong enough to convince buyers they don’t need Windows. In fact, T-Mobile’s home phone sounds very much like a phone-netbook hybrid to me:
T-Mobile’s use of Android to advance its ambitions also shows just how blurry the line has become between phones and computers. Its tablet-size phone device resembles a small laptop without a keyboard and has a seven-inch touch screen. It would handle basic computing jobs like checking the weather or managing data across a variety of devices in the home.