AT&T has been mum on its plans to carry Google Android phones. But with rumors spreading that Verizon will be offering the iPhone as well, and that several high-end mobile phones will be launched in the near future, AT&T is now making some effort to promote their Google phones.
The company is set to launch the HTC Lancaster this August. The carrier’s first Google Android device will feature a full QWERTY keyboard and an AT&T-branded user interface. They have announced August 3 to be the release date.
The mobile phone known as HTC Lancaster for now looks like a typical handset from the Taiwanese company. When it is closed, the phone looks like HTC Magic, and when the keyboard is out, you can see its resemblance to the T-Mobile G1.
HTC Lancaster has a 3 megapixel camera, 2.8 inch QVGA display with a 240×320 pixel resolution, and AGPS. Its specifications are much like any average Smartphone out in the market these days. There’s no data yet on its storage capacity, but it features a microSD card slot.
The handset also includes Bluetooth 2.0, 1,350mAh battery, USB 2.0, 850/1900MHz HSPA, and EDGE. It measures 109 x 54 x 17.1 mm and weights 110 grams. HTC Lancaster is said to be exclusive for the AT&T Wireless for six months after the initial release of the mobile phone set.
In other Android news, Canonical announced that it successfully placed Android apps in a netbook. An Ubuntu-powered PC of the future will be able to run Google Android applications that are made to fit the screen, hardware, and power of an Android phone.
With the execution environment, apps can use the mouse for input instead of touch. Multiple windows can be opened simultaneously, and the app can run while the CPU is idle. These are some features that are in development, to be used in any Unbuntu PC.
Cupcake, the latest Android version that’s release in the US this week, will power these Ubuntu machines. Dell showed a Mini 10v netbook, that’s running the Cupcake but there’s no formal announcement yet as to its commitment to the product.
The Ubuntu execution environment compiles the Android code to Ubuntu libc instead of Google’s libc. In layman’s terms, Android libraries are incorporated to the Ubuntu libraries when they are appropriate. Other features are masked and are made to think that they are running on a phone instead of a PC.
