When Motorola rolled out the Cliq back in October, a sales pamphlet was one of the first things following the announcement to show up in the wild. Motorola has released yet another sales guide allowing T-Mobile employees an opportunity sell the Cliq XT in 60 seconds. While that’s a pretty tall order for any salesperson, Motorola is breaking down the highlights of the Cliq XT’s features and giving you all the reasons to buy. Of course, if the pinch-and-zoom navigation, a 5-megapixel camera and MotoBlur don’t do it for you, you should probably be looking elsewhere for a phone. Engadget managed to get their hands on the whole pamphlet and since they agree it should take 60 seconds to read through all the pictures let us know in the comments if you are sold or not?
Hit the jump for more pics!
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T-Mobile's CLIQ XT pamphlet out and about originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSo AT&T finally has their first Android phone, the Motorola Backflip. Whether or not you like the unusual design and Yahoo search (really?), it runs Android and it’s on AT&T. That by itself is remarkable. Now that the phone is available, users are finding yet another surprise that separates this from all the Android phones that came before it. It turns out that the option to allow apps from non-Android Market sources has been disabled.
It has long been held that obtaining apps from the Android Market was just a polite suggestion from Google. Users could get apps from various third-party stores and websites. Additionally, many beta apps are only distributed in this way. The reason for the change is currently unclear and no one is talking. This leaves the Backflip in much the same place the iPhone is, stuck with apps from only a single source, and in this case, a much smaller source.
AT&T has certainly had their way with Android here. Consider the removal of Google search, the addition of lots of AT&T bloatware, and now the locking down of app installs. This makes us wonder what AT&T’s Android strategy will look like. Will future Android handsets be similarly limited?
More Android fragmentation madness: If Motorola’s Verizon Droid is a loaf of day old bread, then its new AT&T Backflip sounds like it’s stale beyond all recognition.
AT&T's foray
Last week, it was announced that AT&T was replacing the market-leading, Google search on the Google Android powered Motorola Backflip with Yahoo's search. WHAT?
That's like selling In-N-Out Burgers except taking out the meat and replacing it with hospital-quality "Beef-like" patties. What is the point?
But AT&T wasn't done having their way with this poor Motorla Backflip.
AT&T's foray
Last week, it was announced that AT&T was replacing the market-leading, Google search on the Google Android powered Motorola Backflip with Yahoo's search. WHAT?
That's like selling In-N-Out Burgers except taking out the meat and replacing it with hospital-quality "Beef-like" patties. What is the point?
But AT&T wasn't done having their way with this poor Motorla Backflip.
AT&T’s first Android phone, the Motorola Backflip, ships with an outdated version of the OS (1.5; current version is 2.1) and comes with a bunch of AT&T-added apps that can’t be deleted. They’d do the same with the iPhone if it were up to them.
Apparently AT&T is struggling a bit with the whole idea of Android, a somewhat open mobile OS. Instead of embracing it and giving users a full experience, they've decided to cripple it and not allow the installation of non-market apps.
From the sounds of it, the Android OS allows for the installation of apps "purchased on alternative markets and beta apps like Swype" by default. It's a bit of a mystery why AT&T would choose to take this option away from users, but it certainly makes AT&T's first Android-based phone even more of a letdown. [XDA Developers via Android and Me via Engadget]
AT&T's first Android phone, the Motorola Backflip, may have had app supported artificially locked down to a level like the iPhone, early owners have found since the phone shipped Sunday. Where by default Android is supposed to allow installing third-party apps from outside Android Market through a special toggle, the AT&T version of the Backflip omits this feature entirely and limits apps to the store....
AT&T's first Android phone, the Motorola Backflip, may have had app supported artificially locked down to a level like the iPhone, early owners have found since the phone shipped Sunday. Where by default Android is supposed to allow installing third-party apps from outside Android Market through a special toggle, the AT&T version of the Backflip omits this feature entirely and limits apps to the store....
