Android touchscreen ‘reference design’ demoed on BBC

So far we have only seen a key driven interface for Google’s Android OS but yesterday, a video that appeared on the BBC website seemed to confirm that there is already a touchscreen version of the OS up and running.

The sleek looking unit pulling this trick is referred to in the video only as a ‘reference design that one of our partners built for us’ by Google’s director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin. Could this be the first ever video of a true Gphone?

In the video Rubin also mentions that the unit is a 3G device and proceeds to show off Android’s bells and whistles using the touchscreen almost exclusively but occasionally making use of what appears to be some sort of home button.

Besides showing off a web-browsing interface that is decidedly iPhone like, Rubin also loads up a game of Quake on the device which runs at a silky smooth 30 frames per second.

Very intriguing stuff and even if this isn’t what the (almost) inevitable Google branded hardware will look like, it is still a very impressive expose of what the platform will be capable of.

(Via textually)

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