Verizon chief says offering the iPhone is Apple’s call

Remember how in grade school, you usually made fun of the people you had crushes on? Verizon — hot on the heels of some surgically strategic anti-iPhone marketing to promote its upcoming Android line — is singing a very different tune in the corporate boardroom, with CEO Ivan Seidenberg (who has a storied reputation for running his mouth) saying during the company’s earnings call today that the company “obviously would be interested at any point in the future that they would be interested in having us as a partner.” He went on to say that the decision to bring the iPhone to Verizon is “exclusively in Apple’s court,” though we doubt that’s entirely true — Verizon has a reputation for putting manufacturers and devices through the wringer, and if any carrier in the world were to spike the iPhone for failing acceptance testing or throw its gargantuan weight and reputation around to put pressure on the contract, it’d be Big Red. Either way, though, it’s an olive branch and a potential start to the near-constant cries of “if only the iPhone were on Verizon” that we’ve been hearing for the past two years; we’re still having an awful hard time picturing a CDMA-equipped version ever happening, but with Verizon’s LTE network progressively lighting up over the next few years, it might just be the perfect opportunity for these wayward souls to finally find common ground, especially with the tune AT&T’s singing these days.

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Verizon chief says offering the iPhone is Apple’s call originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sholes / Droid comes in US HSPA flavor, probably not US-bound

We’ve been led to believe in the past that there’d be a GSM version of Motorola’s mighty Sholes for markets outside the US, but this particular version that passed the FCC this week — ID IHDP56KC5, if you must know — has us particularly interested. Why? Well, it’s packing WCDMA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, which means it’d work on AT&T, Rogers, and HSPA newcomers Bell and Telus. We’ve been led to believe, though, that this particular device is destined for Latin America where 850 / 1900 is also used in favor of the 2100MHz spectrum more prevalent in Europe. That doesn’t rule out Canada, but our instincts tell us that Verizon has every intention of locking up the Sholes as a US exclusive, which means AT&T is a likely no-go — the carrier’s been strangely silent on Android, anyhow, and we haven’t heard a peep of recent intel suggesting they’re prepping Google-powered gear in time for the holidays. Of course, enterprising individuals will probably figure out how to unlock and import this bad boy, so if you’re an American and the thought of switching to Big Red for a Droid makes you physically ill, take heart that there might yet be hope.

[Via MobileCrunch]

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Motorola Sholes / Droid comes in US HSPA flavor, probably not US-bound originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid gets fully previewed, ‘must-have’ claims may not be far off

Boy Genius Report has thrown up a full preview of the Motorola Droid — or some prototype of it, anyhow — and any way you slice it, it looks like Android fans, Verizon fans, phone fans, and red-blooded Americans alike should all be feeling pretty good that this thing is gonna kick some ass. As if feeling and looking like a rock-solid, metallic beast wasn’t enough, Big Red’s first Android outing is said to have killer battery life — surprising, considering how mediocre the CLIQ’s is — and the seemingly flat keyboard apparently performs admirably, all things considered. Android 2.0 clips along at a nice pace thanks to an OMAP3 core, and obviously, there’s not much to complain about visually when you’re staring at a 3.7-inch capacitive display sporting roughly WVGA resolution. The icing on the cake, though, might be a magnetic sensor that detects an accessory dock that’ll be sold at launch, turning the Droid into a desktop clock and weather station — perfect for those rare moments when you’re not out and about scaring little kids with the phone’s robotic red eye. Needless to say, we’re looking forward to the 28th.

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Motorola Droid gets fully previewed, ‘must-have’ claims may not be far off originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola’s Zeppelin spotted, found to contain Android rather than hydrogen

Motorola's Zepplin spotted, found to contain Android rather than Hydrogen

Last week’s blurry little roadmap from Motorola gave us our first glimpse of the codename Zeppelin, and now just a few days later the back half of the thing has floated its way into the hands of someone at DIGI.QQ.com. The Android-powered handset is said to sport a five megapixel camera with flash, WiFi, a 3.1-inch 480 x 320 screen, HDMI output, and, in a first for Android, dual SIM slots marked GSM and CDMA — technically an R-UIM slot for CDMA, actually, which pretty much limits this thing to China. And indeed, rumor has it release will come behind the Great Wall sometime in the first quarter of next year, with worldwide shipments (of some other variant, we’d imagine) sometime later. Sure, that’s a long time to wait if your contract expiration is nigh, but we hear that Droid thing is pretty neat.

[Via AndroidOS.in]

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Motorola’s Zeppelin spotted, found to contain Android rather than hydrogen originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon hosting Droid event on October 28

Verizon has yet to give a firm date on when we can all get our hands on some Droids, but we know one thing’s for certain: it’ll be fully revealed for the first time one week from today, October 28. The invitation that’s been extended to the media confirms that it’ll come from Motorola (of course), it’ll be Verizon’s “must-have device of the year,” and it’s got a very close association with giant, scary, glowing eyes. A far cry from Google’s friendly green bot, isn’t it?

