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Apple is continuing its push for global expansion of the iPhone. The latest country that will be getting the device looks to be Russia. Apple has agreed to a deal with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), according to Reuters.

Normally, an agreement between Apple and a carrier is reached then it takes a while for the country to actually get the phone. But Russia could see the iPhone as soon as October, sources say.

Much like another huge market without the iPhone, China, Russia has seen its share of unlocked phones in the country. The Reuters story claims that people often carry the device into Russia in suitcases. Some estimates claim the number of these unauthorized iPhones in Russia will be as high as 700,000 by the end of this year. I smell a sequel to the James Bond film, From Russia With Love.

The iPhone 3G is set to launch in over 20 counties, including India, tomorrow. Talks to bring the device to China, the largest mobile market in the world, are still thought to be ongoing.

[Title is a play on the old Yakov Smirnoff joke that starts "In Soviet Russia..." also known as the Russian Reversal.]

If the iPhone wants to be taken serious as a business device it’s going to have to have applications other than More Cowbell (the app that lets you simulate playing a cowbell). A definite must-have for business users is LinkedIn, the professional online network. Today, it launched through the App Store.

The application itself is very simple. You won’t find all the bells and whistles that social network Facebook included in its app (and is likely to include a lot more of in the new version coming shortly), but I consider that a good thing. When I go to LinkedIn, I don’t want to poke people, I want to find a contact I’m looking for and get their information. The LinkedIn app is perfect for that.

The main page is the news feed to show which of your contacts is doing what, you can click on any of them to go to their pages within the app. The next major part is Connections, which is your contact list. It looks and works just like Apple’s own Contacts app. You can find anyone by searching or by using the letters along the side to jump to a name. The Search area allows you to search for anyone or anything by keyword, name, company or title. And finally, the Status area allows you to broadcast to your contact what you are working on.

I cannot see some of the more advanced features of LinkedIn on the app. For example, I know a contact has asked me to write a recommendation for them, but I cannot do that from the app. You can however direct message someone by going to their page. There is also a cool feature that allows you to port over a contact’s information from LinkedIn to your own contact list on your phone.

The app doesn’t try to do too much but it doesn’t need to. It’s business baby, not personal.

It’s a free download available through the App Store here.

Here’s the latest action:

Obama Bay Area event sets fund-raising record — Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama visited the Bay Area and racked up $7.8 million in fund-raising, a record for a single event, according to Draper Fisher Jurvestson’s Steve Jurvetson, who, with his wife Karla Jurvetson, donated in $9,200.

Xbox 360 sells out in Japan — The Microsoft gaming console has never been able to gain a strong foothold in the country which prefers its own Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3. Perhaps the tides are turning — or perhaps this shortage was staged, as many commenters are speculating in the comments on Kotaku. Either way, there will be more in the country next month.

Hulu closer to going international? — The popular NBC and Fox-based video streaming site is apparently trying to hire people to expand to other countries, according to GigaOm. That will remove perhaps the biggest knock people have against it — if you’re outside the U.S., you can’t watch it!

Tsavo gets funding — The new southern California start-up that is buying up content and advertising start-ups, akin to Demand Media, raised $20 million from American Capital. The start-up is the latest project of Michael Jones, who has just left AOL, where he worked for two years after AOL bought his previous text-voice-video chat software company, Userplane, for about $40M. TechCrunch has more.

American Airlines takes Wi-Fi to the skies — The airline has started rolling out its in-flight Internet service powered by Gogo, according to CNET. For now it’s only on non-stop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles and New York and Miami.

iPhone update 2.0.2 is meant to address 3G issues — Suspicions that the new software update was meant to address iPhone 3G connection issues have been confirmed by an Apple representative talking to USA Today’s Ed Baig.

Salesforce.com posts solid numbers — It’s the first software as a service company to exceed a $1 billion annual revenue run rate, according to the release. It saw record revenue of $263 million, up 49% year-over-year.

VC in the middle of online escort scandal — William Ferretti, the co-founder of Medstar Television and a self-described venture capitalist, faces felony charges. Vallywag has more.

