Hasta La Gadget!

Not quite sure if you’ve noticed, but some pretty significant shifting is going on in the heart of Espoo. Just days after Nokia announced that it would be closing up its flagship shops in London, New York and Chicago, in flies this: a new Ovi Store is already in the works, and if all goes well, it’ll be available for public use as early as next Spring. For those keeping tabs, that’s right around a year after the (admittedly tumultuous) launch of the existing platform, which has yet to live up to the firm’s own expectations according to George Linardos. In case you’re wondering (and c’mon, you’re wondering), Mr. Linardos is the head of products at Nokia’s media group, and in speaking with the Financial Times, he confessed that the Ovi Store “had been outpaced by Apple.” He also admitted that the chorus of complaints from end-users were driving the next version, noting that his company has “screens up in [their] offices running Twitter feeds [of gripes] all day long.” In fact, he likened the act to “sitting there and getting punched in the face.”

As for the next go ’round, he’s looking to take a “tortoise and hare” approach when it comes to competing with Apple, who he himself claims “radically changed” the world around us when the App Store was introduced. As it stands, George sees the Ovi Store as a “jambalaya” of services, with Ben Wood — an analyst at CCS Insight — proclaiming that “none of those [work] properly.” In the future, Ben has confessed that Ovi needs “to get all their ducks lined up, including hardware, software and services.” So, what exactly will said ducks look like early next year? We’re told that new features will include “in-application payments, a redesigned user interface that makes apps easier to discover and faster operation,” and beyond that, the outfit is also looking to toss in recommendations based on the app purchases of their friends. This is definitely stirring stuff to hear from someone deep within Nokia’s lairs, and it certainly makes us all the more excited to see what the next generation will bring. Nothing like a little competition in the market place to really light a fire up under someone’s posterior, right?

Nokia taking Ovi Store criticism to heart, planning revamped version to rival App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  Financial Times  | Email this | Comments

Still haven’t gotten that Android 2.0.1 OTA update on your Droid? You’re not alone (most people are still waiting for 2.0 on their Android handset, you self-centered power user, you), but luckily there’s a simple solution. Basically you just have to manually download the update file, copy it to an SD card and restart your Droid while tapping out a simple succession of hardware keys. You can check out the “detailed” and “badass” versions of the instructions at the two respective source links below.

Manual Android 2.0.1 Droid update detailed for the impatient originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phone Arena  |  AllDroid  | Email this | Comments

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  |  Verizon Droid Support  | Email this | Comments

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.

Permalink   |  Android Developers Blog  | Email this | Comments

TmoNews seems to have it on good authority that T-Mobile will be rolling out a firmware update over the air to the Motorola CLIQ today — the device’s first since launch — and we’ve got good news and bad news. First, the bad: by all accounts, it appears that this’ll still be an Android 1.5-based firmware, adding fuel to the fire suggesting that UI skins like BLUR are a huge barrier to keeping devices up to speed with Google’s breakneck release pace. The good news, though, is that the update seems to be lined up to fix a plethora of issues involving Bluetooth, touchscreen accuracy (we can attest to this one), connectivity, accelerometer functionality, and — wait for it — battery life! Looks like the build number is 1.1.31, so let us know if and when you get hooked up, owners.

Update: We’ve gotten tips from several users now that they’ve already been able to nab the update, so it looks like the CLIQ is definitely getting a little better today. Well, hopefully, anyhow.

T-Mobile pushing CLIQ firmware update today? (update: yes!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  TmoNews  | Email this | Comments