Forgive us if we don't take this one at face value. Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch says there is a Google-branded phone in the works. They don't have many details except that it will be heading to market in January, and that is only because it is taking longer than expected.
Sure, they might be doing another level of co-branding like Microsoft is doing with Sharp on their Pink phones. But they've already gone down that road. Verizon already sells the Droid with Google branding and Tmobile has sold the G1 "with Google" branding since day one. Expanding on that isn't what we are talking about here.
What Arrington is talking about is a Google product, sold by Google with no other branding on it. The OS won't have to go thru carriers' systems. It will be maintained by Google. Just like the iPhone is maintained by Apple.
But Google obviously d
