Motorola Droid getting 2.0.1 now, Verizon posts details

The “coming weeks” timeframe that Verizon had promised for 2.0.1 to start pushing to Droids has been mercifully condensed down to just a few days, because a number of folks are starting to report that they’re receiving the update on their retail units today — and we’ve been able to confirm with the company that it’s going down. That’s great news for a Monday, we’d say, and if you haven’t gotten the update just yet, Big Red has now posted update instructions and details on the Droid’s support site that should be enough to tide you over for a few minutes. In brief, this looks like bug-fix nirvana with improved stability and battery life, better camera and call quality, faster visual voicemail, and a host of other goodies — anyone hoping for new features is probably primed for disappointment, but we’ll take what we can get. Keep an eye on your Droid today, owners, and let us know how the experience treats you.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola Droid getting 2.0.1 now, Verizon posts details originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phandroid, Android Forums  |  sourceVerizon Droid Support  | Email this | Comments

Fusion Garage Joojoo tablet rises from the ashes of the CrunchPad

Fusion Garage has finally come clean with its side of the story in regards to the CrunchPad debacle, and just unveiled its new Arrington-free version of the device: the Joojoo. The way Fusion Garage tells it, the device was already in the works at the time of the original TechCrunch post about the idea, and that Michael Arrington and co. made zero contributions to the development of the device — and apparently don’t have any sort of contract to prove otherwise. The device is much along the lines of what we’d been hearing: it runs a UNIX-based OS, boots straight to a web browser (otherwise no apps at all), weighs about 2.4 pounds and features a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen. There are no physical buttons on the slate outside of the on-off switch, which taps into a 9 second boot time. Under the hood there’s a 4GB SSD, WiFi (no 3G), an accelerometer and about 5 hours of battery life. Pre-orders start on December 11th, with a dream-shattering $499 pricetag bringing this thing back into the realm of reality. We’re supposed to see demos of the Joojoo in the wild this week, and another shot of the device can be found after the break.

Continue reading Fusion Garage Joojoo tablet rises from the ashes of the CrunchPad

Fusion Garage Joojoo tablet rises from the ashes of the CrunchPad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceThe Joo Joo  | Email this | Comments

HTC’s 2010 roadmap goes on display?

Those among us with minds like steel traps might recall that HTC’s 2009 was leaked with shocking accuracy way back in January of this year, which lends some credibility to this already-believable series of slides we have seemingly showing off most of the good stuff we can expect out of the company in the coming months. The stuff we’re privy to here was allegedly presented at a meeting in Vienna back in October, with both Windows Mobile and Android designs broken up into four target demo categories: Design / Lifestyle, Social, Performance (we like the sound of that), and Productivity — but don’t take our word for it. Follow the break for everything you need to know about this very real-sounding downpour of specs and renders.

Continue reading HTC’s 2010 roadmap goes on display?

HTC’s 2010 roadmap goes on display? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android and Me, pocketnow.com  |  sourceXDA Developers  | Email this | Comments

WSJ confirms Apple purchase of Lala

Well that’s that, apparently. Although this story has evolved quite a bit over the day, according to Peter Kafka over at All Things Digital, Apple has indeed coughed up the dough for music streaming service Lala. If you believe what you read in the report (and you probably can, Kafka tends to be a straight shooter), Apple’s snapping up the company for what will amount to a bargain-basement price… possibly less than $.50 on the dollar. However, Kafka says at least one source claims his valuation of the deal is off, but we’ll have to wait for some official word before we know for sure. If this turns out to all be true, the lingering question is still about Apple’s reasoning behind the purchase — is the company after a particular technology, or is there a service in the offing? Hopefully we’ll know soon.

Note: If you want a little background on Lala, Ross Rubin has covered the service extensively in his Switched On column.

WSJ confirms Apple purchase of Lala originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAll Things Digital, The Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

Dell creates communications division for push into handheld market

Turns out Mini 3i is only the beginning. Dell has announced plans to create a new Communications Group with a focus on mobile phones and similar portable devices. Current consumer division head and former Motorola exec Ron Garriques will take the helm. Not much else to say at this point, but make no mistake, Dell is now officially in the phone business for the long haul.

Dell creates communications division for push into handheld market originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceThe Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

Android 2.1-equipped Motorola Sholes tablet spied in China as XT701?

