Yesterday we heard that a CDMA version of the Nexus One was approved by the FCC, and now Neowin has word from an anonymous Google employee that the Google phone will land on Verizon on March 23. That's the day the CTIA wireless convention kicks off and it's less than a month away; Perhaps a bit sooner than we'd expected, but certainly plausible. [Neowin]
Yesterday we heard that a CDMA version of the Nexus One was approved by the FCC, and now Neowin has word from an anonymous Google employee that the Google phone will land on Verizon on March 23. That's the day the CTIA wireless convention kicks off and it's less than a month away; Perhaps a bit sooner than we'd expected, but certainly plausible. [Neowin]
On March 18, at the Baselworld watch show in Switzerland, a vaporous French company called Celsius X-VI-II will unveil the Papillon, a $300,000 mobile phone that is packed with the most advanced micro-mechanics of any gadget ever created.
All of this according to a recent profile in PCMag, one that frankly raises more questions than it answers. In the piece, Celsius co-founder Alejandro Ricart offers a vague picture of his team's ambition, citing high-end Swiss watches as the inspiration for his company's ultra-luxury, mechanical mobile phone.
"We want to take the useful functions of the cell phone and try to re-think them, and re-create them in a mechanical way," he explained. One such suggested mechanism is a kinetic hinge that powers the phone when it's flipped open and closed shut.
Sascha Segan, PCMag's reporter, seems pretty enthralled by the whole business, describing the device as a "hand-made art-watch with more than 600 mechanical components, many of which are visible to the naked eye."
Papillon is French for "butterfly," an insect that apparently inspired the design of the phone and, when you come to think of it, is sort of a strange little creature in its own right. As you can see, a butterfly floats fleetingly through the teaser clip for the phone.
All of this is quite bizarre and potentially very dumb, like something out of a Dan Brown novel*, and it certainly feels like it could all blow away in a cloud of vapor. The x-ray shown above is the only image of the phone available. But in a genre of gadget that is almost categorically uninteresting to us, this ultra high-end device has piqued our curiosity. [Celsius X VI II via PCMag]
*If Celsius's shadowy forces silence me for making all of this public, or for ripping the weird promo video from their site without permission, just FOLLOW THE SIGNS.
If you have a CLIQ, it's probably a good idea to hold off on any updates, as a multitude of issues have cropped up. And most importantly, a T-Mobile forum mod recommends you "not to Master Reset your phone if your OTA update did not download or if you are experiencing issues at this time." [T-Mobile forums via Android and Me via BGR]
UPDATE: From Motorola:
Last week, the CLIQ 1.3.18 over-the-air software update began rolling out to consumers. While the vast majority of updates were successful, a very small number of consumers reported a date error and found that, after factory resetting their device, their phone was not functioning properly. We have identified a workaround solution for these consumers, which can be found on the Motorola support forum (http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/us/support/tmo/index.html).
To our consumers, we apologize and are working swiftly to reconcile the situation. We are also revising the over-the-air software update so that this workaround solution is no longer needed. Consumers will be notified on their device when the revised update is available.
If you would like to provide more guidance to your readers, below is additional information for consumers:
To our consumers who downloaded the update and their device is working properly, no further action is needed. To our consumers who never received a notification to download the update, please do not take further action. You will be notified on your device when the revised update is available to you. To consumers who received an error or whose device date reads December 31, 1969, please visit the support site listed above for assistance.
This isn't confirmed, but with RIM rumored to be exploring sliding-QWERTY devices for a pretty long time, one of our BlackBerry connects dropped some info on us and we wanted it to share it. Here's what we know:
• It's a portrait-oriented slider. While most people assume a device with slideout keyboard would end up being something like HTC's devices, we've been told this particular handset is more like the Palm Pre in terms of layout.
• The phone will run BlackBerry OS 6.0
• The rumored device will 100% support Wi-Fi 802.11n
• The resolution unfortunately has not improved, it is still 360×480.
• No word on if this will have a touch screen, but we'd assume so, and our source alluded to this possibly being what the rumored BlackBerry Magnum/Dakota evolved into. Not saying there won't be a Bold-like device with touchscreen, optical trackpad, and physical keyboard, but this might be released first.
• If it does have a touch screen, this could in fact be the mythical BlackBerry Storm slider - picture a Storm 9520 with a slide up Bold-esque keyboard.
• The phone will not be a Verizon exclusive - it's supposed to be a GSM/HSPA device.
That's all we've got for now, folks. What are you thinking? Does this remotely interest you, or could you care less about the hardware at this point and just hope that RIM can make some pretty big strides as far as their OS is concerned?
Flash is coming to Android phones, and for this, some of you are grateful. So when is it due? For some new handsets, the "first half of this year." But the rest? Probably never.
There are two factors that'll determine whether or not your phone is ready and able to run Flash, whenever it becomes available. First, you'll have to worry about software: As far as we know, Adobe is only planning on supporting Android 2.0 and up, meaning that unless you've got a Droid or Nexus One, you're shit out of luck—unless, of course, your phone gets treated to an upgrade.
But even then! Optimized as it may be, at least some older hardware could have issues running Flash smoothly. Answering a question about a specific phone, Antonio Flores, a man posting on Adobe's support forums who everyone—including a community manager there—seems roundly convinced is a legitimate Adobe employee, says:
No, the HTC Hero will not be supported b/c it does not have the correct Android OS version and its chipset is not powerful enough. We require a device with an ARM v7 (Cortex) processor. Examples include the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets and TI OMAP3 series.
That Cortex qualifier could be a killer, too. Even if your G1 was treated to an official Android 2.1 update, there's a good chance it just doesn't have the horsepower. For the time being, this could—again!—be a Droid-and-Nexus-only affair. (Update: To be clear, what we're talking about here is Adobe's full mobile version of Flash 10.1, not HTC's version of Flash Lite.)
Speaking of updates, there's actually a third factor that could screw your phone out of new Flash: The upgrade path. The Palm Pre's webOS 1.4 update helps prep the platform for Flash, but leaves it up to users to download the plugin as an app. On Android, the distribution system looks like it'll be even more dependent on automatic, over-the-air delivery, so if Adobe tells your carrier and handset manufacturer that your handset isn't up to the task, that too could keep you from experiencing the rich and wonderful scope of Ads That Move On The Internet, on your smartphone.
For first and second generation phones, in other words, Flash 10.1 probably isn't coming to Android at all. Sorry? [Adobe via Andronica via PhoneArena]