A year later, enter the Motorola Backflip -- AT&T's very first Android device. Does it hold true to de la Vega's principles? Well, it depends on whose glasses you read the statements through. Yes, true, it definitely doesn't have "primarily Google apps on it" thanks to the carrier's questionable decision to remove Google search and replace it with Yahoo -- but as for giving "customers the choice of other applications," that's another matter altogether. It seems that Backflips are being shipped without the ability to turn on non-Market installations, meaning that AT&T has effectively locked you into getting all of your content through the walled garden. Add in the Yahoo debacle and the egregious amount of unremovable crapware they've left in ROM, and we start to wonder: why did AT&T bother partnering up with Android if they weren't going to take it seriously? Certainly doesn't bode well for the Mini 3 and the rest of the pack, now, does it?Chris: Okay, and expanding on that a little bit, I heard you speak at CTIA last year and you mentioned that... you mentioned basically the same comments about Android at that time. You said that you thought that it was promising, you liked what you saw, but that was at a time when there were a lot of questions about why AT&T wasn't in the OHA. I'm wondering if your thoughts, your opinions have changed since then. Has AT&T's direction with Android changed at all?
Ralph: No, actually, I think that they have been somewhat validated in that... we like the Android as an operating system on its own, but we want to make sure that we have, and customers have the option, to put applications on that device that are not just Google applications, so when the G1 came out and T-Mobile launched it, it's primarily a Google phone. And we want to give customers the choice of other applications on that device, not just the same Google applications.
Chris: So you're basically waiting for Android to be de-branded, so to speak?
Ralph: Well, to be open. (Laughter.) Right? I mean, the whole idea behind Android is that it's gonna be an open OS, and so I don't wanna roll an open OS to market that has primarily Google apps on it, and I think that's gonna happen. I mean, I see a lot of activity, I think it's got a good future, and I think it makes a lot of sense that the OS is open-source, separate from Google apps that are also very good.
Motorola Backflip doesn't allow non-Market apps, proves AT&T doesn't get Android originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A year later, enter the Motorola Backflip -- AT&T's very first Android device. Does it hold true to de la Vega's principles? Well, it depends on whose glasses you read the statements through. Yes, true, it definitely doesn't have "primarily Google apps on it" thanks to the carrier's questionable decision to remove Google search and replace it with Yahoo -- but as for giving "customers the choice of other applications," that's another matter altogether. It seems that Backflips are being shipped without the ability to turn on non-Market installations, meaning that AT&T has effectively locked you into getting all of your content through the walled garden. Add in the Yahoo debacle and the egregious amount of unremovable crapware they've left in ROM, and we start to wonder: why did AT&T bother partnering up with Android if they weren't going to take it seriously? Certainly doesn't bode well for the Mini 3 and the rest of the pack, now, does it?Chris: Okay, and expanding on that a little bit, I heard you speak at CTIA last year and you mentioned that... you mentioned basically the same comments about Android at that time. You said that you thought that it was promising, you liked what you saw, but that was at a time when there were a lot of questions about why AT&T wasn't in the OHA. I'm wondering if your thoughts, your opinions have changed since then. Has AT&T's direction with Android changed at all?
Ralph: No, actually, I think that they have been somewhat validated in that... we like the Android as an operating system on its own, but we want to make sure that we have, and customers have the option, to put applications on that device that are not just Google applications, so when the G1 came out and T-Mobile launched it, it's primarily a Google phone. And we want to give customers the choice of other applications on that device, not just the same Google applications.
Chris: So you're basically waiting for Android to be de-branded, so to speak?
Ralph: Well, to be open. (Laughter.) Right? I mean, the whole idea behind Android is that it's gonna be an open OS, and so I don't wanna roll an open OS to market that has primarily Google apps on it, and I think that's gonna happen. I mean, I see a lot of activity, I think it's got a good future, and I think it makes a lot of sense that the OS is open-source, separate from Google apps that are also very good.
Motorola Backflip doesn't allow non-Market apps, proves AT&T doesn't get Android originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Our full review of the Motorola Backflip should be up in a few days, but a few words of wisdom in the mean time: Don’t buy it. Between its crazy form-factor and the hidden trackpad tucked on the back of the display, everything we took as merits at face value have devolved into novelties.