Don’t tweet for money when raising funding — Jason Goldberg, the founder of SocialMedian, sent a tweet (Twitter message) out this morning letting people know he was raising more funding and to contact him if you were interested in participating. One problem, Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, who is also a lawyer called him out on that being illegal because it was technically an unregistered public offering. The tweet was deleted.

BioImagene gets a new round — The digital pathology company has landed a $26 million fourth round. Burrill & Co. led the round with Ascension Health Ventures, National Healthcare Services, Artiman Ventures and ICCP Ventures also participating.

Personalized talk radio company Stitcher launches an iPhone app — Watch the video below for more.

Facebook is planning to launch a new version of its iPhone application in September that will make the app more like the newly-redesigned web site. So, the deeper rationale for the web site redesign, perhaps, was to make it easier to replicate on mobile applications like this one. Meaning that Facebook’s web users will first get used to the web redesign, then realize they can get the same functionality, cleanly, on mobile devices.

Broadly, that would help Facebook continue penetrating markets such as Latin America, where it is increasingly popular — and where mobile data services are becoming more popular, too. Meanwhile, getting existing, web-oriented users onto mobile could also be a strategic play in case Facebook ever decides to introduce location-based services that access information it has about users, their friends and preferences.

The forthcoming changes:

The app’s news feeds of information, which already show you what your friends are up to, will contain the same information as the redesigned site, including posted links, photos, and other items. See top screenshot. Right now, you can only see status updates and mobile photo uploads. This is in line with Facebook’s plan to start making more money off of news feeds through letting advertisers pay to have their ads show up more often, per an interview by All Facebook with Facebook’s “director of monetization,” Tim Kendall:

An example would be purchasing a ticket to a concert. Usually, a small subset of your friends would receive a notification of this action [in their news feeds], however, in the future Cheryl Crow [sic] or Ticketmaster could pay for this to be distributed to your full friend group.

Clearly, mobile news feeds would be a place where Facebook could get some bucks from advertisers. Location-based mobile news feeds ads that are targeted to your interests, anyone?

Also forthcoming: changes to notifications, such as invites to third-party Facebook applications. You’ll be able to get notifications in the app’s “home tab.” New notifications will arrive in real-time, the company says, whenever the app is running. It will also make use of Apple’s forthcoming “push” feature, so you can get Facebook notifications on your phone even if the app isn’t running. However, the notifications feature isn’t expected to be included until the next version after 2.0.

Facebook will also add the tabbed features on personal profile pages to reflect the redesign.

Other features that will be added included a way to search for, request or approve new friends from within the app (you have to do that on the site, currently). You’ll also be able to view your full Facebook message box within the application, as opposed to the most recent 30 messages that you’re currently restricted to viewing. This will be useful for the time you’re rushing to meet someone, then realize the only place you have their address is in the Facebook message they sent you weeks ago. Uh, not that something like that has ever happened to me.

For VentureBeat readers who hate all the buzz around Facebook and the iPhone — and so certainly this article — see you in the comment section, below.

MagicPad, the advanced notepad iPhone and iPod Touch application that features the ability to copy and paste is great — but it also is something of a tease because that copy and paste functionality is limited to working within only that app itself. Tonight that changes.

The developers of MagicPad, Proximi have teamed up with other developers to create OpenClip.org, a non-profit, open-source project to get copy and paste functionality working system-wide on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The site for the project just launched tonight and features a video (embedded below) by Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv showing how it will work.

You might be thinking that you’ve seen such a demo before, since Proximi put together a video showing how this could theoretically work. But here’s the big difference — the OpenClip group has figured out how to get copy and paste working without violating Apple’s SDK. This is big, big news as any application that chooses to implement OpenClip’s code will now have copy and paste working with the other apps also running it.

Apple doesn’t allow applications to run in the background on the iPhone and iPod Touch, so to get around that problem, the OpenClip solution uses a shared space area of the SDK to store information that can then be accessed by multiple applications.

The apps currently supporting OpenClip.org are Dial Zero, Twittelator, Cocktails, WordPress, MagicPad and Ultralingua. WordPress, Twittelator and Ultralingua have compatible apps coming shortly, the other three have only just pledged their support thus far.

