You're doing this just to taunt me, right? When is the last time anyone with any credibility claimed that there would be a Google phone? You're taking credit for the frsh kill of a rumor that died weeks (if not months ago) and making yourself look silly in the process. Please, stop!

Yes, let this be the last "Google phone doesn't exist" obviouspost. Next!

@ChiefCynic: Why are you saying such mean things about the New York Times? It's a fine, upstanding paper.

@Owen That's pretty disingenuous, unless you didn't actually read the Times piece, which wouldn't surprise me. Yes, they use the term GPhone but you know damn well they're not talking about Google making handsets. The whole article is about software. If I point to a desktop PC and tell you it's a Linux machine, will you contend that I'm trying to convince you that the Linux community is now building hardware? I-told-you-sos are bad enough when they're right, when they're repeatedly telling you things you already know, it's really freaking annoying!

Owen Thomas posting another gPhone rebuttal. Like a broken record. Seriously annoying.

The gPhone was one of the pieces of anti-iPhone FUD when the iPhone was just coming out, remember?

Google phones were going to be free. There would be no monthly fees. It was all going to be paid for by advertising. *cackle*

These huge industry partnerships, sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. Anyone remember Taligent?

@ChiefCynic: Your analogy is apt, in this sense: Put a Linux PC on the shelves at Wal-Mart, and yes, the average shopper will think that there's a company called Linux making PCs. It's clear, perhaps to you and your fellow commenters, that there will be no Googlephone. My hat's off to you; that's why I love you so.

But why do I keep writing about the fact that there's no Googlephone? Because the tech press corps, desperate for the next iPhone to write about, can't let go of the idea that Google's going to have a hand in designing cell-phone hardware. Until they let go of this idea -- as Gizmodo, to its credit, has -- I'm going to keep at it.

What's Wal-Mart?