We knew this day was on the horizon, but today Verizon made this Thursday the official launch day for Skype Mobile through an announcement at CTIA in Vegas.  Here are some of the details…

Beginning Thursday, new and existing Verizon Wireless customers with Android 3G smartphones and BlackBerry 3G smartphones can get Skype mobile in a number of ways.  Visit www.verizonwireless.com/skypemobile or www.skype.com/go/mobile from a PC to enter the mobile phone number to receive a text message with a link to the application.  Verizon Wireless customers can also text “SKYPE” to 2255 to receive the link.  In addition, Android customers will be able to download the app from Android Market™.  New BlackBerry customers will find the application on their 3G smartphones’ home screens in the Downloads folder when activate

And some of the uses…

Skype mobile gives Verizon Wireless 3G smartphone users with data plans a simple new way to stay in touch with friends, family and business colleagues around the corner and around the world while on Verizon Wireless’ network.  Skype mobile users can:

• make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any Skype contact around the globe;
• send and receive unlimited instant messages with other Skype users;
• manage the Skype contact list directly from the mobile application; and
• call international phone numbers at competitive Skype calling rates.

I’m actually pretty excited to test this out, especially now that some of my friends have joined the 21st century by purchasing smart phones.  Anyone else?

Wanted to introduce all of the rooted users out there to another screen shot application which is available for free on the market called ShootMe.  This is a great alternative to Dropcap2 which seems to be the screen cap app most rooted users prefer.  I actually have found ShootMe to be much faster while taking equally as nice of pictures.

You can take screenies using 2 different methods:  shake and shout.  Really all you have to do is either shake your phone and it’ll snap one or you can yell into the microphone.  Can it get any simpler?

Download…

Download Link

One of the things I enjoy most about my Milestone is the e-mail syncing; coming from a “dumb” phone, having it both takes all the fun out of booting up my e-mail client on my computer and made me more productive. However, when it comes to the Droid, we’re left with a split decision, so to speak: I use two different stock apps, “E-mail” and “Gmail” to manage my messages.

It’s not like I’m forced to choose from one or the other – you can add Gmail accounts to the “E-mail” app (which I primarily use for IMAP accounts). However, when you initially add Gmail accounts to your Android phone, they’re handled by “Gmail” by default.

This presents a little bit of a conundrum. Both apps do their job well and in some cases (having my “work” e-mails on “E-mail” and my personal ones on “Gmail”) it’s even beneficial. However, is it too much to ask to have one client for all your mail? Are there any apps that do it better than the default “E-mail” app?

Enter SEVEN.

Normally when you get tipped off to update rumors, you tend to turn the other way as to not get too excited over something that is likely about 5% true, but when you get it from multiple people in just a short amount of time, you start diggin’ deeper.

So this is what we’ve got…

• As we all know now, last week’s set of 1,000 test updates did not go so well, but we’re hearing now that it was worse than originally thought.  In fact, our source claims that almost 75% of those sent out actually bricked the phones.  Also, the reason that none of us actually know anyone in that test group, was simply because they tested it on VZW employees only.
• This week, all signs point to Big Red attacking again with another 1,000 updates starting Wednesday (3/24).  If all goes well, they will roll out the 200,000 per day batches on Friday and for the next few days after until finished.
• And while everyone is usually pretty quick to dismiss Moto or VZW reps, here is a little added confirmation we received from Motorola this morning:

Kell B: Hey Leandro! Just wondering if I’ll be receiving the Android 2.1 update on my Droid this Wednesday or Friday?

Leandro P.: Let me help you with this

Leandro P.: The Android 2.1 upgrade for Droid by Motorola is being deployed to a small number of Verizon Wireless test users. It is expected that the broader phased rollout to all Droid users will begin shortly thereafter. But we do not know when you will be receiving the update.

Kell B: So this Wednesday it will go out to a small number?

Leandro P.: Yes, it will not be sent to all of the users at once.

Kell B: Thats good to know. I hope this test goes better than last week’s!

Leandro P.: We all hope so.

So does this mean we let Bitfone off the hook now?  If it’s bricking phones, does that mean they are attempting to mess with the bootloader which would mean no more rooting?  Interesting stuff for sure.

Everyone cross their fingers that Wednesday’s batch goes as planned and we should be swimming in 2.1 by this weekend or early next week.  Or as Leandro so eloquently put it, “We all hope so.”

(Photo via PCMag)

You ready for what might be the coolest alternative music player on the Android market?  From the developer who brought you RockOn comes Cubed, a music app which is simple yet striking.  It loads your album art far more efficiently than the stock player and is powered by a fancy little “cube” which allows you to choose albums with a simple flick.  Oh, and the full page widget on my Nexus Live Wallpaper looks fantastic.

Download…

Download Link

Back on March 7th, we noticed that the Spanish Motorola Milestone was showing up on the official Motorola site as already having Android 2.1. This seemed odd, especially without some sort of press release or other confirmation floating around. Well we definitely have that confirmation now. Spanish wireless carrier Orange announced that it will start accepting pre-orders today for the Milestone coming pre-loaded with Android 2.1.

Madrid, March 22, 2010 – Orange will be the exclusive carrier of Motorola MILESTONE, the first mobile operating system Android equipped with 2.1 available in Spain. Motorola MILESTONE is a next generation device that is destined to become the standard in the current smartphones, thanks to its speed, usability and multifunctionality. During last year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, this terminal was one of the phones that attracted more attention among attendees.

Motorola Milestone will be available later this month. It may make a provisional booking terminal from today, March 22, exclusively through the website of Orange(www.orange.es).Users who book Milestone Motorola may acquire the terminal from 0 € *.

Of course this comes as no surprise with the amount of Android 2.1 news popping up all over the world today.  First it was Bulgaria, then Germany, Hong Kong and Italy, and now Spain.

On a side note, you should no longer be grumbling about our lack of OTA-ness here in the states, but simply laughing hysterically at the absurdity of it all.

Last week we asked readers if they would be interested in a Droid Life meetup and actually saw a pretty decent response rate which has the first ever Droid Life-a-thon in the works.  While that poll was pretty specific to just Portland Droid users, we also had some cool discussions going on amongst the rest of the DL readers throughout the country.  One of the ideas that came out of that poll was to put together a map of everyone’s location and I actually loved it so much that the map has officially come to life!

Here is what you do:

• Click on the “Add” button on the map and put in your city or zip code.
• From there you can either preview it to make sure it’s correct or just hit submit.
• Please do not put in your actual street address.