Application Optimized Phones

Danger. BlackBerry, iPhone. Someday soon, Google phone. Just a few illustrations of the development of application optimized phones. Not application specific, as they are multiple function devices. Rather, optimized for a particular set of functions, with voice as a lowest common denominator

"Some of the time the engineers are dedicated to developing a mobile phone," Google executive Isabel Aguilera is quoted as saying on the Spanish-news Web site Noticias.com.

Simeon Simeonov, Polaris Venture Partners partner, has been told the Google Phone will be a BlackBerry-like device running C++ at the core with an operating system bootstrap, or loading program, and optimized Java, and that it would offer VoIP.

Rumors also link Google and Samsung as partners developing a phone, code-named "Switch." Google and Samsung announced a partnership in January to bundle mobile versions of Google Search, Google Maps and Gmail on certain Samsung phones.

Google has on its payroll Andy Rubin, the founder of handheld device maker Danger who later started Android, a mobile-software maker that Google bought in 2005. Google also acquired mobile-applications company Reqwireless and secretly acquired a company called Skia, whose first product is a portable graphics engine that renders 2D graphics on handhelds.