This solution came about after the Proximi team met with developer Zac White at the iPhoneDevCamp2 in San Francisco, Calif. a few weeks ago. Apple is still thought to be working on a copy and paste solution of its own, but why wait while they continue to drag their feet?

Proximi co-founder Brian Radmin tells me that the group hasn’t yet been in contact with Apple. They are hopeful that this launch opens up some discourse.

See the solution in action below. And app developers: Get to OpenClip.org!

Cut and Paste for iPhone from Cali Lewis on Vimeo.

The old fashioned business-card exchange hasn’t kept up with the times. In an age of social networking, it ought to be easier to connect with someone electronically. That thought inspired Gabe Zichermann, chief executive of New York startup rmbr, to create rmbrME.

The new service automates the exchange of contact information between two people. Palm Treo users once “beamed” each other their contact information through infrared connections; now rmbeME uses text messages.

rmbrME lets you send out a bzCard, which includes a standard vCard data (phone number, address etc.) plus social networking links such as direct links to your Facebook or Linkedin pages. It works from most phones, including smart phones, and on any cell phone carrier. It’s a free service for now, but Zichermann says the company will introduce subscription versions and other monetization schemes later.

The service goes live today. The company has been testing it for a couple of months and has gotten good reviews, particularly from business users who want it to be integrated with other functions such as Salesforce.com for lead management.

The rmbrME service will also incorporate the concept of Funware, a term which Zichermann coined and an idea we highlighted in a popular feature story. The idea refers to introducing game-like concepts to motivate users of non-game applications. In this case, rmbrME will hold contests and have leader scoreboards for people who can exchange the most bzcards. Zichermann said he’s picked up a lot of interest from potential sponsors from trade shows. The thinking is that the organizers of the shows can hold contests where they give out awards to attendees who make the most of the show.

“The Funware part will make it easier to network with others in real life,” Zichermann said. “It’s obvious that people have a lot of social anxiety around meeting others, even though it’s almost always beneficial to do so. We’ll make it easier by turning it into a game.”

With rmbrME, you can register your business card at rmbr.com. Then you send a text message to 762763 with the mobile number or email of your exchange partner. That user receives a text message with a link on it that you can customize. The link takes the user to a rmbrME bz card. The user can then click to connect to you on social networking services such as Linkedin or Facebook. The user can also click to have your contact info inserted into the their contact directory on the phone. You don’t have to exchange paper at all.

Zichermann thinks the service will work particularly well for people who give speeches or meet a lot of contacts at trade shows. It bypasses the computer almost entirely (except for the initial contact set-up) and will help the industry move toward the idea of “real-time contact exchange,” which companies such as IBM have been exploring for years. Zichermann thinks it will work because it uses a lowest common denominator technology (most cell phones) and it is brand independent.

Earlier e-business cards failed because they required identical devices or deep knowledge of the way a particular phone worked. The original Palms worked only if you had two similar Palm devices.  In many cases, you can’t send a vCard from a Blackberry to an iPhone, even today. You can exchance data via a wireless Bluetooth radio connection; Bluetooth is present in most phones now, thanks to the popularity of Bluetooth head sets, but you have to go through the steps of turning on the Bluetooth function and authenticating it.

IBM’s Pensieve technology lets you take a constant photo record of your life and upload it to a “life feed” type experience. For example, it lets you photograph and upload each business card you get at a tradeshow, then parses it for information, and then makes it available for synchronization with your PC and devices. Of course, a CardScan business-card scanner is faster and more accurate at scanning in a card. But IBM’s technology is still in the lab.

Friend Book is a Tapulous’ application for the iPhone that lets you exchange contact information between devices if both of them are compatible iPhones, running the same software. All you do is put the two iphones together and shake ‘em. As long as there aren’t too many people in the same room doing the same thing, your contact information is exchanged. The limitations: iPhone only, physical proximity needed, software download required, and risk of errors and damage.

Zichermann said that the company experimented with making the service work for every phone, but he found that certain technologies needed to be present to facilitate the exchange. That narrowed the universe of phones down to smart phones and certain other models. It will be interesting to watch if the service, or others like it that are sure to follow from the carriers themselves, can get rid of the business card.

