While everyone was busy this week talking about the iPhone, I was left alone wondering: Where is the Google Phone?Last month rumors broke that UK wireless carrier Orange was supposedly in talks with Google to develop a cell phone. According to the rumors, Google would pre-load a special Orange handset with Google applications. The rumors claim that the proposed device would take advantage of special data compression technologies Google has developed to speed up the applications on the phone.

I know a lot of techies think it's dumb for Google to get into the hardware business, but I personally think a Google-branded cell phone would be cool -- quite possibly cooler than even the iPhone.

Work with me here. If there was a Google Phone and you could use your Google sign-in and ID, you could conceivably have a mobile device that's always connected and able to use all of your Google's applications in one place.

From a communications perspective, you would have a seamlessly integrated e-mail, IM, and peer-to-peer VoIP communications client with you anywhere you went. Talk about killer connectivity.

And if the Google Phone included a mobile version of Goolgle Docs you could have access to any number of work or personal documents anytime you needed them. You could work on a document at work, then edit it from your cell phone anywhere.

You could also have a location-enabled cell phone, powered by Google Maps. A Google handset could give you directions to a new place and you could use your Google phone to navigate to your desired destination in real-time.

While Google and Samsung announced a partnership that will take a step towards this ideal, it's still not quite what the Google Phone could or should be.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced a Google phone -- one that seamlessly integrated most of Google's apps in one place and with an easy-to-use user interface -- could easily take on the iPhone or just about any other cell phone out there. Of course, we have no idea if there will be a Google Phone. But, it's hard to think that Google isn't looking at this, especially given all their recent traction in the mobile space. What do you think?