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This week Google and Oracle are in court over a patent dispute, while these cases are usually incredibly dull, a interesting slide show was shown today that shows off a long-lost Google Phone dating back to 2006, well before Android was around.
The slides are being used against Google to prove that they lifted code from Oracle’s Java script, which Oracle claims was used without their permission.
In 2006 the Google phone would have been on par with the competition, from the pictures you can tell it’s quite a looker in a retro-futuristic way. It takes design cues from Blackberry, who were the market-leader back then, with the QWERTY-style keyboard and the curved pebble-shaped chasis.
You can even see hardware buttons like ALT and menu button which eventually made their way onto the original G1. One interesting omission is the lack of a touchscreen, which Apple and LG would go onto perfect a year later in 2007.
What this actually means with regards to the legal case remains to be seen, but Oracle clearly wants to show Google’s original plans, that then later changed as Android progressed and subsequently needed more Java code, according to Oracle.
The specs of the phantom phone were also unveiled in court and came with a ARMv9 processor clocked at 200Mhz, GMS 3G, 64MB of Ram and ROM, MiniSD external storages, a 2 megapixel camera, USB support, Bluetooth 1,2 and a QVGA display.
According to details from the Verge Google’s functioning OS was already quite capable back in 2006, with three prototype phones able to use Google Talk, Gmail, Calendar, MMS, POP mail way back in 2006.
What happened to phone remains a mystery, as in 2008 the original HTC Google G1 was released a full two years after this prototype, which was considerably different to what we see above. Why everything took so long is still a mystery and we’re sure we’ll be hearing more as the lawsuit continues.
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