“Business cards are like bank checks,” said Zichermann. “Who needs them? They served an important purpose at one time. Better than carrying wads of cash. But now they’re obsolete.”

Thanks to Apple’s insistence on using the almost comically vague “Bug fixes” in its descriptions for incremental iPhone updates it’s hard to know exactly what has been fixed until people have a chance to try it. The hope was that today’s software update 2.0.2 would correct the 3G connection issues some people have been having.

The problem with me trying it out myself is that I have not been having issues with the service here in San Francisco. I did, however, have major issues with I was in Las Vegas this weekend. So relying on 3rd party reports, there are people in the Apple Support Forums suggesting the update didn’t fix the connection, but there are also conflicting reports on the same forum.

However, the video below, put together by the team at iPhone Buzz, an iPhone-focused blog, shows a side-by-side comparison of iPhone software 2.0.1 versus 2.0.2. The result? 2.0.2 absolutely demolishes 2.0.1 in terms of 3G connection speed.

It’s notable that sites loaded almost identically on the Wi-Fi connection test on both phones, and multiple tests are done on the 3G connection, so it doesn’t appear that this speed increase is an anomaly. Watch for yourself below.

Google released a beta version of the software development kit for its Android mobile operating system earlier today to much fanfare, but in the rush of breaking the news we only just got a chance to examine the details.

There have been some puzzling changes, like the removal of an API for Bluetooth compatibility, but you shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from this beta release as it doesn’t really reflect the current status of the Android SDK in features or stability. What matters for developers is that this release is “API-stable,” which means that an application built for this SDK will not have to be changed substantially to run on the final build, which will be used for the first phones. Overall we’re quite impressed with the Google’s work; the new SDK seems to have some compelling advantages over the SDK for Apple’s iPhone.

In terms of features, the new Android SDK features a completely new “Home” screen which feels like a real desktop because of the ability to add application icons and folders (both built-in and newly added applications), shortcuts (e.g. bookmarks, contacts, music playlist and folders), widgets (which are powered by Google gears for mobile) and the ability to change your desktop background. One feature that really shines is the ability to have a wide home screen that actually spans several screens; you can move to the next screen with the tip of your finger. It allows you to group several shortcuts on each screen (e.g. important contacts on one screen and important apps on the other). It includes the Google streetview shown at the Google I/O and a lot of nifty improvements here and there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple is said to be be rolling out another iPhone software update any minute now, according to The Boy Genius Report. [Update: It's here, see the bottom.] The 2.0.2 update apparently will consist mainly of performance improvements.

It’s not clear if this will be the update that fixes the connectivity issue some users are having with the iPhone and AT&T’s 3G network. A reader of the Apple news site MacRumors claims to have gotten an email from Apple chief executive Steve Jobs saying:

“We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon.”

Of course, anyone could have said that, but as MacRumors notes, Jobs has been known to send out these quick messages in the past. This combined with the fact that this software update appears ready now lends some credence as well.

This past weekend I was out of town and had to shut off the 3G connection because it was constantly dropping the connection and attempting to switch back to the slower EDGE network. While some have said the device’s connectivity problem is a chip problem and could lead to a total recall (not of the Arnold variety), others think a simple firmware update will do the trick.

The 2.0.1 software update was launched exactly two weeks ago. While it corrected some issues involving speed (particularly the responsiveness of the keyboard and contacts), it also created new problems for some users.

Apple is still testing a larger, 2.1 update.

Update: The 2.0.2 update is now live. It weighs in at 248.7 megabytes, making it almost the exact same size as the last update (249.2 MB).

Much like the last update it is only said to contain “Bug fixes.”

Update 2: The new update is now locked and loaded on my iPhone. No immediate differences are apparent, but I also haven’t had connection issues in the city where I live (San Francisco, Calif.). If anyone outside of SF has had connection issues in the past feel free to let us know in the comments if this update has fixed them.

Update 3: Be sure to watch the side-by-side 2.0.2 3G speed video found here.

Google put up a rather interesting post on its Mobile Blog today. It’s about the decision to put display advertisements on YouTube mobile pages — but the post reads like an ad itself.

