The Saturday Wrap: 11/21/09
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Looking for a weekly nutshell of Android news so you don’t have to scour multiple blogs every day? The Saturday Wrap is for you. If you have better things to do on a Saturday night than shake your head at my bad jokes, check out my weekly Android update over at PhoneDog, called What up, Droid? It covers the Android stories from Thursday to Thursday, so you can shake your head at my bad jokes on the fifth day of the week, rather than the last.
What up, Droid?
If you’re reading this on the DroidDog homepage, click the link to read the rest of the Wrap:
Sony Ericsson’s X10
Well, it looks like I was on to something when I suspected the X10 was headed for AT&T. As Phandroid points out, the X10 product page says that the 1700 MHz band – T-Mobile’s 3G upstream – won’t be available for the American version of the phone. I’m really hoping this may mean carrier subsidization, since it looks like an AT&T exclusive in the U.S. But honestly, I’m not counting on it.
In other news, we were showered with videos featuring the Nexus UI, but most were accompanied by negative impressions. Then again, the hard and software are still very much beta. SE also launched their webSDK this week and are kicking it off with a $4,000 developer challenge. Make the best X10 app by the end of the year, and you win.
Motorola Droid
I shot a video covering your Droid questions and requests, and am chopping it up and uploading the bits as fast as I can. Check this post for updates. All parts will be included there. The phone, a quarter of a million of which sold in its first week, also experienced relief from a truly bizarre bug.
Google rumors
I think we’ve all heard a bit about the concept of a VoIP-only GooglePhone, a rumor that was revitalized this past week, but here’s something I hadn’t spent much time thinking about: the convergence of Chrome and Android. And, as posted at Android and Me, here’s a Chrome UI concept vid:
Backflip
As much as I like T-Mobile’s troubled Cliq, I was a bit disappointed to find that it’s successor – The Backflip – won’t be seeing much of a bump in specs, if any. At least it’s got that cool, reverse-keyboard thing going for it. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize how problematic and short-lived such a design could be. We’ll see.
Hero/HTC updates
Sprint Hero owners got an OTA update a few days ago, and while there’s some debate over whether or not the ol’ messaging/battery drain issue has been resolved, there are some good fixes included. A new version of HTC’s Sync is available for download as well.
Tablets
Streak
It looks like the Dell streak is heading to AT&T with Eclair in 2010, but people spent more words this last week on the new Webstation.
Those are what I see as the important stories from the last week, folks. Here’s are a few other posts:
Leftovers
Your Samsung Behold II questions answered
ZTE’s first Android in the States?
DSTL1
Acer Liquid priced
SciPhone N21 makes G1 look sexy
Take care.
Been trying to post this as a reply for over a day now... A Man: John broke the HTC Dragon story.... It is still the most popular post on this young Blog's history.... Check out the menu on the upper right side... http://www.droiddog.com/android-blog/2009/10/is... That's the original HTC Dragon source that spread all over the internet....
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