In a press conference in NYC, Google, T-Mobile USA and HTC today announced the “T-Mobile G1”, the first mobile phone running Google’s Android operating system.

The phone will be available in October in the U.S., in Europe later this year (November in the U.K.). It will be available for US$ 179, but will be SIM-locked to the T-Mobile network. Data plans start at $25 a month, but require a T.Mobile voice plan as well.

It’s hard to overlook the similarities to Apple’s iPhone launch. The only major difference I see today is the fact that application development is unrestricted, unlike Apple’s model. But there is a central marketplace for Android apps as well, called “Android Market” (which didn’t prevent one of the T-Mobile big cheese on the press conf to call it “App Store” a couple of times - accidentally, of course).

More key data: No Skype either. Well, hardly a surprise. No Exchange support yet (though that will very likely come quickly). Integrates well with Google services (allegedly), but no central “sync” platform there.

All in all: surprisingly few differences to the iPhone.