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Verizon hosting Droid event on October 28 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola ‘Calgary’ to bring BLUR to Verizon, Droid not looking worried

The Droid’s shaping up to be a beast of an Android phone — well played, Verizon — but Motorola’s banking much of its future on its MOTOBLUR platform, which the Droid curiously lacks (though Android 2.0 adds at least some of BLUR’s functionality back in). Don’t worry, though — Verizon hasn’t forgotten about BLUR altogether, and the rumored Calgary is looking to arrive as the carrier’s next Android phone from Moto featuring BLUR in all its social network-aggregating glory. It’s clearly positioned as a lower-end device than the Droid, stepping down to a 3 megapixel cam but still managing nifty features like an optical pad, 3.5mm jack, and naturally, a full QWERTY keyboard. Considering Rubin’s ties to Danger, you could think of this as the ill-fated Sidekick Slide all grow’d up. Word has it this might hit before the end of the year, so we’ll see just how much breathing room Verizon and Moto feel like giving the Droid before coming back for Round 2, eh?

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Motorola ‘Calgary’ to bring BLUR to Verizon, Droid not looking worried originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon’s anti-iPhone gets its first commercial: ‘Droid Does’ (update)

We knew Verizon Wireless would soon be throwing caution to the wind in an effort to sway uncommitted smartphone buyers towards Big Red, and it looks like the November-bound Motorola Droid will be VZW’s anti-iPhone. The spot, which launched tonight and can be view in its entirety after the break, is a 30 second clip that begins by mocking Apple’s cutesy music and iconic font typically seen in iPhone plugs. It reels off a number of things that the iPhone can’t do, and then abruptly goes into full-on tease mode by flashing glimpses of a robot-controlled future and a tagline that simply states: “Droid Does.” No shots of the actual Motorola Droid (or Sholes, as it was known in the past) are shown, but a dedicated teaser portal has already been erected; through that, we’re told that the phone will boast Android 2.0 and a 5 megapixel camera. At this point, we’d say the gloves are definitely off — AT&T, have anything to say for yourself, or is the iPhone doing just fine on its own?

Update: See that alien counter that’s just sitting on the lower end of the teaser page? As reader Craig N. and a number of others have pointed out, a quick perusal through the page’s XML file reveals the end of that timer to be October 30th — not that we expect to be waiting that long for more Droid news, but it’s something to keep in mind.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Verizon’s anti-iPhone gets its first commercial: ‘Droid Does’ (update)

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Verizon’s anti-iPhone gets its first commercial: ‘Droid Does’ (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola to introduce eight OPhones on China Mobile next year, celebrate intensely

Motorola may be pinning its comeback hopes on the CLIQ here in America, but it obviously has some rather large plans for the world’s largest carrier, too. An admittedly perplexing report has surfaced purporting that the creator of the iconic i776, er, RAZR, is fixing to distribute not one, not two, but eight OPhones to China Mobile next year. For those unaware, OPhone is an Android-based OS tailor made to operate on the aforesaid carrier and cater to its customers, and to date, quite a few other manufacturers have jumped on board over there. Sadly, no actual details about the eight Moto handsets were given, so it looks like it’s just you, a cup of joe and your hyperactive imagination for the time being.

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Motorola to introduce eight OPhones on China Mobile next year, celebrate intensely originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola CLIQ review

Palm and Motorola have taken very different paths to get where they are today; one began life as a scrappy Valley start-up founded by a tablet computing pioneer, the other traces its roots to all the way back to the early days of consumer electronics and the automotive industry. Yet somehow, through years (decades, even) of adventure, success, and misfortune, they’ve found themselves in exactly the same situation here in 2009: it’s do-or-die time. Palm, of course, has elected to try its hand at resurrecting the very thing that took it to superstardom in the first place — an elegant, tightly-controlled software platform of its own with hardware to match — while Motorola has thrown virtually all of its remaining weight behind Android in the hope that it can catch a little mojo from Google’s ecosystem.

For Motorola, it’s the wireless equivalent of stepping up to the roulette table, putting what’s left of your depleted life savings on red, and letting it ride just as you see security guards off in the distance coming to throw you — penniless — off the premises. It’s a gamble of the highest order, but it’s also a gamble Motorola’s painfully aware that it needs to take. North America’s only top-five handset manufacturer needs nothing less than magic (and a little luck) to earn its way back into the world’s wireless elite — and that risky play starts right here, today, with the CLIQ / DEXT.

So does the CLIQ pave the way to a New Motorola, or did the RAZR’s checkered legacy ultimately dig a hole too deep to escape? Read on.

Continue reading Motorola CLIQ review

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Motorola CLIQ review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sholes and Torch battery covers unearthed (hey, it’s something)

We really don’t need any more convincing that the Sholes is real, but what about the Torch? Oh, you don’t remember that one? Yeah, we had to look it up to refresh our memory — turns out this was the rumored market name for the Inferno, a touchscreen featurephone Moto apparently had in the works to replace the Krave on Verizon. The company has just published press shots of the battery covers of both the Sholes and the Torch — those are the names Motorola is using, though it’s not uncommon for them to refer to press shots by codename, so we wouldn’t make much of it — so if we had to guess, the Torch is still alive. Also notable is the fact that they’re showing two versions of the Sholes’ cover, one with a Verizon logo and one without, so this is a strong indicator that there’ll be a second model — most likely for overseas GSM markets. Or, you know, an unlocked US 3G version. Dare to dream, right?

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Motorola Sholes and Torch battery covers unearthed (hey, it’s something) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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