Mobile News 8/13/10
Hello again,
This was a big week in the mobility world. There were a lot of ‘firsts’, mixed in with robots and fire…?
DROOOIIID! The Motorola Droid 2 was released yesterday and it doesn’t disappoint. It is the first Android device to come out of the box with Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed. The Droid 2 is obviously the sequel to Motorola’s original Droid, and is definitely a huge improvement. Motorola has tweaked the slide-out physical keyboard to easily differentiate between each key, which was a pretty big complaint from D1 users. They have also removed the directional touch pad and replaced it with four individual directional keys. Droid 2 is sporting a 1GHz processor, 8GB internal memory, pre-installed 8GB microSD card, 3.7 inch screen, 3G mobile hotspot, Adobe Flash 10.1, and all of the usual un-wanted freeware that can’t be removed without rooting the device. Droid 2 also comes pre-installed with a Swype keyboard plus the native touch screen keyboard. Anyone upgrading from the original Droid to the Droid 2 will realize why there is no longer any need to over-clock your CPU, but, they’re also see their battery drain a little quicker than they’re used to. Verizon is offering extra-early-upgrades, so call to find out if you apply for this early upgrade.
Shortly after the original announcement from Verizon regarding the Droid 2, there were pictures floating around that displayed the Droid 2 wrapped in an R2-D2 image, but this was not a case or skin. Verizon has confirmed that a special edition R2-D2 Droid 2 is scheduled to be released September 30th. We’re not sure how much it will cost, but all of the Star Wars+Android fanboys are already drooling over this device (if you’re one of these people, maybe you should consider going out sometime soon).
RIM released the new hot BlackBerry Torch 9800 yesterday, which is the first of the Torch series, and the first BlackBerry to come out of the box with OS 6. The Torch has a new touch screen that steered clear of the Storm’s click screen. The BlackBerry Torch has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a trackpad. So far, the Torch is exclusive to AT&T in the US, but hopefully it will venture out to other carriers to allow more users to experience OS 6. We’ve got our hands on one of the new 9800’s and it seems like a great improvement from older generation BlackBerry’s. OS 6 is providing new exchange features to help keep their corporate sales championship belt, and a lot of great new consumer oriented features that appeal to the individual users out there.
I mentioned last week about the possible “BlackPad” coming from RIM. A recent rumor indicates that the BlackPad will be released in November, priced at $499. It is also rumored to have a 9.7 inch display along with Bluetooth, wifi, along with front and rear facing cameras. It is also rumored that the BlackPad will be a side device for your BlackBerry, which means it will connect to your BlackBerry to synchronize corporate data :/ . We’ll have to wait and see as new information comes out.
Speaking of tablets, BestBuy has pretty much confirmed that they are creating their own Rocketfish brand Android tablet. It is in the early stages, therefore it is hard to speculate what the specifications of this tablet will be, but I think it is a good idea for BestBuy, if done correctly. The tablet was originally designed for internal use at Best Buy stores, but recently changed direction in hopes of pushing Best Buy Connect, which is their planned 4G data service. This would be a huge opportunity to brand their own hot product with their monthly service instead of just selling other carrier products every day.
A couple of weeks ago, a group of developers finally released a jailbreak for iOS 4 that was extremely easy to use. You simply went to jailbreakme.com and slid an unlock-style bar to jailbreak the device, and boom, you’re done. What most people didn’t realize at first is that the developers caught wind of a PDF rendering vulnerability which could be exploited to then jailbreak the device. If someone had the crazy idea of creating a malicious PDF document (it’s not like anyone ever does that!…), post it online somewhere, and you clicked on it, you could potentially be handing over personal information that is stored in your device… but not anymore. Apple released an emergency iOS update this week that fixes the PDF vulnerability. For all of you in need of a jailbreak for your iPhone, you’re out of luck for now since this one-touch jailbreak is completely useless with the latest iOS update. Trust me, it is for your own good to wait for a new jailbreak to be released.
T-Mobile was hit with a class-action lawsuit this week for throttling data speeds. Users were promised unlimited data with their new device and data plan, but when they reached the 5GB or 10GB range, they received a text message from T-Mobile stating that they exceeded their limit, and their speeds would be throttled down to 50 kbps or less, which is basically unusable. T-Mobile advertises unlimited data which is a selling point for many consumers, and they expect to get what they were promised at the time of purchase. We have yet to receive an update on this lawsuit, but I’ll be extremely interested to see how it plays out.
That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!
Jonathan Ross
Mobile Technology Engineer
Vox Mobile
