MediaFile

Most people have one phone or handheld device for work, and maybe another one for play. But how about 14?

That’s how many devices Google’s vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra has. They make it “very hard to get through the airport,” he joked.

We asked him and other executives in the mobile advertising industry what devices they use, after about an hour of a panel discussion on where mobile advertising is going at the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference.

Gundotra said he had only a few of his 14 devices with him.

“I have an Android, a BlackBerry and an iPhone with me and another device that I can’t talk about,” he said, adding his company wants to make sure that consumers have a good Google experience with any device that they choose. His email and calendar are synced on all devices, but he has pictures only on the Android. “If you call Google Voice, all 14 phones ring,” he joked.

It’s an Apple iPhone and a Blackberry for Omar Hamoui, chief executive of AdMob, one of the largest marketplaces for mobile advertisers. “I carry two because I use them quite differently,” he said. The iPhone is for anything involved with data and applications and the Blackberry, for email and calendar.

Google’s vice president of engineering has dismissed the idea that plans to bring out a new computer operating system, Chrome OS, will mean the end of Google’s existing operating system for mobile phones, Android.

As soon as Chrome was announced earlier this week “all the press and speculation started, ‘Oh, the Android is doomed,’” said Andy Rubin at an event with T-Mobile in San Francisco to show off the latest Android iteration, the myTouch 3G phone, manufactured by Taiwan’s HTC.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in Sun Valley yesterday that Chrome OS is a separate product from Android, but the two products are closely related and could eventually “merge even closer.”

 Some analysts worry that T-Mobile USA may have missed a trick by opting for a new Android device, myTouch 3G, which is mostly the same as HTC’s first one, the G, except for its slimmer shape and lack of a physical keyboard.

According to T-Mobile USA Chief Technology Officer Cole Brodman, the No. 4 U.S. carrier currently has no plans to sell Hero, another HTC phone that runs Google’s Android but has an updated user interface that looks similar in some ways to Palm Pre.

From today until July 28, T-Mobile USA customers can order the myTouch online with the potential to have their phones deliverd before its national launch stores on Aug. 5. Brodman says myTouch, with its nifty travel case, personalizable covers and T-Mobile recommendations for hot applictions, will appeal to a broader audience than G1. The idea is that myTouch’s sleek shape and Android’s straightforward user interface will encourage T-Mobile customers who had never bought a smartphone before to now consider this one.

In a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose earlier this week, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg danced around questions about cellphones but was more forthcoming about the U.S. telecom giant’s long-term expansion ambitions.

Asked to confirm a report that Verizon will sell an Android-based phone from Motorola this year Seidenberg said, “It might be true what you said. I can’t quite disclose…”

And as for any plans to sell iPhone, the executive said that would be Apple’s decision.

For the last two years, investors have been calling for Motorola to bring out some decent new phones. The calls turned to pleas on Tuesday after its bleak results and a weak outlook.

Analysts are calling Motorola’s promise to introduce advanced devices in time for the holiday season, based on Google’s Android operating system, as the company’s last chance. In a research report entitled “Last Hurrah” Nomura analyst Richard Windsor put it bluntly:

I think if Android fails to deliver the needed revenue and profit recovery, then the focus will be oriented on managing the business for oblivion.

Sprint may be having a lot of problems marketing its own brand in the last few years, but according to Chief Executive Dan Hesse, Google’s Android mobile operating system isn’t perfect either.

He told the National Press Club in Washington that he didn’t think Android in its current form is ”good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.”

But Hesse promised to sell a phone powered by Android “at some time in the future.” Sprint is part of the alliance of about 30 companies that said they would support Google’s development of a mobile phone operating system. T-Mobile USA started selling the first phone powered by Android earlier this week.  (Reporting by Kim Dixon)

It was a more relaxed affair than the frenzied iPhone launches of last year and this year. In fact, the first customers who lined up to buy G1, the first Google-powered phone, were specifically looking forward to life outside of iPhone.

Justin Hay, 26, who supports trading systems at a bank, said he was lined up on this cold October morning to get his hands on the next new thing.

“Everyone has an iPhone now,” he said, politely declining a tray of pastries offered by a T-Mobile USA employee.

Here’s Google and T-Mobile’s image of their long-awaited T-Mobile G1 phone. And here are some of our own pictures hot off of the presses.

The new phone, available late in October, comes in three colors (white, black and brown), features advanced search tools, a full web browser, simple access to Google applications including Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube, and access to Android Market, where users can get games, music, and also shop.

So, are you itching to pick one up? Would you trade in your iPhone or other mobile handset for a G1?

Thanks Amazon! The online retailer put out a release this morning with some juicy details about Google’s new mobile phone — even as we’re still waiting for the official unveiling later today.

So, here’s what they say about the phone…

“The T-Mobile G1 is the world’s first Android-powered mobile phone in an exclusive partnership with Google. The T-Mobile G1 combines full touch-screen functionality and a QWERTY keyboard with a mobile Web experience that includes the popular Google services that millions have enjoyed on the desktop, including Google Maps with StreetView, Gmail, YouTube and others. ”

Amazon, which has a deal with Google related to the phone, also says that the phone will have “one-touch access” to Google Search and will allow access to Android Market, “where customers can find and download unique applications to expand and personalize their phone to fit their lifestyle.”