With summer upon us,  and Verizon having acknowledged that it will carry the HTC One “later” this season, we’ve been told that stores are now running promos for sales reps to move remaining inventory of the DROID DNA and Incredible 4G LTE. In fact, both phones have been flagged for “close out” within the last day or so (pictured above). Once the last device is sold, stores (at least of the 3rd party variety) will no longer stock either device to make room for something new, likely the One. A firm launch date for the HTC One on Verizon has yet to be revealed. 

The U.S. unlocked HTC One in my possession received a minor update this morning to build 1.29.1540.17. As you can see from the picture, it’s only labeled as a “system enhancements,” so we’re not looking at Android 4.2.2 or a new version of Sense 5. The update weighs in at 17.55MB, and will only take a minute or two to download and install.

I was hoping that this update fixed the Accessibility-Lockscreen bug, but after testing it, there still appears to be a major issue there. So, we’re in the dark as to what this fixed.

Last night, HTC unveiled their newest flagship in Taiwan, dubbed the Butterfly S. The device is every bit as good on paper as the HTC One, but one could argue that it’s an even better phone thanks to additions in some key areas. Keep in mind that the device will likely never reach our shores, at least as the Butterfly S. You never know if we’ll see it re-branded as something else though, just like we saw last year with the J Butterfly blossoming into the DROID DNA on Verizon. 

Shortly after announcing that the “Nexus experience” edition of the HTC One would retail through Google Play for $599, HTC went ahead and raised the price of the unlocked Sense-filled version that’s available through their own shop from $575 to $599 to match. They didn’t give reason for the price hike, but one would assume they weren’t interested in selling the exact same phone at different prices, especially since the one with the lower price is the version running their own in-house team’s software. Slap in the face, a bit? 

Tomorrow, Amazon is hosting a 1-day sale that features the HTC One at some of the lowest price points we have seen to date. Both Sprint and AT&T models, in both black or white, will drop to $79.99 for new customers and $99.99 for upgrades to celebrate Father’s Day. If you were looking to make the One your partner in crime for the next two years, you may want to have credit card in hand when this deal goes live.

Update:  These deals are now live. Go get ‘em!

AT&T Links:

• HTC One in white/silver [Amazon]
• HTC One in black [Amazon]

Sprint Links:

• HTC One in white/silver [Amazon]
• HTC One in black [Amazon]

If you don’t feel like waiting until tomorrow, know that the Sprint versions can already be had for $79.99 if you are a new customer. Upgrades will run you close to $150.

Again, the sale starts on June 14.

Since day 1 with my unlocked HTC One, I have experienced issues with the lock screen of the device, and for the life of me could not figure out the problem. Well, until today, thanks to the Play store release of Floating Notifications. During the initial launch tutorial for the app, the developer made reference to an HTC Sense 5 bug that was breaking the lock screen if a user enabled any of the services under the Accessibility setting. As someone who uses a Pebble, and it’s pairing app that requires an Accessibility service to be turned on, this was the exact root to my problems. 

On Friday, both the HTC One and DROID DNA received tools that provided each device with S-OFF. Yes, finally after all these months, the DROID DNA has been conquered. There are a couple of tools available, one called Moonshine that requires Linux, and another called Revone that can be used on any operating system. Revone is still being pushed as a “developer early access preview,” so there are likely going to be bugs or issues along the way. If you don’t want to deal with potential issues, feel free to try Moonshine. If you don’t have Linux, know that we had a reader toss Ubuntu on a USB drive to use the tool and was able to finish the entire process in under 30 minutes. You can do it, young one.

Plenty of links below for each, so get to unlocking. 

If you were hoping to see HTC send out a competitor to Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 3, then you might want to get a load of this. Above is a blueprint made by a non-HTC source, showing off an alleged device supposedly known internally as the T6 and soon to hit the market in Q3 as the One Max. The device will attempt to steal the Note 3′s thunder, bringing with it a massive 5.9″ 1080p display, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at 2.3GHz, currently labeled as the “dream CPU” for any mobile device.