SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Google has released a kit for software developers to create fun, hip or functional programs for the "G-phone" due out next month in a direct challenge to Apple's hot-selling iPhone.

The Android 1.0 software developers kit lets computer programming wizards customize applications that will work on the open-source platform built into the G1 handsets being brought to market by telecom carrier T-Mobile.

The T-Mobile G1 phones are heralded as the first of a generation of devices built on the Google-led Android operating platform.

Apple recently began letting outside developers customize applications for iPhones and iPod Touch models but vets programs carefully and safeguards details of proprietary software built into its products.

Android: Its anatomy and features

The finished Android developers kit released on Tuesday is a refinement of a "beta" test version that Google has let third-party programmers tinker with for months.

Google already held the first of what is to be an annual "Android Developers Challenge" and gave away five million dollars in prize money for innovative software tailored to the platform.

"I've already seen a lot of applications that have me stoked, and I can't wait to see things really come together," Android developer advocate Dan Morrill wrote in a message posted at a Google website devoted to the platform.

"We're also already working on the future of the Android platform, and on more devices."

Google unveiled its long-awaited smart phone on Tuesday. G1 phones will be available in stores in the United States on October 22 and will cost 179 dollars, 20 dollars cheaper than the iPhone 3G.

Cole Brodman, T-Mobile chief technology and innovation officer, called the G1, built by the Taiwanese firm HTC, a "game-changing" device for Web surfing which will "power a new mobile Internet of the future."

The G1 will go on sale in Britain in early November and in other European countries served by T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG, in early 2009.

The G1 offers many of the features of the iPhone and Research in Motion's popular BlackBerry including a touch screen similar to that of the iPhone, a trackball for navigation, high-speed Internet browsing, Wi-Fi, email, instant messaging and SMS texting.

Source: AFP