So Sprint's backtracking on its promise to deliver Android 2.0 to its Hero and Moment in the first half of next year, but it's backtracking in an awesome way for a change of pace -- they'll actually be getting 2.1. That makes tons of sense considering that the leaked Hero builds have all been on 2.1 and 2.0 will be all but obsolete by the time HTC gets around to releasing anything -- so yeah, we probably could've predicted this anyway, but now it's official. Unfortunately that 1H 2010 window hasn't been reigned in at all, but here's hoping this is a case where they under-promise and over-deliver.
We've gotten a number of reports this afternoon that both voice and data services are down for T-Mobile throughout much of the Midwest, including parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. This wouldn't be the first time in recent memory that the carrier's had a major outage, so we don't doubt it -- but hit us up and let us know what you're experiencing out there in the field right now, alright?
We don't know just how quickly Palm (or Elevation Partners, for that matter) thought it'd become profitable following the release of webOS, but it's not there quite yet -- the company is in the process of outing its earnings for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 right now, and in a word, they're still in the red. The good news is that it's a marked improvement from last quarter -- they've gone from a $164.5M GAAP net loss to an $85.4M one this time around. On a non-GAAP gross basis, they actually made $5.5M, which is up from $2.8M a quarter earlier. They've got $590 million in cash and other "short-term investments" on the book right now, which seems like it should be enough to keep the company going without a profit or additional cash infusion for at least a few additional quarters, but then again, burn rate is going to vary with just how much hardware and software R&D they're doing and the kinds of carrier deals they're scoring. We bet they're looking forward to this Verizon business going down, eh?
AT&T exec #1: You know, our network's really getting slammed with all these people using their unlimited data plans to download things and do stuff online all the time. Any ideas how we can fix it?
nna be a long day for BlackBerry users: RIM's confirmed to multiple outlets that its BIS servers are acting up and that email services are being delayed -- and we're actually hearing that they're just down, period. BlackBerry Messenger still works, though, so you can still BBM your BFF or whatever the kids do nowadays. No word on service restoration, but we'll update you when we find out.
Talk about making good on a promise... and then some. Back in March, Ericsson proudly proclaimed that it would be able to make 21Mbps look like child's play by reaching 28Mbps before the dawn of 2010, and now the company is tooting its horn once more after demonstrating 42Mbps equipment to common folk over in Stockholm, Sweden. Reportedly, it's the planet's first 42Mbps HSPA achievement on commercial products, and better still, it's now available for mass deployment. Unfortunately, details beyond that were few and far between -- we're guessing Ericsson just needed an avenue to gloat -- but we suspect carriers like Telstra will be pushing out their own releases once the upgrades start rolling out. Granted, we've seen mobile data rates tickle the 42Mbps mark before, but those showcases were hardly ready for public consumption. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T are spending bundles arguing about their comparatively glacial "3G networks." Way to go, America.
Of its nine factories around the world, Nokia has just one in its home country -- the only one left in all of Western Europe -- in the town of Salo. As you can imagine, its well-being is probably a pretty touchy subject, not just for locals but for Nokia fans around the world -- especially when you consider that the company's highest-end devices are assembled here, making the health of the factory a bellwether for the health of the coolest models in the range. The company has revealed this week that it'll be sending home up to 20 percent of the plant's staff for up to 90 days at any one time, saying that there's simply no need for it to operate at full capacity in the current market; we say you could argue that making the right phones could lead to a need for full capacity, but what do we know? Anyhow, the move closely mirrors one that had already been made for 2009, and you could look on the bright side -- at least they're not closing it down the same way they did Jyväskylä.


A stout 20,000 apps in the Android Market, eh? Not so much, according to none other than Google itself -- which, with all due respect to original counter AndroLib -- has a little more street cred here, especially when they're deflating the numbers rather than inflating them. A spokesperson for the company told us this afternoon that "there are currently more than 16,000 free and paid apps in Android Market" without specifying paid-to-free breakdown or differences among regional Markets, so we don't much basis for figuring out where Google's number comes from; we'd count it ourselves, but we've... uh, we've got dinner plans this evening. So until someone can conclusively prove otherwise, we're going to say that the Market has yet to crack the 20K mark in any region where the Market operates -- not to say you can't find a fair share of goodies among the 16,000 that are out there.



Correspondences from Team Engadget out into the Twitterverse.


The percentage of returned gadgets that have nothing wrong with them.
Of the $13.8 billion worth of returned products in 2007, only 5 percent were because gadgets were actually broken, according to a 2008 study.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.