From the post:

This is our first step in testing mobile advertising for YouTube — it will give you a new way to interact with content on the go, while allowing us to learn how video viewers engage with mobile advertising. Our test advertisers will also have an additional branding tool at their disposal and the opportunity to reach the millions of people who visit YouTube every day on their phones.

At YouTube, we are constantly testing new ways to deliver the kinds of ads that contribute to the user experience while making the most sense for advertisers, and we’ve learned a lot about what works for YouTube and what doesn’t.

I could have written this post in five words: YouTube. Come advertise with us.

Of course, this kind of post is hardly surprising. Much has been made about Google’s inability to monetize YouTube. While many think this is a huge issue for the company, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt didn’t seem overly concerned in an interview last week with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

“It doesn’t hit our bottom line big time right now, but eventually we’d like to make some money out of it. But even if we don’t, even if eventually it’s a loss-leader, let me tell you that the fact that so many people come to YouTube means they ultimately go to Google and do Google searches and click on ads.”

So basically, Google is in the experimentation phase right now with advertising on YouTube and this is the latest experiment. Schmidt also said in the same interview that he expects mobile advertising to be larger than Google’s current advertising business — so mobile advertising on YouTube is a logical test.

These ads will only run initially on the mobile YouTube site for U.S. and Japanese users. Poor Japan, they get all the advertising tests. Twitter is also running advertisements on the Japanese version of its site.

[photo: flickr/slashcrisis]

It appears that Google is currently releasing the public Android software development kit (SDK), which lets developers and manufactures build on its operating system for upcoming phones.

[Update: This is confirmed. The code has now been released.]

The move comes as HTC prepares to release the first Google Android phone. HTC also just won approval from the FCC for the phone.

We found out about the new SDK, because Google is changing and updating several files and permissions within the SDK that didn’t sync everything correctly from the older version to the new. The SDK uses a code for a Linux kernel, on which the operating system is based. Under its license, Google is required to update the existing kernel to any newer one. Google’s move to update is significant, because an update of the kernel strongly suggests that the new SDK is being launched. Here’s what we know: A user (see screenshot below) was able to download a file which is requiring the new SDK. But because the user who downloaded the file still had the old SDK, an error message appeared in the development environment Eclipse.

Similarly, Google is updating its GIT, which are instructions on how to manage code revisions. The update itself is nothing special, but since you don’t see anything updated yet — which will surely happen given the above indications — this suggests that something is in progress.

Images of revisions below.

More.

Updated

The Federal Communications Commission has approved the much anticipated Google Android phone, and documents suggest a release date of about Nov. 10 at the latest.

That’s because in the document, the manufacturer of the phone, HTC, requests the Commission grant it a short-term confidentiality request on its design attachments until Nov. 10th, 2008.

If Nov. 10 turns out to be Android-HTC release date, this is in the window of our recent prediction it would be released between Oct. 15 and Nov. 30.

Note the Nov. 10 date could be used to confuse people intentionally. The FCC request by Apple for the iPhone, for example, had a longer confidentially request than it really needed (three weeks in that case).

Engadget broke the news of the FCC approval. The FCC documentation makes it clear that the most exciting things about the phone may remain confidential until as late as Nov. 10.

Documentation is here from HTC regarding fact that it has authorization, and a WiFi interoperatibility certification is here.

It has already been widely reported that the phone is called the HTC Dream. In the documentation, the handset is listed as type: “Dream,’ and model: “DREA100.” There’s also mention of a “jogball,” which has been seen on the handset in videos that have circulated.

The attachments for which confidentiality is requested include 1) schematic design, 2) block diagram, 3) theory of operation and 4) BOM.

Here are the next steps in the Android process:
1) release of public SDK [Update: This final Android SDK release has just happened.]
2) ADC winner
3) announcement
4) release

[Update 2: Google just published a roadmap that looks rather similar to the one we outlined.]

Google’s much anticipated Android mobile phone operating system, due to launch within the next few weeks, may actually be much more than a mobile OS. Industry sources tell us that although Android will indeed start as a mobile OS, Google intends to expand it to be a sort of universal operating system that will span set-top boxes for televisions, mp3 players and other communication and media devices and services.

