China Mobile said no to HTC’s G1 Android phone and has opted to go with the Lenovo Mobile version instead. The device is said to be released in 2009 sometime in February or March. Not much else is known about the phone.

The announcement was made at the P&T/Expo Comm China 2008 in Beijing, by a Lenovo manager. Although in the west, Lenovo is mainly known for laptops, Lenovo is also known in china for manufacturing cell phones and smartphones.

Google has released a custom multitouch version of their popular Google Earth service for the Apple iPhone. Early reviews tout the program for it’s tactile inventiveness, giving users control of zooming, twirling and panning all with some quick finger flicks. It also uses the built-in accelerometer, so you can also pan and tilt.Google has also overlaid areas of interest with Wikipedia and Panoramio. These overlays pop up with information or photos in an in-app browser. It seems to pack quite a punch for an iPhone application. Some reviewers have said it’s even better than the desktop version.

And the best part? It’s free. Head on over to iTunes to try it out.

The upcoming Apple iPhone software update will include Google Maps Street View implementation as well as the ability to read mass transit directions. The Google implementation was thought to be one of the niftier features of T-Mobile’s G1 Android phone, but now it appears both competitors will support the function.

A build of the upcoming software has just been released to developers and Google Maps Street View is said to be functioning nicely. Apple has issued no word as to when version 2.2 of the iPhone software will be available to the laymen. Click here for a host of applicable images.

Peter Chou, chief executive and co-founder of HTC, said in a recent interview that he expects to ship over 600,000 G1s this year. Also, although he didn’t release an exact figure for 2009, he did state "in general, we think we can do more next year."

Regarding the Google-enabled device’s potential at luring consumers away from Apple’s iPhone, Mr. Chou pointed to the QWERTY keypad. "Americans are very keyboard-oriented." he said.

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Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint, decried Android’s readiness to carry the Sprint brand during a recent talk he gave at the National Press Club in Washington. He decried the Google-powered phone as not "good enough to put the Sprint brand on."

He did infer the Android would one day be able to carry the branding, it just had a lot of work to do. He promised to sell the Google device "at some time in the future." Click here for the Reuters article on the matter.