Worst of all, it seems AT&T has taken a page from their time with the iPhone that no one wanted them to take. Like the iPhone — but unlike any other Android handset we’ve seen — the Motorola Backflip can’t install applications from any sources beyond the official, on-handset application store.
Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
Motorola, Inc. announced today the launch of the Motorola PartnerEmpower Program, aimed at bringing together Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions (EMS) partners under a single channel program framework. According to the company, the PartnerEmpower Program is meant to drive growth, enable specialization and deliver value, and should also ease... (read more)
Zoom, indeed.
Zoom Technologies (ZOOM) shares are, well, zooming higher, apparently on the company’s disclosure in an SEC filing that it plans to build Android-based smart phones. Zoom, which is based in Beijing, is mostly a contract electronics manufacturer. The company on Friday filed a copy of a presentation with the SEC that suggests it is making Android-based phones. The presentation notes that Zoom has partnered with Samsung, Motorola (MOT) and Palm (PALM).
I’ve left messages for the company’s outside IR firm seeking a more explanation for what’s happened to the stock today - what information in the presentation might have propelled today’s move in the stock. If/when they respond, I’ll update this post.
ZOOM is up $1.82, or 29.8%, to $7.92.
With 3,013 patents in its portfolio, Apple would seem to have a significant advantage
Click to enlarge. Source: Deutsche Bank
In the context of Apple vs. HTC (and by proxy, Google), the bar chart at right could prove to be pretty important.
Buried on page 5 of a note to clients issued Sunday by Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore, it compares the number of patents issued over the years to Apple, Google and HTC.
It turns out Apple's (AAPL) patent department has been pretty busy, especially in the past few years; the company has amassed a total portfolio of more than 3,000 patents. Google (GOOG), by contrast, has been issued 316 and HTC only 58. Writes Whitmore:
"HTC has had comparatively few patent filings leading up to the introduction of the original iPhone in June 2007. Specifically, HTC filed zero patents with the US Patent office between 2004 and 2007 while Apple filed 507 and Google filed 67 over the same period."
To be sure, not all patents are equal and not all these Apple patents were iPhone-related. But the numbers are suggestive because they represent the ammunition each company's lawyers will bring with them when the battle is joined.
Apple seems to be heavily armed, Google less so and HTC even less.
The cases could take years to be resolved, but if Apple wins, it will have effectively established the validity of its portfolio. Meanwhile, Whitmore writes:
"The suit has a twofold benefit of applying pressure to additional handset manufacturers using or contemplating use of the Android OS (e.g. Samsung and Motorola). In addition, Apple’s suit could have the effect of slowing investment from developers currently working on or considering developing on the Android platform."
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[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
photo credit: Tiago Rïbeiro
Have I mentioned … [visit site to read more]
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Swype is making its interesting touchscreen keyboard available to select Android users in a limited beta.
If you don’t know, Swype was created by the guy who invented T9 and it’s trying to be a new way for text input on touchscreen displays. Instead of clicking on letters, you swipe your finger in a continuous motion over the letters you want. The software quickly recognizes what you’re trying to write (even if you misspell it), and you can use the traditional tapping method if you prefer.
Originally, the company’s business model was licensing the technology to vendors, but leaked versions have hit Android and it’s clear there’s some interest from consumers. You can now sign up for the beta and try it out for yourself. The beta won’t be as full-featured as one that comes integrated from a handset maker, there will be limited customer support, and you can only use it if you have devices with HVGA and WVGA resolutions.
I signed up for Swype and put it on the Motorola Devour for my touchscreen keyboard needs. There’s definitely a learning curve because I’ve been conditioned to quickly tap the letters I want. I found it takes about two days of nominal use to get the hang of Swype and once it learns your tendencies and frequently-used words, it is a blast to use. Check out the demo video below and try it out for yourself and let us know how you like it.
[Via Phonescoop]
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