Rumors about this plan have actually been circulating since last year. Google “chief internet evangelist” and Internet co-creator Vint Cerf hinted at Google’s larger focus during a talk on innovation journalism that we attended in 2006, before Android existed:

In an internet enabled world, there is no reason that a projector could not be online and downloading images, maybe using the Blackberry as a control device. Surrounded by networked equipment that is reachable anywhere, devices harnessed on a temporary basis to do something for you and then released. I am predicting that during this decade, we will see more systems interacting with other systems like this….

Another clue that Google’ has bigger things in store for Android: Android creator Andy Rubin was working on a digital camera before he started Android; co-worker Rich Miner convinced him to go to mobile in order to make money. Android is built on Linux, the open source software that’s already used in other desktop and mobile operating systems. This allows it to be easily repurposed for devices besides phones.

This is where some of Google’s other initiatives could come in, one source speculates. If the wider-ranging operating system is really what Google is doing with Android, well, the App Engine, Google’s web hosting and support service for developers, wouldn’t just be about helping web developers, it would provide services for Android developers. And, Google is also constantly improving the artificial intelligence capacity of its search engine, its spam filtering in Gmail, and a range of other services — Google is creating a supercomputer, driven by artificial intelligence. Through Android, it could let these developers build applications that use its brain. What’s more, this could explain why Google has been experimenting with free WiFi in Mountain View (which is pretty great, by the way), and with other wireless transmission experiments. It wants to create an ecosystem that relies on communication between any two devices. In some cases, maybe it wants to help your Android phone talk to, say, an Android-connected overhead projector.

Google already faces major competitors. The iPhone, the attention-grabbing leader in mobile software, is already being used as a sort of universal remote for Apple products, including iTunes and Apple TV. But Apple’s SDK gives restricted access to “small” developers. Microsoft, meanwhile, has a similarly grand vision of connecting all your devices with its Live Mesh platform, but it isn’t focusing on mobile, and the realization of this goal is a long way off. [Update: John Furrier has more analysis on Android versus Microsoft and others, on Broaddev.com.]

To make Android truly valuable, Google needs to have an active ecosystem of third party developers building useful applications, just as what happened with Microsoft’s desktop operating system, and is happening now on the iPhone.

But Google isn’t focused on the rank-and-file developers yet. It’s targeting the mobile operators and handset makers from the Open Handset Alliance — in fact, these partners have been given early access, sources say, to the version of the Android SDK that we’ve heard is slated to launch publicly in a few weeks. It understands it needs to offer them an ecosystem they can live with, before it moves to help smaller players.

Just look at the numbers. There were slightly less than 6 million users before the iPhone 3G launch. In the United States alone, T-Mobile has 30.5 million subscribers. T-Mobile plans to launch its HTC phones in stages, internationally (USA & Europe). From what we hear, Germany will be an early market, so add another 27 million subscribers to the comparison. If the system will work for T-Mobile and HTC, you can be sure others will follow.

For now, Google is in anti-PR mode. “It doesn’t want to have a dead cat found,” as one source puts it. There are many reasons for that. The Android team is small and so secretive, and from what we hear, not many people at Google headquarters know about what it is working on. Google understands that it needs to make its OHA partners look good. It appears to be leaving all press decisions to OHA members, including T-Mobile, which may explain the most recent stories about T-Mobile’s pending Android-powered phone.

So, the Android-powered HTC phone expected to launch in the next few weeks could continue to hurt Google’s standing . The blogosphere hasn’t treated Android well — the SDK has taken many months to get to this stage since it was announced last year. The anti-Android trend will likely continue as commentators compare the HTC and the iPhone (the iPhone is better), and also say the U.S. T-Mobile network is bad (it is). But that’s all besides the point. There will be more phones coming out. The Android SDK appears to be much more powerful, and the distribution possibilities will eventually be better as more mobile operators join the OHA — and as Android expands to other devices.

[Flickr photo of huge remote via flippbong.]

