Google Android has had its first outing at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The new operating system expected to make handsets later this year was shown to Pocket-lint by chip manufacturer ARM.

The company, which already powers mobile phones from Nokia to Apple, will offer the technology via its chips to power the new OS to manufacturers who want it.

The early prototype that Pocket-lint was shown was running on the company's ARM 9 chip, two generations old, on a device that is unlikely to come to market, however that still didn't stop it performing incredibly quickly.

Although the interface will be fully customisable by the handset manufacturer, the prototype design we were shown featured a scroll bar of applications along the bottom of the screen.

The interface also had, as you'll see by the gallery of pictures, a very Apple feel to it, heavily graphical in its interface.

The software demo previewed applications such as a music player, Google Maps, Calendar, Camera, and SMS.