T-Mobile to Use Google Software in Devices for Home

T-Mobile would like to link phones, photo frames, digital cameras, security systems, webcams and TVs through its software and networking services.Some will have larger screens, which makes them handy for displaying recipes and a family calendar.Last August, T-Mobile, the nation’s fourth-largest wireless carrier after AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, was the first carrier to sell a cellphone, the G1, based on the Android software, an operating system that handles the basic functions for mobile devices.AT&T announced a trial program last week in which it will sell small, low-cost laptops known as netbooks for just $50 to people signing long-term contracts for its wireless data services. For example, a start-up called Touch Revolution, based in San Francisco, uses the software to run a desk phone with a seven-inch screen.Smaller companies have seized on Android as well.It started slowly, but Android has attracted more interest lately among handset manufacturers and carriers.Hamblin said.For example, the company’s phones will have many of the functions of computers.T-Mobile’s use of Android to advance its ambitions also shows just how blurry the line has become between phones and computers.Verizon, with its new Hub phone, and AT&T, with its HomeManager, sell similar products that merge the delivery of information and phone calls on a computerlike appliance.This is their attempt to keep people interested in landline services,” Mr.A T-Mobile spokesman, Peter Dobrow, declined to discuss the specifics of any future products but confirmed that T-Mobile had plans for several devices based on Android. The device handles calls, voicemail and e-mail through its wireless access. Android competes with operating systems made by Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and others. For example, Samsung committed last week to ship a number of Android-based phones this year, with T-Mobile and Sprint likely to offer the devices in the United States.All of the carriers are going to be supporting these mobile Internet devices that range from laptops to smartphones,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst with Opus Research, which monitors the mobile industry.HTC has also said it planned to make other Google phones.If you put this in a convenient location in the house, it will get a lot of use,” Mr.Its tablet-size phone device resembles a small laptop without a keyboard and has a seven-inch touch screen.For instance, its line of Cameo digital picture frames can receive new photos sent via e-mail or from cellphones.The vision for the operating system, however, has stretched to cover a wide range of mobile devices, including computers.It would handle basic computing jobs like checking the weather or managing data across a variety of devices in the home.In addition, Motorola is expected to sell a phone running Android by October, according to industry analysts.The chief executive of Touch Revolution, Mark Hamblin, worked on creating Apple’s touch-screen technology for the iPhone.T-Mobile plans to sell a home phone early next year and soon after a tablet computer, both running Android, according to confidential documents obtained from one of the company’s partners. T-Mobile shares in this grand vision of more sophisticated devices in the home. The phone will plug into a docking station and come with another device that handles data synchronization as it recharges the phone’s battery.But so far, only the T-Mobile phone, made by the Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, uses the software.Sterling, the analyst, said.He said that home phones with advanced software could offer people functions that go beyond what today’s cellphones do.

SAN FRANCISCO — T-Mobile is planning an aggressive push deep into the home with a variety of communications devices that will use Google’s new Android operating software that already runs one of its cellphones.Google maintains some control over Android, even though the software is open source, meaning other companies can alter it to suit their needs.