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Continue reading Kogan announces $200 HD tablet, with networked TVs, Agora handset, and leprechauns to follow

Kogan announces $200 HD tablet, with networked TVs, Agora handset, and leprechauns to follow originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple suing HTC over 20-odd patents before both the US District Court and the International Trade Commission has certainly caused some chaos this morning, but we thought we’d take a quick breath now that we have the complaints and tease out exactly what patents are at stake here. Of note, most of the patents were granted in the past year, but overall they span a range from 1995 to February 2. Yes, last month. That’s a pretty big gap, and most of the patents are pretty dry and technical — and none of them cover anything like pinch-to-zoom. In fact, you might remember #7,479,949, “Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics” — we blew apart the myth that it was Apple’s “multitouch patent” back when Cupertino was making noise about Palm. It’s impossible for us to say exactly how this case is going to play out — just like the Apple / Nokia lawsuit, it could settle tomorrow, or it could last for 10 years — but what we do know is that Apple’s going after Android as much as it’s going after HTC. Some of these patents are from 15 years ago and cover OS-level behavior, so it’s hard to see how they can relate only to HTC’s implementation of Android and not Google’s OS as a whole. Yeah, it’s wild, and while we’re not going to blow out all 20 patents to sort out what they mean — not yet, anyway — we can certainly walk through the claims. Let’s see what we’ve got.

Continue reading Apple vs HTC: a patent breakdown

Apple vs HTC: a patent breakdown originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve just taken delivery of an AT&T-branded Motorola Backflip — the carrier’s very first Android device — and we wanted to share with you our magical first moments putting the phone through its paces. Here’s a quick rundown of our first impressions:

• It feels solidly-built — probably a notch better than the CLIQ. There’s no wiggle or weirdness in the hinge whatsoever. Of course, we know from personal experience that “feels solidly-built” doesn’t necessarily mean it is solidly-built, so the jury’s still out on how it’ll hold up with regular use, especially with the keyboard exposed full-time.
• Opening and closing the phone isn’t a natural one-handed operation, unless you’re comfortable putting it at extreme risk of an unfortunate tumble.
• It’s laggy right out of the box, which doesn’t bode well for usability once you load it up with your own apps. Of course, it uses exactly the same processor as the CLIQ, so that doesn’t come as a surprise.
• It’s filled to the brim with pre-loaded AT&T stuff: AllSport GPS, AT&T Maps, AT&T Music (which takes the place of the standard Music app), AT&T Navigator, AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspots, Mobile Banking, MobiTV, MusicID, Where, and YPmobile. We strongly prefer the approach of offering a special branded Android Market portal where you can download your carrier’s recommended apps.
• Blur looks and feels the same as it does on the CLIQ, though the main Blur widgets — Social Status, Messages, and Happenings — have been moved one home screen left of the main one (we prefer this configuration anyhow).
• Yahoo has replaced Google as the default search provider throughout the phone. It’s crazy: the home screen widget, the browser, everything’s been programmed to use Yahoo. We love us some irony, but golly, we’d prefer Google searches most of the time.

It spontaneously rebooted for us once in about an hour of use — a concerning sign, particularly considering Motorola’s inability to pump out a solid firmware for the CLIQ — but we’ll need a little more time with it. Want more right now? Follow the break for some more impressions, video, and a sample shot from the camera.

Continue reading Motorola Backflip for AT&T unboxing and hands-on

Motorola Backflip for AT&T unboxing and hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you work for Motorola, cover your ears and say “Blur Blur Blur Blur” at the top of your lungs over and over again for the duration of this post, because what we’re about to present is an unholy marriage the likes of which neither Sanjay Jha nor Peter Chou ever intended. It’s not the first time we’ve heard of a version of Sense finding its way onto Motorola hardware, but developers over on AllDroid have posted a bunch of video and stills claiming to have ported an HTC Desire’s (née Bravo’s) Sense-enabled firmware to Moto’s beast — and what’s more, there’s footage of it running Flash. Bear in mind that the speed at which Flash is running here looks downright painful — and we fully expect official Flash support on the Droid later this year anyhow — but anyone conflicted between the Droid’s muscular lines and HTC’s lovely skin might want to keep an eye on this project. It’s still very early in development, but the most important part of the port has already been finished: it shows the proper Droid logo on startup. Follow the break for video.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading HTC Desire’s Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe

HTC Desire’s Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For a device with as much superphone street cred as the Milestone, you’d think a basic task like listening to music through the headphone jack would be a cakewalk. No problems, right? So straightforward, really, that it’s not even worth testing thoroughly — and therein lies the problem, it seems. Milestone owners on both sides of the pond are reporting en masse that music playback occasionally skips over the jack — though stereo Bluetooth, ironically a more CPU-taxing operation, seems to be fine. For many owners, particularly those who don’t carry a separate PMP, that can totally be a deal-breaker. It’s said you can work around the issue by putting the phone into airplane mode, which effectively makes it a dedicated PMP anyhow — not an optimal solution, right? Yeah, Moto, this seriously isn’t shaping up to be your week, so let’s just make sure you earn some brownie points with awesome customer service through this rough patch.

[Thanks, Vlad G.]

Motorola Milestone skipping on music playback, perfect for Billy Joel’s ‘Movin’ Out’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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