If hype were to be believed, the Motorola DROID is the pièce de résistance of the mobile world; the conclusive creation sent down by the Great Smartphone in the sky to rid us of our woes. It would prepare your breakfast promptly each morning, tuck you in at night, and, maybe — just maybe — knock the iPhone down a notch or two.
Beginning about a week before its launch (largely due to Verizon’s incredibly intense marketing campaign) I began getting calls and tweets from friends and colleagues asking about the Droid. They always had two questions: the first would be something like “What do you think of the Droid?”, followed by “Would you recommend it over the iPhone?” Same questions, each.. and.. every.. time.
I’ve been using the Droid as my primary phone for a few days now, and I think I’m finally ready to answer them.
With the Sony Ericsson Rachel (otherwise known as the XPERIA X3 or, more recently, the X10) having already made numerous unofficial appearances across the Interwebs, it seems like Sony Ericsson’s down to show their cards a bit early – or at least the back and sides of them.
Not amazing news but interesting nonetheless: Billshrink, a site dedicated to “saving you money” compared the total cost of ownership in the 3GS, the Pre, the MyTouch 3G, and the Droid. They found that TCO for an unlimited rate plan costs $3,799, the same as the iPhone 3GS. Both the Pre and the MyTouch are over $1,200 cheaper. Read More
Can you even imagine what it must have been like to be an early explorer? Like, you leave Spain or Portugal on some rickety boat, and arrive in the New World. Cool and all, but, outside of shooting everything in sight, how do you communicate with anybody? What, do you point to the sun and say “sol,” and expect the other guy to repeat “sol”? That can’t be an efficient way to learn a language, especially when it’s, you know, a very real clash of cultures. If only they had (drum roll, please) something like Jibbigo Speech Translator English Spanish, which automatically translates from Spanish into English, and vice-versa.
It isn’t the first, and I assume it’s not going to be the last either.
Apple and AT&T are facing a new putative class action from an iPhone user who alleges that the companies misrepresented the phone’s MMS (multimedia messaging service) capabilities.
Clyde Bernard Franklin filed the complaint (case 1:2009cv00704) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama on behalf of all Alabama residents last Wednesday.
Japan went crazy over the iPhone when it made its debut in summer last year, but China as another big Asian market for Apple seems to react differently. The iPhone officiallylaunched in Chinatoday, offered by China Unicom, one the country’s three big cell phone carriers. But our friends over at major Chinese news portal 163.com are reporting [Google machine translation] that not too many people were actually queuing up to get one, at least in Beijing.
The launch of the Palm Pixi might still be more than two weeks away, but the Blue Polo Brigade is already gettin’ prepped. One of our tipsters spotted this third-party silicone case lurkin’ around in a none-too-hidden spot, though it hadn’t made its way all the way to the shelves just yet.
If you manage to spot an actual Pixi lurkin’ around any retail spots — or better yet, if you convince them to sell you one early — be sure to give us a shout at our tips line.
(You know how you know we’re geeks? Because we get all excited about cell phone accessories being shipped to retail stores.)
I was Tweeting with Gartenberg last night about all the great Android games. After all, the Android Marketplace has so many great titles like Civilization Revolution, Canabalt, iShoot, and… oh… wait…
All kidding aside, the reason there is such a dearth of great games has to do with some programming choices in Android itself and it’s a problem that can – and should – be fixed before the Droid comes to market this November.
As smartphones get more powerful and mobile internet connections get faster, battery life seems to be getting worse and worse. While there are a truckload of technologies in the works to make things better in the coming months and years, the only real option for mobile junkies to stay juiced up is to carry an external battery pack.
Thing is, every damn time we go to use our external battery packs, we run into one of two problems: we forgot to charge it, or we forgot the cable required to hook it up to our handset. The XP1 cable from XMultiple solves both of these problems with one absurdly obvious solution: the cable is the battery. They’ve got models for the iPhone, BlackBerry, and any phone that can be charged over Mini USB.
If your pockets are just beggin’ to be filled with an HTC Hero, your options thus far (assuming you’re in the US) have been limited. You could get one through Sprint or wait for Verizon’s Hero-esque Droid Eris – but either of those options means you’re on a modified, round-bodied Hero rather than the angled, chin-tastic Hero that nearly 70% of our readers prefer. You could import one of the original bodied Heros from the UK – but then you wouldn’t be able to get 3G on any US Carrier.
If you wanted US 3G and an original Hero, you were out of luck – until now.
