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Owners of the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon should be getting prompted to install an OTA update pretty soon - but it's just a maintenance update with a couple of bug fixes. When I say a couple, I mean it in the most literal of ways - it fixes two things. The two things in question? It improves the delivery of over-the-air updates and incoming call connectivity. That's it. I do find it ironic that they're sending out an OTA update to improve OTA updates, though.
Update: It looks like we jumped the gun on this one. The Inspire 4G will not be offered for free, it will be the Samsung Captivate.
We all know about the update woes that owners of Samsung handsets have faced over the past several months - owners of the VZW Fascinate are still waiting on their update to Froyo. It looks that wait may be coming to an end as the source code has finally shown up on Samsung's Open Source Release Center. Even if the official OTA doesn't hit phones soon, you can rest assured that XDA devs will be hard at work hacking and compiling this source, so you'll be able to enjoy all of the Froyo goodness that you can handle soon enough.
I've had this article in mind for quite some time now, but haven't mustered up the courage to do it in fear of upsetting fanboys. But when the Fascinate shipped with Bing rather than Google as the default search engine, I could hold off no longer. For a Google Android phone to ship with a search engine other than Google, the search engine I know, love, and use on a daily basis (and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here) is unthinkable; not offering a way to change it is even more of an outrage. Of course, Verizon isn't the only one committing this crime; AT&T did essentially the same thing with the Motorola Backflip, T-Mobile bastardized Sense on the MyTouch 3G Slide, and Sprint's had its share of Android-related evilness too (Sprint NASCAR? Sprint NFL? Who needs that crap installed by default?). The manufacturers - HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and others - have all participated in this game as well, even more so than the carriers. Simply put, Sense, MotoBlur, TouchWiz, and other skins are ruining the Android experience and must be stopped immediately.
We'd already heard it was hitting warehouses, and now it looks like it's moving down the line: PhoneArena has scored a tip and some photos of the Samsung Fascinate sitting pretty in the Verizon storeroom. Their tipster reports that they're off-limit to customers until this Thursday - which would jive with earlier reports that it would be launched on September 9. Good sign for those looking to pick up a Fascinate - the BOGA (Buy One Get Any) deal now looks even more reliable, doesn't it?
We still have no official word on when Verizon will be launching the Samsung Fascinate, and with the not-so-reliable track record of rumors and speculation in the Android community, we're not looking to hazard a guess.
A Motorola device with the model number XT610 should also be seeing an October release date, along with an affordable price tag and a 4.3 inch display (although the other specs, such as the camera and the processor, are said to be downgraded from Motorola's other 4.3 inch beast, the Droid X).The fun doesn't stop there: a device with the model number A957 is slated for a mid-to-late October release, which PhoneArena believes is the previously rumored Droid Pro. Finally, a successor to Palm Pre, the Pre 2, should be launching in October as well. Even though it will almost certainly run WebOS rather Android, I'm looking forward to checking it out, if only to compare it to its Android-based competitors.