Over the past few days, we’ve gotten multiple confirmations from reliable sources that the first phone built on Google’s Android platform will launch in the next several weeks. It will be an HTC phone, likely the HTC Dream, and will be launched internationally on the T-Mobile network. A window of between Oct 15 and Nov 30 is most likely, according to these sources.

Around mid-July we received some information that T-Mobile had started its preparations for the Android launch. A few weeks later, there were signs from the Android team that development was wrapping up and that the final software development kit (SDK) for the device was nearing completion. A few days later we began hearing that not only was the first Android phone already in existence, it was in the midst of its “first series” phase. This means it is being distributed now among selected employees/managers at HTC, T-Mobile and informed third parties. Various organizational activities, including marketing and training of employees have already started as well.

In the past weeks, amidst reports indicating Android phones may be delayed and frustrations amongst Open Handset Alliance Members, we continually heard from both Google and HTC that the first Android phones would launch before the end of the year. Now we have solid first-hand information that the launch is just weeks away.

Let’s look at some of the problems which Google Android/the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is supposed to have had in the last months:

* Developers supposedly have been staying away from Android and focusing on the systems already out there: BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and the iPhone;
* Open Handset Alliance Member Sprint was arguing that Google Android is not addressing “industry fundamentals more pragmatically”;
* Google was rumored to build its own “Gphone”;
* Most recently HTC is supposed to be “having structural problems to incorporate Google’s demanded feature set” and not being able to make it this year.

So what do we know ?
We quickly learned to distrust most of the speculation. We repeatedly asked Google to confirm launch dates. Answers included “phones based on the Android platform will be available in Q4 of this year” and “we remain on schedule to deliver the first Android-based handset this year.” We also learned that Google was keeping the latest version of the Android SDK from the majority of Android-focused developers as Zdnet reported.

Around mid-July, we had some information that T-Mobile started its preparations for the Android launch. At the beginning of August, there where signs from inside the Android team that they reached an important point in development. They released the final SDK for the Android Developer Challenge participants — suggesting the release to handset manufactures was near. Some days later we heard a confirmation from another, reliable source that T-Mobile is preparing the launch and this person was willing to share some actual information. After we learned this, we took it to others, and they were willing to talk. This is what we consider as confirmed information:

The first “Android phone” exists. It’s a HTC phone and it appears to already be in the “first series” phase as it is being distributed now among selected employees/managers at HTC, T-Mobile and 3rd parties. Various organizational activities, including marketing and training of employees, have started.

How will the phone look like and what are the phone’s characteristics? I can not confirm any of this, but I assume leaks wil start to happen now and in my experience Tmonews is quite well-informed, reliable and seems to have some insiders at various positions. This image from Tmonews (left), however, seems not to show the final version of the phone.

Also, I am certain that the circulating videos are false, as the devices are still kept in the closet. Also, I can comment on the release date. Tmonews, which I’ve linked to above, is speculating about Sept. 17th. From comments from our sources, and calculations about things like approval times, however, we assume a launch window of Oct. 15 to Nov. 30. The launch will be international, and held in stages.

Let’s break down some of our calculations:

We expect the final public Android SDK to be released in the next 4-6 weeks. We hear this time period from various sources and this view seems already to be pre-eminent on newsgroups. The developer release earier this month suggested that at the time the manufacturing of the “first series” was probably near. Information/troubleshooting from the “first series” will be included into the release. This final public release of the Android SDK will make more exact predictions possible.

From submitting the phone to the FCC until launch can take as little as four to five weeks. Take the iPhone, for example. It was submitted on June 1st, it was approved on June 9th and the relevant information was confidential until the July 11.

In the six weeks before the release, we will see a lot of leaks, news and occasional marketing. It seems that for the US, in terms of marketing, October 1st will be a significant day as that’s when T-Mobile USA wants to launch its 3G network.

We’ve already reported on the coming T-Mobile app store. There’s been much speculation on the nature of how the applications should be distributed. From the Google Android team, there are only general statements. Android’s Andy Rubin said at the Google I/O on May 28th that “I have nothing to announce today, but we thought of it. We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t provide something that helps developers to get distribution.” From what we hear, Google is apparently putting the applications stores into mobile operator hands. Can we expect other mobile operators from the Open Handset Alliance to switch to app store models?