More rumors are circulating about a T-Mobile G2 that could be announced as soon as January. While no one has confirmed the existence of a G2, it looks suspiciously like an HTC Touch HD smart phone with an Android home screen photoshopped onto it.
The only thing that rumors seem to claim about the device is that it’s a touch screen HTC phone without a full QWERTY keyboard. It’s also rumored to include a trackball similar to the G1’s optional input device. The only problem with removing the keyboard from the G2 is that the current code base doesn’t include an on-screen keyboard.
You can check out the revived rumor and supposed picture over on BGR, but the comments hint that this is likely just a mock-up posted to an Android community site by a fan postulating on the possible permutations of HTC smartphones. While it could be a fair representation of the fabled G2, it’s just too early to confirm.
If, in fact, the G2 has no keyboard, it would explain why Google is prioritizing on-screen input in the newly created ‘Cupcake’ branch of the Android code. In addition to on-screen keyboard support, ‘Cupcake’ includes video capture, A2DB stereo bluetooth support and improved Web rendering- all timely updates if T-Mobile is looking to go head-to-head with the iPhone as a touch-based multimedia smartphone.
The on-screen keyboard in ‘Cupcake’ has already been demoed on a G1 device on ModMyGPhone, but is not widely in circulation yet. You can see a video demo of the touch input keyboard below from YouTube:
- Android Cupcake preview video
- Android G2 is a little piece of HTC Magic
- T-Mobile G2 Android phone unmasked?
- Giinii Movit Android tablet spotted at CES
- Android G2 spy shots leaked
I'm Dave and I like to share news about gadgets, gear, careers and design for a mobile world.
theregoesdave
G2 will be better from G1 for shure
Those pix are photoshoped and g2 is not coming out in january but the “android os 2 called cupcake” is! I think you misunderstood the rumors
G2 will come out in june as google g2 and g1 owners wiill by end of feb already have g2 android os installed OTC
Btw lookup my blog about g1 and tmobile u will see some stuff u might look for about g1-g2
[...] The HTC Sapphire is an entirely touch screen phone with no keyboard. That would fall inline with expectations as Google has been working on building support for the on-screen keyboard in the Android Cupcake build. This would give credence to speculation that Cupcake is being created specifically for the G2. [...]
[...] The HTC Sapphire is an entirely touch screen phone with no keyboard. That would fall inline with expectations as Google has been working on building support for the on-screen keyboard in the Android Cupcake build. This would give credence to speculation that Cupcake is being created specifically for the G2. [...]
[...] addition, the G2 is the first Android device to incorporate the on-screen keyboard developed in the Cupcake branch of the Android codebase. The design keeps basic buttons and the trackball from the G1, but loses [...]
[...] week sans keyboard, lending credence to the idea that Cupcake’s onscreen keyboard was being readied for the G2 device. Now we can take a look at the on-screen keyboard and other features added to [...]