Verizon Wireless - 26/33 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

Next Up To Try And Overthrow The Android Market: Amazon

Posted by Brad Ganley in Apps/Games, News

Hot on the heels of plans for Verizon to create their own market for Android, Amazon.com has decided that they will now create their own app market. Developers reportedly started receiving emails about a business opportunity from Amazon on September 25th. At that time, there were very few details aside from the fact that it was happening. Now, there is a bit more clarity from our friends at TechCrunch:

Okay, some details:

For each sale of an App, we will pay you a royalty equal to the greater of 70% of the purchase price or 20% of the List Price as of the purchase date (70/30 is standard, this 20/80 split is somewhat odd and confusing)

The List Price is apparently in place so that you can’t sell your app cheaper on other “similar services” — meaning other app stores, presumably

The “similar services” should also include the forthcoming Chrome Web Store, if I’m reading this correctly

There is a $99 fee to be a developer in this program (the same as Apple’s iOS developer program)

It seems like if your app is available on other platforms, you have to make sure to update it at the same time on Amazon’s store that you do in any other store (this will piss off a lot of developers)

Apps will have to be laced with Amazon DRM — meaning they will only work on devices they approve (obviously)

Amazon has the right to pull any app for any reason (obviously)

Apps can also be shown on amazon.com (this is up to Amazon)

You can offer free apps

The app store is U.S.-only (at least for now)

This part is interesting too: “We have sole discretion to determine all features and operations of this program and to set the retail price and other terms on which we sell Apps.”

As of right now, that's all we know.

Sep

Verizon To Jump On The Capped Mobile Data Plan Bandwagon

Posted by Brad Ganley in News, Verizon Wireless

It looks a lot like Verizon is going to follow in the much-criticized footsteps of AT&T and their tiered data plans, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Before you scream "travesty!", consider this: Nielson (the company that analyzes everything so others don't have to) has reported that 99% of the 60,000 phone bills they had looked at would benefit from a tiered pricing structure.

The average monthly consumption of mobile data has risen from last year's 90MB up to 298MB this year. This is, obviously, nowhere even close to 5GB that some "unlimited" plans include but also takes non-smartphone users into account.

Sep

Verizon’s Motorola Droid X Froyo Update Causing Issues?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Droid X (Shadow), Froyo 2.2, News, Verizon Wireless

After we posted that Verizon had begun their rollout of the Froyo update for the Droid X yesterday, a number of people told us they were having issues with music and ringtones on their devices. As this seems to be more than an isolated incident, we pinged Verizon to check if they were aware of the issue or had anything in the works. Unfortunately, all we received back was a curt "We're looking into it."

It doesn't seem to be affecting more than a minor percentage of users, so it's likely most people updated without a hiccup. Still, this is the only time we've had multiple users complain of the same bug on an update (at least, in recent memory).

Sep

Verizon Releases Manual, Minor Update For Samsung Fascinate

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Fascinate, News, Verizon Wireless

While not nearly as big a deal as the Froyo rollout for the Droid X, Verizon is also releasing an update for the Samsung Fascinate today. Doesn't look like users will receive a notification for the update quite yet, so to get it you'll need to check for it manually.

The changes:

Instant notification of Visual Voice Mail messages on your messaging bar.

Improved syncing between your phone and email accounts.

Prompt notification when switching to Airplane mode.

Faster switching to 3G services from 1x.

Easily search your phone during calls.

Improved Enterprise Exchange password alerts.

No Service audio alert removed.

Sep

DROID X 2.2 Update Coming Tomorrow? Seems Like It

Posted by David Ruddock in Droid X (Shadow), Froyo 2.2, News

It seems the DROID X's overdue update may be coming a day sooner than previously thought.

Wait, didn’t we just say yesterday that it would be coming on Wednesday? Yes, yes we did. I’d say right now that 9/22 looks pretty likely at this point.

Kellex on Droid-Life

Droid-Life has pointed eager X users to Verizon's support page for the device, which has been updated with a PDF espousing the delights of Android 2.2, along with various DROID X-specific changes. There's also a PDF with instructions on how to get the update- but we've yet to see any confirmation that anyone has actually gotten it.

Sep

Total Equipment Coverage/Insurance For Verizon Customers Now Includes Free Mobile Recovery Software

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, News, Verizon Wireless

Good news for those of you with Verizon phones and a 'Total Equipment Coverage' insurance plan. VZW have just let us know that they are partnering with Asurion to provide some useful security functions for Android owners. The free Mobile Recovery application includes the ability to remotely:

Sound an alarm on the phone, even when on silent
Locate the phone using GPS, with maps and directions to the handset
Lock or wipe the phone, if it is irretrievable

Sounds pretty great for a free service (if you have the qualifying insurance, obviously), and may help to soothe any envious pangs you felt following the demonstration of HTCSense.com’s new security features.

Sep

Leaked HTC Lexikon Stock ROM Points Towards A Future On Verizon

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News, Verizon Wireless

It’s difficult to keep track of all the leaked device names out there, we know, but if you can cast your mind back a month or so you may remember the mysterious HTC Lexikon and HTC Bee phones whose details were sourced from the 911sniper blog. Well, the same guys over in China have just posted what is believed to be a copy of the Lexikon’s operating system, complete with “VERIZON” in the filename, and a render of the phone to keep you hooked.

From the image alone, the Lexikon looks to be similar in styling to the still extant Droid Incredible.

Sep

HTC Desire HD Look-A-Like Coming To Verizon?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Desire HD (Ace), Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News, Verizon Wireless

A couple of weeks back, Boy Genius Report got their hands on some photos of a very svelte looking, EVO-esque HTC phone that is supposedly coming to Verizon.

Now they have a suspicion that it is in fact Verizon’s model of the Desire HD, announced a few days ago in London.

There are one or two things to say about this - firstly, the handset they obtained images of has a kickstand, a feature notably absent in the super-slim Desire HD. Also, there have been no announcements as yet of a CDMA version at all, although that may well come in the future.

Sep

Verizon Teams Up With Good Technology To Beef Up Android For Enterprise

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News, Verizon Wireless

Looks like Verizon is pushing Android for enterprise pretty hard: they've inked a deal with Good Technology and are bringing some pretty major enterprise features to Android. Specifically, the company provides encrypted and high security email, messaging, and mobile access, as well as features such as remote wipe.

Good is a fairly major player in the enterprise space: in the first half of 2010 alone, they added 1,500 enterprise clients. Obviously, this is bad news for RIM (the makers of BlackBerry), who currently rule the business market; losing a competitive edge certainly isn't going to help their already sagging market share.

Sep

Samsung Releases Source Code For Fascinate

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, Fascinate, News, Verizon Wireless

Samsung has released the source for the Fascinate, roughly a week after the phone was released. As usual, any bits that are special to Sammy aren't included in the release, but there should still be enough material in there to get tinkering. As I've said before, the layperson doesn't really benefit from the release, but modders can get down and dirty with the code to tweak things just the way they'd like - and hopefully, make those changes public so that others can get in on the action as well.

_{"Ergo, you can now produce modifications to your mobile device, vis-à-vis the fundamental programming found within its hardware."}

Once again, a note on navigating the Samsung Open Source Release Center: click on Mobile (near the top), then scroll down to SCH-i500 - that's the Fascinate.