A new “end of life” device list appeared late yesterday afternoon and features specific dates for every major Verizon smartphone including the new Droid 2 and Droid X.  Don’t worry just yet though, the date given to both devices is 3/31/2011 which puts both out of commission about 8 months after their release. Wait really?  Seems a little early right?  The original Droid at least lasted 10 months before being taken off the market.

Speaking of the original, it is also listed, only with an 8/6/2010 date which matches up perfectly to our report almost a month ago.

Have any thoughts on seeing an “end of life” date only a few weeks after the release of your brand new phone?  We knew 4G (LTE) devices were coming and that devices have shorter lives than ever these days, but this news can’t be exciting you.  Am I right?

Source:  Phonedog

It looks like the guys over at XDA have done it again, this time rooting the Droid 2 only two weeks after it was released.  The process involves adb, a ton of commands, and a bottle of prescription pills to ease those nerves.  Apparently, the rooting procedure is similar to that on the Droid X meaning we’ll likely see a 1-touch version in no time, but until then, feel free to hit up the source link to get the file and step-by-step instructions.

It should be noted that a custom recovery is not available and custom ROMs are not around the corner.  This is a major step in that direction though.

And let us know if you have success!|

Source:  XDA Forums

Cheers Stephen!

Motorola is positioning itself to jump into the web-based applications game with their recent acquisition of 280 North, a small startup who specializes in speeding up the development such rich goodness. In a letter to TechCrunch, we are sort of given reasoning behind the acquisition.  Android.

The transaction provides Motorola with specialized web-app engineering talent and technology that will help facilitate the continued expansion of Motorola’s application ecosystem. We believe 280 North will be instrumental in helping us continue to foster the Android ecosystem with innovative web-based technologies and applications.

The key words in that quote are obviously “foster the Android ecosystem” which we can only hope means enhancements to all things Blur since we know Motorola doesn’t plan on completely abandoning it for quite some time.  Or we can also hope it means that some new miracle product will come to life which allows us to forgive them after locking down bootloader after bootloader.

Anything in particular you would like to see Moto begin working on after this purchase?

Via:  TechCrunch

When I first read this article, I gave off a little fist pump followed by a “Yeah! +1 Android!” and then 5 minutes later started to question myself on why I was so excited.  Chitika, a big dog in the online ad world, just reported that Android users are “more valuable” that i*hone users in the sense that they click on ads 81% more of the time…

In the Android vs. iPhone war for mobile supremacy, which operating system should advertisers look to target?  Online ad network Chitika looked at ad click rates across its network for the two devices and came to the conclusion that Android users are by far more valuable individually than iPhone users – people on the Android OS clicked on ads 81% more often than people on the iPhone.

So what exactly does that mean?  Are Android users less intelligent than i*hone users which would lead to them being suckered into tapping on mobile ads?  Or are Android users simply too new to the smartphone world that they are unfamiliar with ads leading them to random tappings?   What’s the deal?

All I know, is that activations of Android devices are increasing by the minute and we’ll leave that as the reason why our family is making advertisers so rich.

Source:  Chitika
Via:  TalkAndroid

It’s 8/25 and I have yet to receive an update on my original Droid or any emails from readers suggesting that the update which will take them to FRG22D Froyo and allow Flash 10.1 to be downloaded has hit theirs.  There is a “leaked” version out and about which has some controversy surrounding it, so for now we’ll be moving past it.

However, I still want to know, have any of you seen the 1.6MB update which gives you access to Flash 10.1 in the market?

Google Earth received a nice update today which allows you to dive deep into the oceans of the world and see vast crevasses which will blow your mind!  OK, that might be a stretch, but it’s still pretty cool to know that you can zoom in next to Bermuda, hit the little eyeball button and check out all of the sunken pirate ships that mysteriously vanished in the Triangle.  OK, again, pushing it, but the overall idea is still pretty entertaining.

Still free in the market.

Download:

Download Link

Source:  Google Mobile Blog

The Droid Incredible‘s stock caught up some time last week for the first time since launch and it appears to be holding strong.  We’re not sure if that is a good thing or not to tell you the truth though.  Why do I say that?  Well, because the Droid X replenishment date seems to be getting pushed back by the day and now shows “9/8″ as the next available shipping time meaning people are still willing to wait for the 4.3″ destroyer and not for its Sense-friendly brother.  While this isn’t anywhere near the delays we saw with the DI, it’s still unfortunate as it remains the top seller in the Droid family.

What is actually a little mind-boggling though, is that neither have officially received Android 2.2 yet.  (Any plans for that Big Red?)  The only devices currently with Froyo are the original Droid which can no longer be purchased and the Droid 2 which lacked any sort of campaign to push it onto people other than geeks like us.

Catching up on stock is one thing, now can we focus on at least getting these devices some up-to-date software?