No sooner do we get brief corner glimpses of the supposed Motorola Sholes tablet do we get tipped off to this writeup from Androidin.net which has a number of pictures of an eerily similar keyboard-less handset with a 3.7-inch screen, Android 2.1, FM radio, and interestingly enough, only a 5 megapixel camera — last we heard it was going to be 8. Also debatable is a HDMI port, since the image that would show it is a tad too blurry. Otherwise, it seems to be about in line with what we expected, and it also seems destined for China Unicom as the XT701 (analogous to China Mobile’s Motorola Android device). Now how about a few dashes of hope we’ll see this stateside, eh Moto? Two more shots after the break.

[Thanks, yee]

Continue reading Android 2.1-equipped Motorola Sholes tablet spied in China as XT701?

Android 2.1-equipped Motorola Sholes tablet spied in China as XT701? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android 2.0.1 SDK materializes, Droid getting it in ‘coming weeks’

If you’re looking for the fast, fun, and easy way to “enhance the user experience” on your Droid this holiday season, look no further than the Android 2.0.1 update that Verizon just slipped us some info on. We don’t have an exact drop date at this point, but we’re told that Droid owners can expect an over-the-air package in the “coming weeks” — and most notably, changes will include improved camera autofocus and better voice reception. Since these particular fixes are presumably device-specific, it’s interesting that this is being done in lockstep with an official Android trunk release — but all Google’s saying is that the underlying platform contains “several bug fixes and behavior changes, such as application resource selection based on API level and changes to the value of some Bluetooth-related constants.” Good stuff.

Update: Google’s got a changelog posted — check it out. Nothing that’s going to blow your mind.

Android 2.0.1 SDK materializes, Droid getting it in ‘coming weeks’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia E72 now in stock in the New World — the US, to be specific

It’s been a long, long journey, but Nokia’s E72 — the hotly-anticipated successor to the wildly popular E71 — is finally available as an unlocked phone directly from Nokia USA following a November release elsewhere. The privilege of upgrading to what could very well be the finest S60 3.2 handset ever made won’t be cheap, though: they’re charging $469 before tax and shipping, but in exchange, you’re getting a 5 megapixel cam, optical d-pad (“Navi Key” in Nokia parlance), and full-on HSPA with up to 10.2Mbps down and 2Mbps up. Of course, you won’t get anything close to those speeds in the States — but hey, you can’t drive a Lambo 180 miles per hour on a public street, either.

[Thanks, Pankil]

Nokia E72 now in stock in the New World — the US, to be specific originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNokia USA  | Email this | Comments

Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface

You know that new Symbian user experience promised by Nokia for next year? Want a sneak peak? Although Nokia’s downloadable slide-deck from its Capital Market Day event leaves out all the new UI visuals, fortunately the webcast has ’em all. And if we’re not mistaken then that’s a wall-to-wall capacitive multitouch slate up there from Nokia’s conceptual studios. As Nokia tells it, the Symbian OS is not the problem, the UI is — and we agree. In 2010 new hardware and tweaked software will reduce Symbian’s clutter, add multitouch input on “large capacitive displays,” minimize steps to request functions (2-taps to get to favorite music or video instead of 8, create an email account in 2 steps, not 4), significantly improve the browser experience, and make the entire UI 3 times faster than current high-end Symbian products while taking scrolling to 60fps (up from 15fps used today). Notably, Nokia will remove more than 350 user prompts that make using Symbian so frustrating today. The user experience promises to be so good that Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, calls it “magical.” Us? Sweet, but it’s only slideware for now. Watch the rousing video after the break.

Update: We added a link to the 51MB PDF containing all the presentations. Bonus points for spotting our quote about the N900. [Thanks, Pasi]

Continue reading Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface

Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T and Verizon drop lawsuits, make nice for the holidays

Well well, maybe we can all get along after all: AT&T and Verizon just dropped their various advertising-related lawsuits against each other. We can’t say we’re surprised, considering AT&T lost its request to have Verizon’s ads pulled down for the holidays — spending money to litigate this further would have simply been a waste, and generated even more bad PR. Now let’s just hope these two suck it up and battle it out over service quality and pricing, like they should have been doing all along. Or AT&T can just make some more nonsensical Luke Wilson commercials, whatevs.

Update: Whoa, so this is crazy. We just checked out the other suit that was dismissed, and it turns out that Verizon actually sued AT&T back in July, but not for any damages — instead, Big Red asked the court to rule that its various “Most Reliable 3G Network” taglines were actually true. That wackiness certainly explains why AT&T felt the need to push back, we suppose, and it makes Verizon’s current whining over Sprint’s “Most Dependable 3G Network” claims part of a larger, lamer pattern. We’ve included a shot of the case after the break, check it out.

Continue reading AT&T and Verizon drop lawsuits, make nice for the holidays

AT&T and Verizon drop lawsuits, make nice for the holidays originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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