Android’s successful introduction can be attributed to T-Mobile’s almost seemingly gamble on partnering with Google to launch an unknown mobile operating system into the market a while ago. Even though the HTC Desire is still speculated to make its way to AT&T, now T-Mobile’s name is being thrown into the mix as Androincia reports that a T-Mobile store manager was being shuffled away to be trained on several upcoming phones; including the HTC Desire. In trying to find more truth to the speculations, they’ve taken the liberty of contacting T-Mobile employees who state that all of their managers are away for training. With the HTC Nexus One already on board with T-Mobile’s 3G network, the onset of the HTC Desire may open a rift between customers – it’s nice that customers might be offered a choice between two high-end smartphones, but HTC will be competing with itself heavily with T-Mobile’s diverse Android offerings. Although news about T-Mobile getting the HTC Desire might be considered far fetched, previous rumors pointed that other US carriers would receive it as well – so the thought of T-Mobile owning two high-end Android phones aren’t out of the possibility
source: Androincia via Cell Phone Signal

Shortly after the HTC Legend was unveiled during MWC, it was quickly placed for purchase on the web site of the Dutch wireless carrier KPN. During that time, it was slated to be released some time during March – but there was no official word on an exact date. Now it looks like forum members on the Dutch web site Tweakers.net that previously placed their orders for the Android powered smartphone are possibly getting treated to its arrival – it seems as though they’re getting confirmation that it’s scheduled for delivery today. That’s extremely impressive when you consider that it was originally slated for release by the early portion of the second quarter – which obviously starts in April. These lucky individuals will really have something to look forward soon if everything goes accordingly to their advantage – it goes to show that these early adopters that were swift in ordering their phones are lucky to get a special surprise.
source: Tweakers (translated) via Engadget

BerryScoop says that a trusted tipster (say that 10 times fast) has told them that Verizon plans on replacing the HTC Droid Eris with the HTC Incredible when the latter launches on April 1st. Even more, ahem, incredible is that the tipster revealed that Verizon is considering the Incredible to be its version of the Nexus One. Now, we know that the Android OS is fragmented, but this is really out there. The source told BerryScoop that the Droid Eris, which was launched together with the Motorola DROID back in November, is going “End of Life” on April 1st. Oh, and considering that Big Red will have the Incredible in the store, those earlier reports that Verizon would be selling the N-One at the retail stores seems to be incorrect and that the reps will be pushing the HTC Incredible instead.
source: BerryScoop

One thing you might not see as much in commercials is the Google Nexus One Android phone – which of course takes a rather slight nontraditional approach to the way its being offered. Generally good word of mouth would spread about this handset, but it looks like things may not be in line with sales expectations. Goldman Sachs dropped a bombshell to the Wall Street Journal saying that the Nexus One’s initial sales figures were not where they expected it to be – going as much as saying that it was disappointing with expectations now set at 1 million units to be sold this year. Now that’s in stark contrast to the initial 3.5 million sales figure that the firm first thought about when it was unveiled back in January with much anticipation. Even though it was definitely a learning experience for Google, Goldman Sachs stated that “limited marketing and customer service challenges” were key factors to the disappointing sales figure. Additionally Goldman Sachs went to say, “We forecast that Google sells 1.0 million Nexus One units in FY2010, benefiting from US carriers other than T-Mobile, and non-US carriers such as Vodafone, promoting the device too, but suffering from limited marketing activity.”
source: The Wall Street Journal via Mobileburn

There have been projects that involved using a mobile phone to control a robot, but there have been little that makes the phone act as the brains of everything. Android’s name can only hint to the marriage between technology and robots, but these two things clearly inspired the “TruckBot” – a robot that is controlled by a phone as opposed to using an Android phone as a remote. When you root out the foundations of artificial intelligence, you can seemingly comprehend how a T-Mobile G1’s built-in compass can be used to help the TruckBot to roll around on tabletops in a specified direction. Although it’s constructed out of the most inexpensive parts, roughly $30 worth of materials, it only acts as a hub for the G1 that works as the brains for the entire thing. Granted it’s limited in some aspects in the short term, it’ll probably be fine tuned to enable more advance functions such as being able to avoid obstacles and recognize both faces and voices. You never know, as we’ve seen with the Spirit and Opportunity Mars robots, the G1 powered TruckBot can lay the foundations to something more spectacular.
via Android Guys

