Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve just gotten a deluge of tips that EVO 4Gs are starting to get blessed with the official update to Froyo — a few hours prior to the promised August 3 rollout — so if you’ve got one handy, you’re going to want to start checking it right this second. Seriously, now that it’s got a trick flashlight app included in ROM, what could you possibly be waiting for? On a related note, if you happened to apply that early update that HTC posted and pulled late last week, the company’s working on a fix so that you aren’t out of the over-the-air update loop and promises to “get back” in “the coming days.”

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

EVO 4G starts getting Android 2.2 update over the air originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android is now the fastest-growing smartphone OS in both overall share and sales of new devices — and for the first time, people in the U.S. bought more Android phones than iPhones.

According to a Nielsen study released Monday, 27% of all purchasers of smartphones in the past 6 months bought an Android phone, up from 17% in a poll from the year’s first quarter. The Android OS jumped to 14% of overall smartphone share, just behind Windows Mobile at 15%. Apple dropped from 27% to 23% of new smartphone sales, but kept its 28% second-place position in the total smartphone user base.

The report is probably most troubling for Blackberry, which while still first overall in total smartphone users and new sales, has seen a steady decline in its share of new purchasers, from 45% a year ago to 33% in the recent quarter. Only 42% of Blackberry owners say that they want to purchase a Blackberry next, with a full 50% leaning towards either an iPhone or Android.

Nielsen’s data is not broken down by carrier, but it’s no coincidence that Verizon has heavily promoted the Motorola Droid and other Android phones over both Blackberry and Windows smartphones, while Motorola has in turn pushed against the iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T. (See Motorola’s new ad campaign for the Droid, “No Jacket Required.”)

John Gruber, whose popular blog Daring Fireball is mostly about Apple news and products, commented: “How much of Android’s U.S. success is attributable to Verizon’s strength as the number one U.S. carrier? I.e., how different would these numbers look in an alternate universe where Verizon, not AT&T, is the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. carrier?”

Gruber also noted that by only counting smartphones, Nielsen’s statistics exclude the iPad and iPod touch, which run Apple’s iOS; including these non-phone mobile devices would give a better picture of the total market for developers targeting each of these platforms. But it’s unclear whether Apple benefits more by having devices like the iPad counted with smartphones or laptops: another new report by IDC shows that if iPads are added to the company’s notebook sales, Apple jumps to third place in the global mobile computing market.

Image credit: Nielsen.com

After offering previews of its Windows Phone 7 platform last month, Microsoft seems ready to take the next step to get it to market.

The company seems to have set shipping dates for the platform and Europe will be the first to get it.

At a conference, Microsoft’s chief operating officer Kevin Turner told attendees that the company is looking to transition to Windows Phone 7 around October in Europe and November in the U.S.

“We are back in this game,” says Turner in this video posted on Engadget. “And this game is not over.”

In the next three to five years, 450 million smartphones will be sold, he says. That’s double the smartphones sold today.

“When you look at this (Windows 7) phone and some of the UI (user interface), it’s not like any phone you have ever seen from Microsoft,” says Turner. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

Microsoft is working with companies such as Samsung and LG for the hardware.

Over the last three years, Microsoft’s Windows mobile operating system has been eclipsed by rivals such as Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS.  For the three months ending May, RIM’s BlackBerry OS ranked first with about 41.7 percent market share in the U.S., followed by Apple at 24.4 percent and Microsoft at 13.2 percent, according to Comscore. Android OS came in fourth at 13 percent but Android has been moving up the ranks steadily gaining points while its rivals are losing share.

Microsoft is betting Windows 7 phone will help turn the tide. The new Windows 7 OS has a snazzy new user interface, integration with Zune market for games and music, and search by Bing. (Check out Gizmodo’s in-depth look at Windows Phone 7.)

In the U.S., AT&T has said it plans to be the “premier” carrier for the platform. AT&T has been slow to embrace Google’s Android platform and it will be interesting to see the size of the bet it will place on Microsoft.

See Also:

• Hands-On With Windows Phone 7 Series
• 7 Good Reasons to Switch to Windows 7
• Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Beta as a Free Download
• AT&T Plans 5 Android Smartphones in 2010

Photo: (brendanlim/Flickr)

Astute Samsung fans may have noticed an August 11th date circulating the web, and taken it to mean the company will then officially announce the Samsung Galaxy Tab. As it turns out, there’s at least one more possibility: the YP-MB2 portable media player, spotted at Korean portal Daum and supposedly ready to launch on the very same day. While rumors surrounding the possible iPod touch competitor have swirled for weeks, all we knew for sure was that it was a GPS and WiFi-capable Android 2.1 MID with a four-inch Super AMOLED screen. Now, it looks like it could be everything we wanted in a PMP — a Galaxy S missing only the bits that made it a phone — and capable of decoding DivX, XviD, OGG and FLAC with that 1GHz Hummingbird processor. It’s still unlikely we’ll ever see it stateside with its T-DMB antenna inside, but if a pared-down version made to the US we’d be most happy to give it a try. Sadly, even the Korean version’s just a particularly likely rumor for now, so you’ll have to make do with optimistic thoughts and the leaked video below.

Update: Samsung Hub spotted what might be the very first real picture of the media player at Korean blog, and sure enough it’s looking nice and iPod-like. Spot a high-res version after the break.

Continue reading Samsung YP-MB2 appears at Korean e-tailer, specs and release date in tow? (update: first pics?)

Samsung YP-MB2 appears at Korean e-tailer, specs and release date in tow? (update: first pics?) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most high-profile smartphones launch exclusively on one of the major carriers in the U.S. The Samsung Galaxy S, though, will come to market via all of them under different names, different industrial designs, and, in one case, with different input options. And yet, its screen’s quality and size – big but not too big – will certainly make it a contender at all of them.

But the handset will encounter anything but a level playing field in its respective portfolios. The Galaxy S will provide a good lab in which to study how much motivation to push a high-end portfolio device counts versus the muscle of having the largest subscriber bases but stronger handset competition. With the Galaxy S’s lack of exclusivity already dampening some carrier enthusiasm for promoting it heavily, it appears as though the handset’s impact goes down as the number of carrier subscribers goes up. Let’s look at the universe of Galaxy S distribution.

Continue reading Switched On: The Galaxy S paradox

Switched On: The Galaxy S paradox originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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