Let me preface this by saying that this is not the Google phone. Now that that’s out of the way, I can tell you that LG and Google are partnering up to pre-install Google mobile applications on millions of LG handsets worldwide. Which is good news for folks who like their Google to go. The companies will ship “at least” 10 different handsets this year, with Google Maps, Gmail, and Blogger mobile on board. The phones should be available worldwide starting in Q2 of this year. With Google shoring up partnerships like this with mobile handset vendors, the prospect of the (OM)Gphone seems even less likely than it did before. And considering that a Google phone seemed pretty unlikely to begin with, you can expect the device to ship right about when Microsoft is ready to release a bug-free OS.

For more on LG and Google:
– see this Engadget post