There’s a lot of hype right now about the T-Mobile G1, formerly known as the HTC Dream. While the talk about it has not quite reached iPhone-like levels, it is definitely the hot item that has the tech geeks abuzz (us included!). However, this time the talk is not about the phone itself, but the software running on it.

 

The G1 is the first cell phone available to run Google’s Android operating system. This marks the Mountain View Internet giant’s first real step into the realm of cell phones. Just the idea of Google being involved in cell phones has people talking, if only because virtually everything the company has done has been so successful. It also represents a shift in the way phone companies think about telephones with open source software, but we’ll go into that in a bit more detail later.

When Google first announced it was getting into the telephone business about a year ago, it was with a mixture of anticipation and disappointment. Rumor of a Google phone had been making the rounds for a while, but the initial assumptions were that they would create a piece of hardware to take on the recently released iPhone. Instead, it was announced that Google would be creating an open source operating system that could run on a variety of cellular handsets.

The end result was something similar to how Google does business for the rest of its products, as opposed to Apple. When Apple created the iPhone, they built the hardware and the software themselves. Much like no computer will run an Apple operating system that isn’t built by Apple, the only phone that will run the Apple phone operating system is the iPhone.

Google, on the other hand, is not known for making hardware. Their primary focus is on creating internet applications, such as their search engine, Gmail, or their new internet browser, Chrome, that will work on almost any computer. They don’t control the hardware, but they control the software that the computer runs on. Android is something like that. High Tech Corporation, a Taiwanese company, created the hardware, but Google created what makes the hardware work.

Android is based on the operating system Linux. Linux is an open source operating system, meaning the source code can be modified, changed and distributed by anyone. You know how you have to pay for a copy of Windows to be installed on your computer? Linux can be installed for free. Although Android was originally described as completely open source, it now appears to be only somewhat true. Parts of the software developer’s kit are proprietary, meaning that Google's committment to complete platform openness has come into question by the developer community. This won’t affect the average consumer overly much, but some in the technology community found it a little disappointing considering some of the loftier goals stated when Android was first announced. Nonetheless, Google has released a reportedly robust software development kit for the phone operating system that will allow developers to freely make applications for the G1, and that's unique in a world where carriers and phone manufacturers often demand tight control over the programs allowed to run on your handset.

So what will Android and the G1 look like when they first come out? From the exterior, you might confuse the G1 with one of Microsoft’s Zune portable media players. It has a 3.17-inch widescreen viewscreen, with several navigation buttons beneath it. The screen is touch sensitive, similar to the iPhone. However, the screen can slide and reveal a QWERTY touchpad beneath it.

According to tech demos, Android provides a lot of integration between the phone and various Google applications. For instance, it’s fairly simple to go from calling someone to finding their location on Google Maps, complete with instructions on how to find them. Because the G1 runs on 3G, you should be able to talk to your friend while going online at high speeds at the same time.

The real impressive part of Android won’t be the operating system or the phone, but the applications you’ll be able to load on them. The whole point of Android is that it is not a finished product -- the true functionality will come from programmers creating programs to make the phone as useful a tool as possible.

So is the G1 the right phone for most people? In the short run, probably not. It’s an untested piece of technology, which generally means it will include some bugs that the early adopters will basically pay for in order to beta test the latest and greatest new technology. But if Google has their way and Android spreads to other phones, this may very well be the future of cell phones.