Hasta La Gadget!

Up in Canada, Mobilicity’s CEO made an odd comment recently that Bell, Telus, and Rogers will all be getting the Nexus S around the same time that his carrier does in March. Why is that odd? Well, as it stands, no variant of the Nexus S supports the 850 / 1900MHz WCDMA that would be necessary to run (at high speed, anyway) on those three networks. Circle back around to the Bluetooth SIG, where PocketNow has discovered an entry for a GT-i9020A; you might recall that the European version of the device is the i9020, while T-Mobile’s AWS-compatible build is the i9020T, with “T” ostensibly standing for “T-Mobile.” By extension, it’s definitely conceivable that the “A” here is for “AT&T” — which, again, would line up with the Mobilicity exec’s verbiage. If this is true, it’s theoretically possible that we could see AT&T and its similarly-equipped Canadian cousins get their own Nexus S as soon as five-odd weeks from now. Like the Nexus One before it, we’ve got a hard time picturing AT&T officially subsidizing this thing — but hey, an unlocked full-price version is a solid start, we’d say.

Nexus S coming in a new AT&T flavor? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“The rumor got twenty-two hundred hits within two hours?”
“Thousand.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Twenty-two thousand.”
“Wow.”

And so it was. Once again, the powers that be at Facebook have been forced to come forward and deny yet another rumor that a FB-branded handset was on the horizon, this time crushing hopes and dreams of an HTC device. Dan Rose, head of business development at the company, came forward with the following statement: “This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way. The rumours around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.” When asked whether or not the handset in question would be Facebook-branded, he followed with this: “No. There’s no such thing as Harvard law. And there’s no such thing as a Facebook phone.”*

*Liberties taken with the quote.

Facebook puts the kibosh on branded HTC phone rumors, still plans to sweep the Oscars originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why bother waiting for its official Mobile World Congress reveal in February when you can view the newest HTC flagship today? The touchscreen slate prototype (notice the serial number stamped along the bottom of the handset’s face) you’re looking at above matches the leaked Pocketnow render exactly including the arcing earpiece and isolated front-facing camera with chrome ring. It was just spotted by an eagle-eyed tipster while waiting for a Taipei metro system. Sorry Windows Phone 7 fans, this baby is Android through and through. And seeing it in the wild lends credence to all of the HTC devices pictured in that leak. A couple more snaps after the break.

Update: Seems our tipster might have taken these images (without attribution) from the same Mobile01 forum as the other leaked HTC.

[Thanks, LIMIX]

Continue reading HTC’s newest Android flagship phone revealed

HTC’s newest Android flagship phone revealed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, the Facebook phone. Despite statements by the company that it is flat out not making a phone, the rumors persist, and not one but two separate stories have now cropped up on the same day that a mysterious “call” button has appeared on some folks’ Facebook pages. The first of those comes courtesy of BGR, which says it has heard from someone involved in a recent focus group that supposedly centered on a Facebook phone. As the story goes, the phone (which apparently wasn’t actually referred to as a “Facebook phone”) would have an always-on GPS service, no or very little local storage, a camera (with images stored in the cloud), a “news ticker-style message notification system” with all messages funneled into one “mass inbox” and, last but not least, some sort of location-aware coupon service that’s described as “Facebook Deals on steroids.”

Joining that is a report from the London-based City A.M. financial newspaper, which says it has learned from unnamed sources that HTC will debut two Facebook-branded phones at Mobile World Congress next month. Details on those are otherwise expectedly light, but the paper says the phones will run a “tweaked version” of Android and sport Facebook’s colors — supposedly, Facebook’s Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos (formerly of Firefox and Google, respectively) are largely responsible for the launch. Of course, the paper also says HTC is responsible for “Google’s Nexus range,” which doesn’t exactly help its case, and leads us to suspect that we may simply be dealing with one big game of telephone here.

Facebook phone rumors resurface: cloud-based, HTC-built? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Newly-unveiled features of the system include a completely different interface, enhanced 2-D and 3-D graphics support, and the ability to make better use of the dual-core processors found in an increasing number of high-end smartphones.

As you can see from above, Honeycomb’s user interface is entirely different from previous versions of Android (Froyo, Gingerbread, etc.), optimized for larger-screened devices like tablets.

The new ’system bar’ across the bottom of the screen is always present, eliminating the need for buttons on the device itself (a la Motorola’s Xoom tablet). The also ever-present ‘action bar’ rests in the top right corner for choosing contextual page options.

The keyboard has undergone a redesign as well, with individual keys reshaped and repositioned for tablet usage. Oh, and Google promises we won’t hate the text selection ability anymore with its new improvements.

“Overall forward-compatibility is excellent, as it’s always been with new versions of Android,” according to Hugh Johnson, an Android developer at Catch.com. “Of course, there are some major layout and interaction improvements that can be made to the apps to better support the tablet form factor.”

Also noteworthy is Honeycomb’s support for both single and dual-core processor systems, an oft-speculated feature leading up to the operating system’s debut. Most of the Honeycomb tablets we’ve seen previews of thus far have dual-core processors installed, like Motorola’s Xoom or Toshiba’s unnamed tablet offering.

Graphics-wise, we’ll definitely notice a boost. A new property-based animation framework allows developers to animate properties of the user interface itself, while the new hardware-accelerated Open GL renderer kicks up the 2-D graphics more than just a notch.

Don’t have one of those fancy 3-D TV’s yet? Honeycomb’s new Renderscript 3-D graphics engine lets developers create nifty 3-D scenes and effects on your phone. More live wallpapers abound! Huzzah!

For those of you who aren’t 3-D buffs, there are plenty more multimedia perks to be found. HTTP live streaming support means you won’t have to miss the next gripping live-streamed Larry Page keynote.

Connectivity features include USB support for media transfer between devices and host computers, as well as a cool new type of Bluetooth support that lets the tablet query connected devices — like, say, a headset or speakers — and relays the information back to your screen. So next time the batteries in your Jawbone are about to die, Honeycomb can tell you to charge that sucker, pronto.

These features aren’t carved in stone, as Google is just providing developers with a taste of Honeycomb’s environment in order to test out their apps. But from what we’re seeing, there’s definitely cause for excitement.

Photo: Honeycomb UI/Google

See Also:

• What We Know About Honeycomb, the Android for Tablets
• Video: Android 'Honeycomb' Tablet OS Revealed
• Upcoming Asus Tablets Will Run Android Honeycomb
• Video: Motorola Tablet Running Android 3.0 Honeycomb
• Motorola Teases Android Honeycomb Tablet for CES 2011