Of course, you can keep the current terms of your contract so long as you don’t buy a subsidized phone. Which puts me in something of a conundrum: I’m the (mostly) happy owner of a Galaxy Nexus, and as previously discussed, it doesn’t look like Verizon has any intention of releasing a device that meets or beats it before the new policy goes into effect this summer.

Now as it happens, I’ve been eligible for a discounted phone since April (because I bought my Nexus from Verizon outright) and have just been waiting for a worthy and hack-friendly Verizon device to come along. Which hasn’t happened, and unless the Galaxy S III gets here before July, probably won’t. So here’s what I did:

I bought an iPhone.

“What?” you ask, “You? The man who swore up and down that the only thing that makes the iPad more worthy than its Android competitors is the data plan? The man who takes every opportunity to poke fun at Apple, its hardware and its customers? You, who by your own admission are as rabid an Android fanboy as has ever walked under the living sky?”

Yup. Here’s why: if you’re grandfathered into unlimited data, you can renew your contract right now and get and get a subsidized phone without losing unlimited, even if you’re upgrading from a 3G phone to an LTE phone. You can even score a pretty sweet $30 unlimited tethering plan. I don’t know if Verizon will come out with a worthy high-end Android phone before the new policy goes into effect, and we’d certainly tell you if we did. So I decided not to take chances and grab the discount now.

So why did I pick an iPhone? Simple: Apple products have an almost mythical ability to retain their value, and a brand new one in its original packaging can sell for nearly 90% of the retail price. It’s unfair, perhaps, but Android devices just can’t keep up. So I bought an iPhone 4S 16GB at a Verizon store, then without even opening the box, told them to re-activate the line on my Nexus. Bingo bango, I’d just spent $200 to get a device that’s worth $550 or more at street value – and my unlimited data is safe for another two years.

I put that sucker on eBay as soon as I got home, and it was claimed in a matter of hours. Now I’m $350 in pocket, with a Verizon unlimited contract that’s untouchable for another two years. Yes, I’ll have to spend extra money on the next Verizon phone I get. Between my unlimited plan and the remote location of most of my family, switching carriers really isn’t an option. But with contract-free prices of high-end devices hovering at around $650 on Verizon, the full price of that phone minus the $350 I just “made” probably won’t be any more than the upgrade price would have been anyway, at least at the time that the phone comes out.

This isn’t an ideal move for a lot of reasons. You’ve got to be 1) a grandfathered unlimited customer with 2) an expired contract or one that’s set to expire very soon and 3) have an Android phone you don’t mind hanging on to until the next big thing comes along. I’d still recommend waiting until just before the new policy goes into effect, just in case there’s a phone you really want that we haven’t heard of. But for those who, like me, are absolutely committed to keeping an unlimited Verizon 4G LTE account, I think it’s a pretty good solution.

I first saw this story on our sister site SlashGear this morning, and figured I’d see what the Android Community thought of the situation. This morning EA Mobile started sending out a message to those who’ve purchased and played their popular Rock band game saying this: “Dear Rockers, On May 31st, ROCK BAND will no longer be playable on your device. Thanks for rocking out with us!”

Basically the game has made them TONS of money over the past two years since being released on iOS, and they’ve since came out with newer and better games and are now leaving the original in the dust. Apparently they’ll be shutting down the servers and users will no longer have access to the music required to play the game — and the app will most likely disappear from the app store. Thankfully on Android I have Titanium Backup, or Astro App backup and can save these types of apps from shady developers for later use, even though that won’t help the server side.

The Consumerist, in their last annual awards show awarded EA Sports for being The Worst Company in America. Whether I agree with that or not, this is a pretty bad situation. I love their games, I love Madden on Xbox and Android, I love Crysis, but this story made me pretty angry. We never get updates for our apps to begin with, and now if they start pulling them at will I have a feeling they’ll be in for a world of hurt.

Basically what this all comes down to is you don’t own your apps or games on Android or iOS, you are licensed to use them until the developer says otherwise. I think I’ll be uninstalling Madden 12 right about now and probably won’t pay for 2013 either.

Thoughts on the situation? Can you imagine if everyone who paid for Angry Birds suddenly couldn’t play?

T-Mobile is offering $50 dollars towards any 4G smartphone if you trade in whatever old phone you’re using or have laying in the closet. Even better is the smartphone deal. They’ll give you at least $100 for any Windows, Android, BlackBerry or Symbian device and even more if you toss in that old iPhone of yours. Here’s an easy guide courtesy of T-Mobile:

They’ll take whatever old iPhone you have and give you $200 towards a brand new 4G phone like the extremely impressive HTC One S available tomorrow. In case you forgot the One S will be available tomorrow for $199, making it completely free if you trade in that old iPhone and sign a new 2-year contract with T-Mobile. Be sure to read our HTC One S review so you know you’ll be getting a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, and an awesome 4.3″ qHD screen if you decide to bite on this deal.

