Google now working on two Android smartphones

Photo/FILE A T-Mobile G1 Google phone running Android. Google Edition handsets by Taiwan-based HTC will be compatible with carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. 

Posted  Friday, May 31  2013 at  18:16

In Summary

• Google Edition handsets by Taiwan-based HTC will be compatible with carriers AT&T and T-Mobile.

SAN FRANCISCO

Google revealed on Thursday that it has two new sophisticated Android smartphones in the works, one of which will have the unprecedented distinction of being made in the United States.

An HTC One smartphone customised to be “Google’s take on Android” will make its US debut on June 26 at a price of $599, the head of Android, Chrome and Google Apps said at an AllThingsD conference in California.

“It’s a great device,” Google executive Sundar Pichai said during an on-stage interview.

Google Edition handsets by Taiwan-based HTC will be compatible with carriers AT&T and T-Mobile.

Manufacturing site

Pichai made the disclosure a day after Motorola Mobility head Dennis Woodside said on the same stage that the company’s was preparing to release its first smartphone since being bought by Google.

The smartphone would be called Moto X and be made in a facility near Fort Worth, Texas, Woodside said.

“It is the first smartphone that is going to be built in the United States,” Woodside said, noting that the plant would employ about 2,000 people by August.

“We think that it is going to allow us to innovate and iterate that much faster.” Components for Motorola smartphones will come from Taiwan, South Korea and US.