Competition in the smartphone market is heating up this summer as one new hot smartphone after another hits the street. The latest is T-Mobile’s next Google Android device, called the myTouch. US telecom carrier T-Mobile announced on Monday that the latest version of a touch-screen smartphone featuring Google’s Android software would be available in August.

T-Mobile will announce the new smartphone Monday. It is the second smartphone the carrier has introduced that uses Google’s open-source mobile operating system, Android. T-Mobile introduced the world’s first Google Android phone, called the G1, last fall. And so far the company claims it has sold over 1 million devices.

The myTouch is manufactured by HTC and is essentially the same hardware design as the Google Ion, which is also known as the HTC Magic. The device was introduced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February and is now being sold by Vodafone in various markets around the world.

The T-Mobile myTouch 3G is being seen as T-Mobile and Google’s answer in the highly competitive smartphone market to the newly released Apple iPhone 3GS, the Palm Pre and the latest Blackberrys from Canada’s Research in Motion.

Apple announced on Monday that it had sold more than one million iPhone 3GS in just three days.

T-Mobile, the US operation of Deutsche Telekom and Google released their first phone, the T-Mobile G1, in October of last year.

The G1 and the myTouch 3G are made by HTC of Taiwan and run on Google’s open-source Android software, which the California-based Internet search giant is hoping will be adopted as a platform by other mobile phone makers.

T-Mobile said the myTouch 3G would feature a touch-screen display with a virtual keyboard and increased ability to personalize the phone through the use of applications available through the Android Market.

The myTouch is entering the market just as every major smartphone maker is also introducing its latest and greatest device. Three other smartphones makers have already started selling phones this summer. Palm’s much anticipated Pre was introduced on Sprint Nextel’s network two weeks ago. Nokia followed with its U.S. debut of the N97, touch-screen smartphone. And Apple started selling its faster and memory-enhanced iPhone 3G S on Friday.

Like the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone 3G S, the myTouch will be sold exclusively through a single wireless operator in the U.S. And as a result the $199 price tag is subsidized and requires consumers sign a two-year service contract with the carriers. By contrast, Nokia’s N97 is not subsidized and is sold at full retail price without a service contract.

So how does T-Mobile expect the myTouch to stand out among all these other cool new phones? The key, Sherrard said, is personalization. While the basic hardware design of the myTouch is the same as the HTC Magic, T-Mobile has made enhancements to the device both in terms of hardware and software.

“No two myTouch devices will be alike,” Sherrard said. “They will be as unique as the users that own them.”

From a software perspective, consumers will have the opportunity to completely customize their myTouch device with various Android applications. In retail stores, T-Mobile sales representatives will help customers set up their own personalized device before they leave the store.

MyTouch also features one-touch access to other Google services such as Google Search by voice and Google Maps.

T-Mobile said the myTouch will cost 199.99 dollars with a two-year service agreement — the same price as the new iPhone and the Palm Pre. It will be available in US stores in early August.