Hasta La Gadget!

You live, you learn — or so Alanis and Sanjay Jha would have us believe. The Motorola CEO delivered a keynote speech early Tuesday morning at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology and Communications Conference, touching upon the company’s recent past and the lessons its learned going forward. Referencing the Xoom launch, Jha told attendees to expect tablets in the second half of the year with “much more aggressive form factors” and unique enterprise features, adding that the company would be placing a renewed focus on cheaper, WiFi only tablets. The OEM also intends to streamline its global branding, creating marketing efficiencies for worldwide launches and saving the company a buck, or two in the process. Unfortunately, the Moto chief didn’t spill the release beans for the much hyped Bionic, but did take a gentle swipe at the upcoming beast phone, calling it an “important product, but not the only product.” Could this herald an oncoming wave of Ice Cream Sandwich devices? We’re not sure, as Jha waffled when asked whether the company would, yet again, commit to Android’s next untested evolution.

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha talks Ice Cream Sandwich, future tablets in Oppenheimer keynote originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Motorola Xoom is not faring as well as its iOS counterpart. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Motorola announced dismal device sales in its earnings report on Thursday, with tablets faring near the worst among the company’s products.

The company shipped 11 million mobile devices over the past three months, according to the quarterly statement. Yet only 440,000 of those were tablet devices. In other words, the Motorola Xoom Android tablet flopped big time.

Out of the remaining 10.56 million devices shipped, 4.4 million of those were smartphones. That number of course pales in comparison to Apple’s 20-plus million iPhones sold last quarter, and even to the 5 million Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphones sold in the first three months of the phone’s release. Especially considering that’s 4.4 million across all of Motorola’s device models.

It’s a quarter of rough numbers for the company, which of course is facing competition on all sides. For perspective’s sake, compare the 440,000 Xoom tablets with Apple’s numbers this quarter: The Cupertino giant sold 9.25 million iPads over the last quarter, almost 20 times the number of Motorola’s Xooms. And it’s important to note that when Motorola says 440,000 units “shipped,” that signifies the number of devices sold to retail stores, not to customers. It’s difficult to determine how many actual sales to customers occurred without further detail.

And even if the iPad weren’t doing so well, the Xoom is still competing with the myriad Android tablets available from other hardware manufacturers.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom for the U.S.-based mobile device manufacturer. Smartphone sales are up from 2.7 million during the same time period last year, which is nothing to scoff at.

But with the majority of phone sales being “dumbphones” — or relatively low-end cellular devices — the company’s strategy of relying heavily on smartphone sales as a strength has yet to pan out.

With any luck, the company will be able to turn things around as more smartphone devices debut in the fall. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha announced that the Droid Bionic — a highly anticipated dual-core smartphone which was pushed back to the drawing board for further improvements — will debut some time in September.

Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies separates the best smartphone, tablet, HDTV, and multimedia displays from the worst with his Display Technology Shoot-Out series. And his newly crowned tablet champion might just surprise you: More »

Looks like a bona fide twofer when it comes to Xoom news this afternoon. Just as soon as we heard that Android 3.2 was rolling out to select Xoom WiFi tablets (as in, be patient if yours is still stuck on the current build), in flies an FCC approval for the long-awaited LTE module. As for the former, build number HTJ85B is bringing a new zoom feature to the world’s first Honeycomb slate, and as for the latter… well, that one’s pretty self-explanatory. We heard back in April that the update was delayed until an undisclosed time in the summer, and now it’s looking like early adopters won’t be waiting much longer. Do let us know in comments if you see either, won’t you?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola Xoom sees Android 3.2 update, FCC-approved LTE module originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh Xoom, you’re but a few months old — still only a babe — and Motorola already has you on a diet. Sure, maybe it was a mistake to jump right into the deep end where big boys play, but you had to try right? Well, now that you’ve shed a $100 in weight, treading water alongside the rest of the WiFi tablets should be a little bit easier and, with 32GB of storage, you’re more well-endowed than your $499 brethren. Still, it might be too little too late with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 muscling in on your territory and “iPad” quickly becoming a generic word for slates. Maybe if you dropped another $100 you’d have better luck — and talk to your 3G-packing sibling, he’s looking a little plump around the price tag too, if you ask us.

WiFi Xoom sheds $100, could stand to lose a few more Benjamins originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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