Edit: HTC tell us that this meeting never took place, and are denying that TouchFLO will necessarily make an appearance on the gPhone.  See update at the end of the article.

With developers seemingly hiding underneath their keyboards and rival hardware manufacturers and networks apparently on an hiatus of Android criticism, we’re left desperately seeking out crumbs of handset news from key players such as HTC.  Executive Style’s Adam Turner resorted to inviting HTC exec John Featherstone on a coffee date to try to prise further details out regarding the company’s cellphone plans; obviously he didn’t buy him a biscotti, as Featherstone would only confirm that the TouchFLO interface “could” be ported to Android and be included in the first wave of devices.

Featherstone also made clear what Google’s demands on hardware have been - or, more accurately, dismissed the idea of the search giant insisting on high-spec devices:

“HTC’s Google Phone hardware is still under development, although surprisingly Featherstone says Google has set no pre-requisites for Google Phone hardware except ‘a full mobile radio stack’” Adam Turner, Executive Style

Turner goes on to presume that means the inclusion of HSDPA which, given Google’s suite of online applications and the heavy emphasis on mobile data, seems a reasonable guess.  It’s possible that Featherstone was obliquely talking about the HTC Dream reference design that Google used to persuade OHA members of the project’s worth; that’s believed to include a large touchscreen as well as physical controls.

Update 11/30/07: Our man Vincent Nguyen is currently at Mobius in Amsterdam and has been speaking with HTC’s representatives there.  They’ve told him that the meeting with Executive Style’s Adam Turner did not take place, and are denying that decisions have been made about TouchFLO and Android.