Google Uses Mystery Phone To Demo Their Android

Yesterday, during the Google IO developer conference, Google unveiled a couple of new features on the Android mobile OS on an unknown phone. This unknown phone is believed by many to be the HTC Dream, which has long rumored to exist.

Aside from the operating system, this latest demo gave some insight into the mystery phone, which features a capacitive type touch screen, much like the iPhone. HTC’s previous phones have relied on a less finger-friendly type of interface that usually relies on a stylus. It was also revealed that this device sports 3.6Mbps HSDPA data, and uses a 528 MHz Qualcomm processor, has 128MB of RAM, and 256MB of ROM on board.

The demo also showed some new apps and features, including a magnifying glass that can be used on web pages to make interacting with small print and buttons much easier. Google also demoed the ability to unlock an Android device by drawing a specific shape on the touchscreen instead of entering a boring password. They also ran a PacMan demo for the audience. Google Android based devices can be developed for touchscreen devices or non-touchscreen devices, and some will even make use of a trackball, much like those used in Blackberry’s.

Other new features of the platform shown were a new clock as well as the notification feature that is tied to the top status line. The new app launcher screen was also shown, and it now supports the placing of web bookmarks directly in the menu structure, similar to the way the latest versions of the iPhone work.