As soon as MWC was over, Expansys already was making pre-orders available for HTC’s latest handsets that were featured during the event – the HTC Desire, HD Mini, and Legend. Following closely, Amazon UK is now offering the same trio of handsets with some larger than life price tags associated with them – fortunately though, it’s looking like some of them will make their way to UK consumers by April 1 at the earliest. The powerhouse HTC Desire can be fetched for £528 ($795) while the uni-bodied HTC Legend can be taken for £400 ($602) – both having an estimated arrival date for April 1. If you’re a Windows Mobile fan, the HTC HD Mini will cost the least amount out of the three at £369 ($556) with an availability date of April 14. Of course you can dish out some serious cash now to guarantee yourself one of these bad boys before anyone on your block can find one in stores – plus you won’t be required to sign those lengthy contracts; but still expect to wait some time before the actual handset arrives at your front door.
source: Amazon UK (Desire, HD Mini, Legend) via Engadget

Crave recently had a problem with a Nexus One. It was suffering from BGS or Broken Glass Syndrome. A trip to the Doctor (HTC support) was in order and the Doc said that cracked glass was actually quite a common occurrence. The support guy said, “”Putting a phone in a tight pair of jeans and sitting down would usually cause the kind of damage,” that this particular handset displayed. He also said that a small ding could gradually expand over time and become larger and larger. The support guy added that a common cause of cracked screens is the banging that a phone takes from keys when the unit is placed in a handbag. The N-One comes with neoprene case that is made to protect the handset from this type of damage. As far as how much the crack on CNET’s Nexus One would cost to fix, HTC support quoted 180 BP which is equivalent to $273 dollars, more than the $179 price for the phone with T-Mobile’s service. Despite the recent video we showed you of how the N-One goes through some rough tests to make sure it can hold up to daily use, the HTC support guy said, “People sometimes forget that they don’t go in pockets.” Not sure if we’ve ever seen that warning included with a phone before, but we now know better. As for CNET, they did get a new Nexus One courtesy of HTC.
source: CNETUK

Slashgear got their hands on an HTC Legend. With a trusty video camera, they took a video of an unboxing and a demo of the aluminum clad Android device. Running on Android 2.1 (minus a few incidental things like the animated wallpaper), the new version of Sense UI gets to debut here and one of the new features allows you to take a “helicopter view” of all seven home pages at once while the new “Friend Stream” aggregates all of your social network updates into one single feed. With its aluminum body keeping finger prints away and making the handset practically indestructible, this is the stuff that legends are made of.
source: Slashgear

Macy’s doesn’t tell Gimbels went the old saying. It would be even stranger for Macy’s to tell customers to go shop at Gimbels. As strange as that seems, imagine Steve Jobs telling would-be iPhone buyers to pick up a Palm Pre Plus instead. That is akin to the situation that Motorola found itself doing to Android developers. While the Motorola DROID can load custom ROMs, get overclocked past 1GHz and basically can be hacked into without a problem, the handset’s European relative, the MILESTONE is locked up tighter than the Queen’s Jewels. Digitially signed firmware makes it impossible to load custom ROMs on the MILESTONE and developers were asking Motorola for some help.The response came from Lori Fraleigh from the Motodev team. Her response was that the company knows there are Android developers who want to go beyond application development to experiment with Android system development and re-flashing phones. She recommended that for those doing such work, buying a Google ADP1 developer’s phone, or a Nexus One as both of those models were “intended for those purposes”. Motorola’s Android phone, she explains, are made for the consumer. the DROID, she added, was a deviation from their common business practice and when such deviation occurs, it is because of a specific business reason.

Motorola has released 9 different Android handsets under 12 different names and the DROID is the only one to accept unsigned images and the manufacturer won’t discuss the business reason that made the DROID different. With talk of a Motorola built device heading for Google’s phone store, will the latter force the former to open up that model? In the meantime, developers have the answer to their question. It might not be something that the Schaumburg based company wants repeated like a mantra, but developers looking to experiment with Android should buy HTC.
source: MOTODEV via MotorolaOwnersForum, AndroidandMe

At this point it’s pretty much safe to say that we’ll eventually see the HTC Incredible make its way to Verizon’s lineup alongside the Nexus One – which of course has been officially confirmed during the Nexus One’s unveiling back in January. After we reported on how the Nexus One was experiencing some issues with multi-touch, Big Red has ceremoniously placed the brakes on its launch indefinitely until things have been ironed out with it – there’s no questioning the strict tests and guidelines that Verizon imposes on its handsets before making it available. With that in the books, it looks like the Nexus One might be delayed by Verizon until the end of this month. Now there are juicy pieces of news are surrounding one of its brothers – the HTC Incredible. It’s rumored to utilize the same exact touchscreen as the Nexus One, so Big Red is also dishing out the same grueling process on that handset to meet its expectations – potentially causing it to be delayed until May. Additionally there were some shots taken of the HTC Incredible with red colored accents used on its buttons and possibly a red colored rear cover. We know that Verizon customers are really aching to see these handsets already, but its good to see that Big Red doesn’t want to see any headaches come out of its launches – it only accentuates their stance on providing the best handsets out there.
source: Phandroid