Google Phone becomes the Nexus One and gets real
There is no longer any doubt. The Google Phone is real, and it’s called the Nexus One.
After literally years of speculation that Google would cook up a cell phone of its own, we reported yesterday that Google has handed out some kind of phone to employees based on numerous Twitter messages about it. Google finally confirmed this in a post to its Google Mobile Blog, but yet details were still sketchy at best.
The prevailing thoughts seemed to be that the phone was based on the new HTC Passion that is due out next month on T-Mobile, and finally a picture has appeared thanks to the Twitter account of Cory O’Brien. (image below) Sure enough, it is the HTC Passion, but notice that there is no HTC logo anywhere on the face. The plot thickens! It appears the official device name is “Nexus One”, and armed with that name, and knowing what to look for, Engadget hit up the Google-owned Picasa photo service to see what they could find.
Digging through the service, they found numerous photos tagged as having been shot by “Nexus One” in the data of various pictures, and then even older photos that seemed to be the phone also tagged as “Phone88.” The Nexus One tagged photos date back to Nov. 27 and are mostly taken at Google sponsored events, and inside Google offices. It also doesn’t hurt that most of the users are “friends” of Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. After even more digging, they found pictures of the device laying on the desks of Google employees and in close-up shots where you couldn’t make the whole phone out.
In short, the Nexus One is for sure the Google Phone.
Now, what does all this mean? Well, the other rumors are that the phone will be released sometime next month and be sold by Google itself as an unlocked handset. This means it is not tied to any one carrier and you can take it to the cell company of your choice. No details are known on pricing as of yet.
Google may have just completely changed the way consumers deal with their cell carriers, we’ll just have to wait and see as more details roll out.
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December 13th, 2009
Geez, reading this article is like re-reading the Engadget post.