Motorola

WSJ Claims Motorola To Launch 2 New Droids This Year On Verizon

May 28

While it has been obvious to anyone reading the variety of blogs out there, the Motorola DROID Shadow is the upcoming Droid on Verizon, by Motorola. But just in due time, the Wall Street Journal has come out with a new story claiming that Motorola has made a new deal with Verizon, and will produce the DROID Shadow, as well as a new, un-named, un-seen, and unknown Android phone. Okay then, Moto. We’re ready.

The hardest cycle here though is the Droid branding, as Lucasfilm owns it from the Star Wars series, and therefore Verizon must pay them to keep their mouths tight and shut. Then of course HTC is using the Droid branding for the even more sought after HTC DROID Incredible (due to Samsung AMOLED shortages), which takes a large chunk out of the market share previously acquired through the sales of the uber-popular Motorola Droid.

Source: WSJ

Motorola’s 4.3-inch Droid Shadow Found In Gym? Let’s Move Onto The Story

May 25

This Motorola Droid Shadow (you can embiggen the photo by clicking on it) was found at a gym. Like, heck yeah it was. Really? Putting the extremely doubtful backstory and all of its poor imagination aside, this really is a photo of the Droid Shadow, complete with an HDMI jack, 8 megapixel camera, Snapdragon processor, and 16GB of storage. Since the handset was left at a Verizon corporate gym, the handset was later locked and returned to the owner, and the latter was the only specs identified by the person who found it. Also suspicious but equally interesting: the only picture taken of it was exactly the same angle as the getting started guide leaked not too long ago, and along comes the new MOTOBLUR UI as well. So far, I’m liking this.

Source: Gizmodo

Motorola: Droid Updating To Android 2.2 “In The Near Future”. That’s Nice

May 22

Motorola is already known for spitting out Android phones with old OSes, and the Droid at one point was crawling along in Android 2.0.1 for ages, until Verizon finally decided to do something about it. Interestingly, my friends at SlashGear have pinged Motorola, and got the oh-so-usual-PR-person-like-response in brief:

“We’re excited to see Google’s news of the next version of the Android operating system and look forward to integrating it on our Android-based devices as it’s made available to the open source community.”

While I can’t comment on specifics, we do expect DROID by Motorola users will receive Android 2.2 as a software upgrade in the near future.”

Well, well, well! ‘Tis wonderful good news I suppose!

What is this square MOTOBLUR handset? That’s right, square.

April 11

This mysterious case of what I’m going to call the “Motorola Mediocre Square” is one of these cases that only official photos and press releases can relieve. Basically, the above shot is from a tipster at DroidDog; the tipster said that the source of the phone was a “buddy’s dad [who] works for Motorola and let his son take the phone to school, who, in turn, lent the phone to [a friend] to be used as a calculator on a math test.” OK, I believe that. Otherwise there’s nothing to report on here other than it has MOTOLUR running on Android 2.1 and looks a lot like the Motorola MOTOSPLIT. Anyone want to tell me what this is?

Android 2.1 update for DROID is now on the run

March 30

Finally. For you DROID owners right now this is the time to savor every reason why you bought your DROID. Starting today, over-the-air updates that bring Android 2.1 instead of Android 2.0.1 are being served to Verizon Droid owners nationwide. Once your handset downloads the update in the background, you should receive a notification, or you could just go for the manual update option in Settings > About phone. And don’t freak out if you still don’t get it; this sort of update is rolled out gradually. We know, it sucks, but in the end it’s worth it. Here’s the changelog, after the “read more” link.

Motorola CLIQ XT on T-Mobile for $129.99

March 17

So there it is. The ugliest Motorola handset to date. Running Android 1.5, MOTOBLUR, and is more like a keyboard-less CLIQ. For those of you strangely interested in said smartphone, there’s a 2-year agreement that you’ll have to agree with, then you’d be on your way to lunacy. Otherwise I’d suggest you buy a Droid, Devour, or CLIQ for that matter.

Source: T-Mobile

Motorola Backflip doesn’t let non-Market apps in, AT&T doesn’t understand Android

March 8

As all of you might know, Google Android is a mobile phone operating system that is open-source. Meaning that developers can develop as much as they please, ideas can be shared, and everything is open. More specifically, by defualt all Android phones allow you to install non-Android market apps.

AT&T has removed that feature. So besides the Backflip looking weird, running Android 1.5, using Yahoo! search instead of Google, AT&T’s bloatware apps that are included in each handset, and now not being able to install non-Market apps is impossible. How much more can you cripple an Android? What’s worse is that other hardware — the Dell Mini 5 for example, and even the HTC Desire — might get the same treatment.

Source: AndroidandMe

Motorola CLIQ XT spotted making the rounds

March 1

Oh look! It’s everybody’s least favorite Android phone, the CLIQ XT/Quench! No offense Moto, but it’s not like the DEVOUR, or the BACKFLIP, or the DROID, or the — you get the idea. As you can see it’s ready in its full T-Mobile branding, so check out the source link for more pics of this, ahem — smartphone.

Source: Android Central