It is Motorola’s turn today to announce its quarterly results – the company earned $162mln, or 7 cents a share, compared to the $26mln the year before from its operations. Its mobile device business used to be the biggest in the world, but they somehow missed the profitable smartphone tidal wave in its first years. Motorola just sold a big chunk of its networking equipment business to Nokia, saying that it will focus on its core mobile devices and set-top boxes competencies by spinning them off in a separate department .

Now the company is playing catch up with some great hardware such as the DROID line on Verizon. Thanks to these high-margin smartphone sales Motorola managed to shrink its operating loss in the mobile department with almost 60%, to $109mln on a year-to-year basis. It would be interesting to follow up their revenue and net income in the third quarter, when sales results from the Motorola DROID X and DROID 2 will be out.
source: Motorola

Froyo goodness should be coming to the HTC Desire as soon as this week, if the HTC Benelux Regional Director’s tweets are to be believed. From the Dutch-English translation of Mark Moons’s tweet it appears that updates will start rolling today, but not for everybody, of course, due to bandwidth limitations.

Still, it is the first official Android 2.2 update for one of the best Android phones out there, so feel free to tip us on its behavior, if you get the cool stuff these days.
source: Pocket-lint

If an Android app by Jackeey Wallpaper has been living on your handset, it shouldn’t have. Those Hello Kitty pictures are actually containing malicious code that collects things from your phone that no wallpaper app should be messing with in the first place. The wallpapers have been downloaded over a million times already.

The mobile software security company Lookout has found this while analyzing thousands of free iPhone and Android apps. Jackeey Wallpaper collects pretty substantial stuff like your browsing history, text messages, your SIM card data, subscriber ID and voicemail password. The worst part is that it also sends these bits of private information to a server in Shenzhen, China, and only a dedicated few know what happens with them afterwards.
source: MobileBeat via AndroidCentral

The official Twitter application for handsets running Android has now been released in its 1.0.2 version, bringing in some anticipated updates such as auto refresh. The application is also a lot faster now, and the People Search bug has been fixed.

Still, there are other free Twitter clients in Android Market that provide better functionalities than the official app, and Twitter needs to step up their game if they want users to stick with the real deal.
source: AndroidCentral

Remember a few weeks ago when Motorola placed a full page ad in the New York Times for the DROID X? The ad copy took direct aim at the connectivity problems that the iPhone 4 has been having by saying that the DROID X could be held in any pose, unlike the iPhone 4 which drops calls and loses signal strength when gripped on the lower left corner. This time, Motorola takes aim at the bumpers that Apple has sent out to iPhone 4 owners to stop the antennas from de-tuning.

The headline of the ad, No Jacket Required, aims right at Apple’s iPhone 4 Case Program just as Apple has started shipping out the cases as we reported yesterday. The ad reads, “At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That’s why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. Motorola 2, Apple 0.
source: AndroidGuys

When the G1 appeared on T-Mobile, it had a hefty amount of curiosity factor built-in, being the first device with Google’s own mobile OS since they bought the Android startup. The interface wasn’t that polished and functional, and there weren’t much, if any, apps behind it, so the year-old iPhone felt it had nothing to worry about.

With a swarm of dedicated owners and developers, though, the G1 outgrew its purpose and became a hardware platform for all kinds of Android ROM cooking, skinning, and application efforts. It even got graced with Android 2.2 lately, but after two years in existence, T-Mobile pulled the plug on the handset sales yesterday, and from now on it will only be a collector’s item. Don’t throw your bricked G1s yet, they might be worth a fortune when the little green robot conquers the world.
source: AndroidCentral

Despite an economy that is not exactly surging, smartphone sales set a record of 60 million units sold in the second quarter. There are many reasons behind the strength in sales. For one, prices have been dropping as subsidized prices bring top of the line models down to affordable prices. While Apple shipped 8.4 million iPhones in the period for an impressive 61% year over year increase, marketshare is declining. Apple owned 14% of the smartphone pie in Q2, lower than 4 previous quarters over the past 2 years. The Cupertino based firm peaked at 17% and Strategy Analytics states that it believes that the only way for Apple to increase its marketshare is to sign up other carriers in the U.S. (extending the exclusivity pact with AT&T), Japan and China. The metrics firm also had some harsh words about Apple’s reputation, which has apparently has gone through some tough times during “Antennagate”, and said “The honeymoon period for Apple in the mobile world is clearly coming to an end. We believe Apple may have lost some heartshare in recent weeks because of its perceived mishandling of the antenna problem.”
source: MocoNews

With 6 updates in 6 months, Google has really been pushing the envelope when it comes to its Maps application. Today, Google has announced an update for Google Maps for Android to version 4.4. The new build adds a “Places” icon to your app launcher. Click on it to learn about local businesses including restaurants, shoe stores, gas stations and book stores to name just a few. Use the search bar on top to type in or vocalize a request to a local place of business.

For example, let’s say you want to find a restaurant in your city. You press on the “Places” icon and drag it to your home page. You will find a list of restaurants in your area and then narrow down the choices by using the Place Pages to read more about each eatery, just like on your PC at home. The Places Pages have been improved to show parking, menu links, opening hours, Compass direction and distance to go along with the usual  reviews and pictures. Google Maps for Android is available for those handsets running Android 1.6 or higher and can be installed for free from the Android Market or from the source link. BlackBerry users should click on m.google.com/maps from their BlackBerry browser to get the Place Page and search results update.
source: Google

Last month, we reported that according to the Korean Times, Samsung would go after BlackBerry’s form factor with the Galaxy Q. Expected to be ready for the U.S. market by the end of the year, the specs of the device have leaked from Samsung Download support. The Galaxy Q is expected to launch with Android 2.2 out of the box, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor under the hood and quad-band GSM / tri-band 3G support. The 3 inch multi-touch display will be Super AMOLED with resolution of 720 x 480 pixels and the camera will be 8MP with LED flash and HD video recording. There will also be a front facing 1.3MP front-facing camera. To go after the BlackBerry nation would require strong messaging capabilities and the Galaxy Q will have a physical QWERTY keyboard and an optical keypad. The phone will have 16GB of internal memory expandable with the use of the microSD slot that accepts up to 32GB in additional space and a 1500mAh battery is expected to power the model. Will BlackBerry fans make the switch, or will the upcoming 9800 Slider keep current ‘Berry users right where they are?

source: SamsungHub

Early this month, we had a photograph to show you of the HTC Vision, which appears to be a physical QWERTY packin’ version of the HTC Desire .A nice surprise for your late Sunday viewing, an HTC Vision all dressed up wearing the T-Mobile brand. As far as the specs are concerned, you can round up the usual suspects-a 1GHz processor and 3.7 inch WVGA display and Android 2.1. What is unclear is if the T-Mobile branding represents the European carrier or T-Mobile U.S.A. and if it is the latter, perhaps this is the HSPA+ device that has been the topic of speculation. No word on a possible launch date or pricing but there is talk that the phone will be dubbed the G-1 “Blaze”.
source: Engadget via AndroidCentral