The Mysterious GPhone Unveiled: A Slideshow History

Since the earliest rumors shivered through the blogosphere, Google has been on a steady march toward releasing its own mobile offering.

If the journey was steady, though, the communication was anything but. Google (GOOG) has shifted its language along the way and even outright denied the smartphone project once or twice.

The Nexus One, news of which got out a few weeks ago, might not be the innovative free-to-all everyone was fantasizing about, but it represents the most significant mobile announcement from Google to date, using its Android operating system software.

More to the point, Nexus One, the Silicon Valley search giant’s most aggressive attack on the hegemony of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, will finally be unveiled today at an event that will be ably covered by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, starting at about 10 am PT.

But overall, it was a pretty sneaky journey from there to here.

So, here is the visual history, using our new All Things Digital slideshow format.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik