Remember when we learned that Google’s Nexus One ETF (technically Equipment Recovery Fee) was not only a whopping $350 but also was imposed in ADDITION to T-Mobile’s ETF – and then we threw a hissy fit? Well the FCC promptly started an investigation and it looks like Google is either admitting they overdid it or doing some pre-emptive cost maneuvering – the WSJ is reporting they lowered the ETF from $350 to $150.

It’s true, it’s true… check out the new deets at “Terms of Sale for Nexus Device“:

I thought the $350 pricetag was outrageous but that wasn’t even my main complaint. I don’t understand why both T-Mobile AND Google are forcing these fees for cancellation/return. They’re systems/inventory/shipping is obviously integrated in some way if you’re able to purchase a T-Mobile contract through Google’s website, right? Do the customer a favor and condense those 2 separate ETF fees into one and choose either T-Mobile or Google to institute it.

The $150 is much more reasonable and I can appreciate the reason for its existence… but I think we’ve got a long way to go in terms of transparency and consumer education with these fees. At least this is a start.

Earlier today we told you the Motorola Droid’s update to Android 2.1 was coming very soon and now, thanks to an Official update on Motorola’s Facebook page, we know that very soon = this week!

Have your Droid’s charged and at your fingertips so when that “Do you want to update” question pops up, you’re ready to happily press Yes and get the Droid goodness  you’ve been waiting for.

Dataviz makes an application called Documents To Go that allows you to view, edit and interact with Microsoft Office documents like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF – right from your Android Phone. There is a free version of the app that provides limited access (view only) for Word and Excel, but the FULL version will set you back $29.99 – unless you buy it now.

Dataviz is having a sale on Documents To Go for Android, selling it for only $9.99 until the 50,000th app has been sold. The bottom of their Android Market listing says:

HURRY SALE ENDS WHEN WE HIT 50,000 ORDERS & WE’RE CLOSE! (Reg: $29.99)

I’m not sure exactly how close they are but if you’re considering this app, I suggest you buy it now and if necessary, return it within 24 hours. Those who refuse to make an impulse buy will be happy to know the company currently has a special on their Android app that sets the price at $14.99 until February 28th, 2010 0 so even if the $9.99 special runs out you’ll still be able to get the app for half price until the end of the month.

[Via Dataviz & Android Market]

Engadget is having their 2009 Engadget Awards and Android is making a case in many categories. Unfortunately, for bothh Gadget of The Year and Smartphone Of The Year the Motorola Droid is 2nd to the iPhone 3GS – BLEH! Time to rally the troops!

Head on over to Engadget 2009 Awards and VOTE FOR THE DROID wherever you see it present. Show your Android love and lets see if we can move the needle at all. Interesting sidenote: the Droid is DOMINATING for GPS Device of the year – pretty awesome considering its a phone!

I don’t usually make these types of posts but hey – Jason mailed me and requested we pool together the Android love and I couldn’t resist the idea. Thanks Jason!

There have been a BUNCH of Motorola Milestone updates over the past several days/weeks and the phone is definitely getting some nice… mileage. It’s launched in new places, gotten updates and much more. We wanted to keep you up to pace with the Motorola Droid’s twin brother so here goes nothing.

Milestone Launching On TELUS February 18th
It looks like TELUS customers only have a couple short weeks until the Motorola Milestone lands in their part of town! TELUS themselves didn’t “tell us” (see what I did there?) but BestBuy had no problem blurting something out on their website:

This also means that folks with AT&T could unlock the device and essentially get a 3G capable Droid on their carrier of choice. (Via BestBuy)

Manitoba And Sasketchawan Get SasketchaScrewed
Aren’t you happy that the Milestone is coming to Canada? If you live in Manitoba or Sasketchawan you can SHUT UP! Just like happened with the iPhone, TELUS network can’t support these areas with good enough coverage, or something. Bottom line – you can’t get the Milestone if you live in either of these places. BOOOOOOO! [Via IntoMobile]

European Milestone’s Get Android 2.0.1
Users in at least Germany, France and Italy are now able to update their Motorola Milestone to Android version 2.0.1 and if you don’t have it through an OTA update yet, can do so manually through the Motorola website. For instructions, see the unwired article with details and a walkthrough!

Milestone Lands In Taiwan
If you live in Taiwan you can rejoice – the first ever Android 2.0 phone is now available in your country and as you probably didn’t have to guess, it is the Motorola Milestone! The carrier for this one is Taiwan Mobile – enjoy! [Via Digitimes]

Anything Else?
All you phandroids with your ears to the streets and hands on your Stones for Miles (get your mind out of the gutter, I was playing with words), any Milestone updates you have either big or small?

Look at the below leaked T-Mobile 1st Quarter Roadmap and notice that Sony Ericsson is misspelled as “Sony Ericcson” while Motorola is referred to as MOT instead of the typical MOTO. Simple mistaked in an official document or typos by a stupid and careless photoshop prankster?

Considering the MyTouch 1.2 with 3.5mm headset jack isn’t listed, it isn’t looking good, but I figured I would pass this along just in case. The interesting thing on this slide is the Motorola CLIQ XT which seems to be a non-keyboard version of the CLIQ. Probably fake but interesting nonetheless.

I was also expecting a bit more Android from T-MO between now and the end of March but… we’ll see. What do you think: real or fake? Or maybe we should just ask if anyone actually thinks this is real?

[Via PPCGeeks]

The folks at T-Mobile might be looking to extend the MyTouch brand they’ve built thus far as TMO Today tipsters are saying the rumored HTC Espresso will launch with the name T-Mobile MyTouch 2.

First came the MyTouch 3G, then the MyTouch 3G Fender Edition and now we’re rumored to have the MyTouch 3G 1.2 and the MyTouch 2. That whole “3G” thing makes it sound like the MyTouch 2 is a previous version in some ways… it just sounds weird. But we get the point.

The phone is essentially the HTC Hero with an added slideout QWERTY keyboard and I have to say, I think that keyboard looks delicious. Four rows, too! It doesn’t have any hardware improvements compared to the Hero but that’s a very capable phone for the price, is it not? I can see a lot of people like this.

Maybe they should call it the T-Mobile MyType 3G? I first that.

Is this a real, official Orange document? Or is it a clever Photoshop job? I’ll let you be the judge, but hopefully it is official..

The Bravo is coming soon and according to this screen shot to Orange, although that is not yet confirmed. Its specs rival the Nexus One just with the optical trackpad instead of the trackball.

1GHz Snapdragon CPU

3.7″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with WVGA resolution (480 x 800)

5MP camera

Wi-Fi

GPS

HSDPA

HSUPA

Looks great if this is legit, but if not, hopefully the official release information is around the corner!

[Via CoolSmartPhone]

When I heard the Nexus One Car Dock accessory was coming I wasn’t at all surprised – the Motorola Droid had the same thing and it became necessary since Google Navigation was featured on Android 2.o. But I just watched the Nexus One: Day One video and… guess what was spotted in it? The Nexus One Car Dock:

That isn’t ANYTHING like I expected. At first glance I thought that metal rod had a different phone – not the Nexus One – attached to it. But after closer examination it seems the Nexus One Car Dock features a suction cup on one end, a swiveling Metal Rod that moves in any direction connected to it, with a “frame” on the other end to which the Nexus One “snaps” in.

I’m hoping the suction works well and frame holds the phone sturdily. It also appears as if the metal rod MIGHT be telescopic, allowing you to pull the nav unit closer towards you or push it further away, depending on the preferences of the driver and the specific vehicle. I really like that idea/concept.

Here is the video – fast forward to 1 minute and 9 seconds in to see the glimpse screen-shotted above:

So Google… when can I buy this, buddies?

We’ve finally got Episode 5 – the final of a five part series on the making of the Nexus One (view them all here). This one is called “Nexus One: Day One” and pretty much just acts as a 2-minute “Day In The Life Of” type of commercial:

In many ways, you could view this as the “extended play”, Nexus One version of Google’s Parisian Love commercial that aired during the SuperBowl. Very similar style and they’ve made a bunch more of these for their search team. Did they purposefully follow in the footsteps of that ad?

Personally, I would have loved to see the Nexus One commercial air rather than the Google Search commercial but I liked the Parisian Love one more than the Nexus One Day One spot.

PS: Have you used all the apps/features seen in this video? Can you name them all? (Shouldn’t be too hard)

Inbrics has announced the launch of their Android based MID M1 at next week’s MWC in Barcelona. Inbrics hopes the M1 will serve as a media controller for other devices as well so that users can share photos, music, movies and more. It boasts the following:

• 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen display
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard with separate number row.
• Wi-Fi
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• 3G or WiMAX
• 3-megapixel camera
• Front-facing VGA camera
• 16GB of internal memory
• microSD card slot.

Seems like an interesting concept to be able to control other devices from your mobile phone. If this is the beginning of what is to come from this year’s MWC, we should see a bunch of industry firsts and improvements. We will keep you updated on the MWC launch and other news. Inbrics plans to introduce the MID M1 in Europe in 2010 or early 2011. Is this the device you’ve been waiting for? If so, looks like you will be waiting for a bit longer.

[via PocketLint]

HTC’s Legend is looking pretty sweet! No official device info is out there but there are some of the rumored info we’ve already told you about. Engadget’s photos, shown below, show the Legend with the older look of the HTC Sense. The HTC Legend features a chrome logo with an aluminum shell and the new optical trackpad. Check out the photos and let us know what you think of the new HTC look.

[via Engadget]

HTC Dream users have been reporting that those who have not updated to the most recent mandatory upgrade have had their phone services cut off. Apparently, those with the old OS attempting to make a call are automatically rerouted to Rogers Customer Service and asked to apply the update. Once applied and updated, Rogers Customer Service reps are reporting that voice service will be re-activated but data can take up to 24-hours.

When Rogers sent out the 911 software fix stated it was mandatory fix and were instructed to get the update via http://www.rogers.com/dreamsoftwareupdate. Have any of our Rogers readers who have a Dream had any of these issues?

[via MobileSyrup]

The Acer’s Liquid A1 device has been smashing company predictions and expects its smartphone sales to total around 2 to 3 million units this year, according to Gianfranco Lanci, president of the Taipei-based company.

Acer expects to ship at least 250,000 Liquid handsets by the end of this quarter, which is way ahead of the initial expectations of 150,000 to 200,000. “Liquid is doing much better than our expectation,” Lanci said in an interview “This is why we’re a little bit short of supply.”

Seems like Acer has been doing well for themselves, does anyone prefer the Liquid A1 and Acer’s UI in comparison to some of the competitors out there? It will be interesting to see if Acer continues to supersede their predictions. Check out the rest of the interview with Gianfranco Lanci at Business Week.

[via BusinessWeek]

Last week we heard that Motorola invested in ScanLife/ScanBuy. Now we’re hearing about ANOTHING investment with ANOTHER application developer with a heavy foot in the Android door. In a press release published today, Motorola announced their investment in TuneWiki.

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We first wrote about TuneWiki way back on May 10th, 2008 on our post about the ADC Round 1 winners. They’ve come a LONG way since then and are now one of the most popular applications on Android Market.

Not too long ago Motorola was considered to be selling its handset division. Now, not only is their handset division doing well, they’re investing in related company’s on the software side to strengthen their position in mobile.

Here is the full press release:

Motorola Ventures Leads Financing for TuneWiki
February 08, 2010

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. and TEL AVIV, Israel – Feb. 8, 2010 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), through its strategic investment arm, Motorola Ventures, today announced a strategic investment in TuneWiki Ltd., the award-winning provider of next-generation social media music players and related applications. Motorola acted as lead investor and was joined by new investors Intellect Capital Ventures, a venture fund initiative of TeliaSonera, the leading Nordic Telecommunications operator, managed by Intellect Partners, as well as HillsVen Capital, LLC and Novel TMT. TuneWiki’s previous venture capital investor, Benchmark Israel, also participated in the round.

TuneWiki will use the investment to expand and enhance its product offerings for leading mobile platforms and the Internet. The company’s upcoming releases will take further advantage of platform capabilities and new features found in recently released smartphones, including stronger CPUs, always-connected capabilities, larger displays and high-resolution screens. TuneWiki will continue to focus on the use of song lyrics in new and exciting ways that connect music fans around the world with new products, including an upcoming mobile game.

“Music is rapidly emerging as a key feature for smartphones, and TuneWiki is changing the experience of listening to music from a solitary experience to a social one,” said Reese Schroeder, managing director of Motorola Ventures. “We believe that TuneWiki has developed an innovative interactive social media player that can dramatically change the way people will listen to and interact with music.”

“Teaming up with a global company like Motorola is very exciting for us,” said Rani Cohen, CEO of TuneWiki. “We are passionate about connecting people through music, and having our applications running in many countries with different languages will allow our users to explore the world of music and better understand its meaning as part of a vibrant and engaged community.”

Very exciting; congratulations to both TuneWiki and Motorola.