The first phone in what will eventually become a line of Droid phones only became a reality yesterday morning, and its sibling is already in tow.
We already know a bit about the HTC-made Droid Eris, such as its $99 price tag and that it’s likely to be spec’d almost identically to the Hero. We’re suckers for the minute details though, and PhoneArena just uncovered a doc which confirms a couple new ones.
Bad news, you guys. If you were thinking of dropping $120 on TomTom’s iPhone car kit and then another $100 on TomTom’s navigation app for use with your first-generation iPhone or second-generation iPod touch, it now looks like you’d to run into some compatibility issues.
AppleInsider is reporting “that although the Car Kit dock is compatible with all iPhone models, the TomTom application will only work with the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G – even with the dock connected to a first-generation iPhone or iPod touch.”
I was sorting through my notes and video footage of the Google press event around the launch of Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 and saw this gem. It’s a minute or so of footage of Google CEO Eric Schmidt talking about the potential of today’s mobile platforms when combined with the cloud.
Our own John Biggs already gave the Verizon Droid a quick hands-on earlier today – but in the endless rush of things, he didn’t get a chance to walk it through a proper unboxing ceremony. Somewhat magically (albeit a bit later than we would have hoped), a Droid also happened to show up on my doorstep this morning, so I went ahead and captured the whole undressing for all to see. Enjoy!
We shared that video on a whim, and the resulting conversation and comments were outstanding. As a result, the same design firm has since churned out two more iPhone-related concept videos: Coverflow Multitasking, and Dashboard Widgets. Just like the last time, we’re left wondering: would you use these?
One of my favorite games of all time, Catan, is now available as a $5 download for the iPhone and iPod touch. As board games go, The Settlers of Catan is a psycho-erotic thriller capable of hooking even the most un-hookable of gamers.
♫ Lets all go to the lobby, lets all go to the lobby, lets all go to the lobby, and get ourselves a discount on concession stand goods via our cellular telephones. ♫
Sure, those aren’t the words to the jingle as we know it – but they might take over, eventually. This morning, turn-key mobile coupon service bCode announced a partnership with Sprint and in-theater advertising group Screenvision to bring bCode’s mobile coupon kiosks to over 500 theaters nationwide.
Tapjoy, the small development shop that brought us the incredible TapDefense for the iPhone [iTunes link], has quietly built out an extremely strong toolset to provide monetization options for app developers. Through two strong offerings, they claim to increase ad revenue for free apps by more than 250%. I first met them at the TechCrunch50 DemoPit, and was thoroughly impressed by the Tapjoy platform.
First, they aggregate ads from all the major mobile ad networks and serve the highest-paying ad for an app. This method leaves the developer with nigh an unfilled ad; Tapjoy boasts a 99.9% fill rate. Second, they enable developers to sell virtual goods within their apps (such as extra points in Mobster or extra towers in TapDefense) for real money. They do this by providing the user with the option to download an app in exchange for the virtual good. Be sure to read about this later on in the article, because it is truly the most innovative 3rd party platform I’ve seen on the iPhone all year.
When we heard the news that the BlackBerry Storm2 would be launching on Verizon on the same day as their much heralded Droid, we got a gut feeling that the Storm2 would fly pretty much under the radar all day. And sure enough, it has.
So, let this serve as a reminder for anyone who’s itchin’ for Waterloo’s latest who wasn’t camped out this morning: the BlackBerry Storm2 is now available for $180 bucks on a 2-year contract in both the online and meatspace stores – even if it seems like Verizon doesn’t really want you to notice.
Here you are, friends and Romans, the Motorola Droid from Verizon, the phone you’ve been salivating over for the past few months. It’s now sitting quietly on the desk next to me, wondering where you are. The Droid wants you.
![Screen shot 2009-10-29 at [ October 29 ] 10.32.57 AM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Screen-shot-2009-10-29-at-October-29-10.32.57-AM.png "Screen shot 2009-10-29 at [ October 29 ] 10.32.57 AM")
![Screen shot 2009-10-28 at [ October 28 ] 3.05.44 PM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Screen-shot-2009-10-28-at-October-28-3.05.44-PM-173x300.png "Screen shot 2009-10-28 at [ October 28 ] 3.05.44 PM")
![Screen shot 2009-10-28 at [ October 28 ] 10.13.08 AM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Screen-shot-2009-10-28-at-October-28-10.13.08-AM-173x300.png "Screen shot 2009-10-28 at [ October 28 ] 10.13.08 AM")
