AT&T's First Phone Running Google's Android OS May Have Been Canceled

AT&T may not release the Android-based smartphone that has come up in several unconfirmed reports. This device, the HTC Lancaster, has supposedly run into enough problems that it could have been canceled.

It hasn't made an official announcement, but this wireless carrier has allegedly been planning a Q3 launch for the HTC Lancaster, a model with a landscape-oriented sliding keyboard running Google's mobile operating system.

According to news leaking out of Asia, this model has run into significant problems that have prevented it from passing AT&T's internal certification process. These are reportedly bad enough that the debut has been pushed back -- and this product may have been canceled altogether.

The nature of these problems is not known.

Additional Details of the HTC Lancaster
All the smartphones running Android available now have an HVGA screen, but the Lancaster reportedly will have a 2.8-inch QVGA display, giving it half the number of pixels.

Assuming this device is released, other features will include 3G (HSUPA and HSDPA), a 3 MPx camera, Bluetooth, and a GPS receiver.

In addition, AT&T requested that HTC use a custom user interface, not Google's standard one.

Bad but Not Terrible
If this report is true, and the Lancaster is canceled, it will mean that AT&T could be the only major U.S. carrier not offering a smartphone based on the Android OS. On the other hand, it is the only U.S. carrier offering one of Android's primary rivals, the very successful Apple iPhone, so it probably won't be a major blow.

And this is clearly not good news for HTC, but by the end of this year it will have Android phones available from both T-Mobile and Sprint, and multiple Windows Mobile-based models available from all of the big four U.S. carriers.

Source: DigiTimes