T-Mobile has multiple impressive 4G phones like the upcoming One S, the HTC Amaze 4G, and even the Galaxy S II so you’ll want to head to your nearest store for all the details – or feel free to just click here. Who will be getting the HTC One S or one of the phones listed below tomorrow?

Update: We reached out to T-Mobile to clarify how this all works and this was what we received in return. “Functioning eligible smartphone and 2-yr agreement on qualifying plan required.” So as long as that old beat up iPhone still works take her in and get a brand new T-Mobile phone guys.

According to FOSS Patents multiple members from both sides, including CEO’s have agreed to a sit down. During so they will attempt to come up with some sort of agreement, settlement, or at least peace talks. With lawyers on hand, and a magistrate judge to oversee the discussions, and hopefully come up with some solutions within 90 days. Sadly this all started when Apple accused Samsung of copying the iPhone with the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, and things have only got worse from there. Fighting to remove each others products from shelves, and Samsung even redesigned their tablets for multiple markets because of the situation. Previous reports suggested Apple would end the lawsuits if Samsung would agree to pay them a certain amount per device sold, but that didn’t end well.

Obviously this is still an iffy subject, and everything about the meeting still has legal implications but the fact that both sides are apparently “willing to participate” in the sit down we could be headed for some smooth(er) sailing in the near future. For more details on anything we’ve mentioned above hit the various links from the timeline below.

[via SlashGear]

Yes ladies and gentlemen, there are iPhone owners, and apparently lots of them, who think that Instagram has been “ruined” by the sudden influx of Android. A running theme on their Twitter complaints seems to be “ew, people with no artistic sense will be able to follow me!” Some are tweeting with the hashtag #teamiPhone, echoing the pop culture battle between Twilight readers that is, like, so 2009. Even less tactful posts seem to imply that Android users are poor, despite one of the most popular iPhone models being AT&T’s free 3GS. For a smattering of retweeted iPhone complaints, you can check out this brand-new and very NSFW Twitter account (warning: tact, taste and basic language skills may not be present).

Why all the hatred? Well, one of Instagram’s founding principles is that you can only post to the service from your phone or mobile device… which, until today, only included Apple hardware. It seems that this isolation has given some Instragram users a sense of artistic entitlement brought on by owning a piece of glass and plastic that millions of others do as well. To be fair, there’s plenty of iPhone users out there who aren’t twenty-something elitist jerks… but by the look of popular social networks,  most of them don’t use Instagram. You stay classy, Apple fans.

Inside the “Celebrities Smartphone Experience Store” you can of course buy Android phones and accessories. But there’s a nasty surprise for anyone expecting a little slice of green-tinted heaven: half the store is dedicated to iPhones, accessories and other Apple products, That’s not exactly surprising – small stores like this all over the world cram a relatively wide selection of mobile detritus on every open space – but the targeted branding seems a little strange if they’re going to let just anybody in.

The tiny store reminds us of “Androidland“, Australian carrier Telus’ heavily branded mini-store in their premiere Melbourne retail location. But not much. Aside from the exterior and some admittedly nice lighting on the inside, it could be any one of a hundred thousand independent phone resellers across the globe. The shop has dozen, perhaps hundreds of Android phones on display, some of which are inside the Apple case next to grey-market iPhones. In at lest some display of possibly accidental brand loyalty, HTC gets a case all to itself.

[via The Register]

For some unknown reason this game has achieved a huge level of success being the top free and grossing app for iOS in January and passing over 40 million downloads. The wait for this game to hit Android has been a long one but I can happy say that Android will be running from Monkeys and enjoying Temple Run come March 27th and it will be completely free.

Here is what Co-founder Keith Sheperd had to say:

We are excited to finally share the Android release date with our fans who have been so enthusiastic and supportive of Temple Run. By expanding to more mobile devices, we hope to provide the same addictive and fast-paced gameplay to an entirely new group of players.

So that’s it guys. No more rumors or suggestions of a February 9th launch or whatever the rumor was that had everyone up in arms. This comes from Imangi Studios themselves and remember, if you see Temple Run in the Android Market before March 27th most likely it’s a fake as we’ve seen a few of those the past couple of weeks.

Who’s excited for Temple Run on Android? I know I am!

The technology behind these seals has been available for years. They’re impressive, no doubt: basically, the system coats a phone or tablet with a near-invisible compound that can block out almost any liquid and moisture. It can repel several meters of water pressure for extended periods of time, making an accidental dunk in a tub or sink a non-issue. Liquipel’s coating technology penetrates into the device itself to cover all interior components as well: their demonstration below shows an HTC ThunderBolt running submerged with the battery cover off, as water trickles into contact with the protected mainboard and other components.

How likely is this rumor? Well it’s certainly not impossible. Liquipel currently offers its coating technology directly to consumers via a mail-in program, charging between $60 and $80 per device. Partnering with a huge company like Samsung or Apple could cut their per-device cost down to a couple of dollars, while adding a huge amount of value for end users. I’d honestly be surprised to see Apple adopt this – they tend to have a wait-and-see approach, never adding a feature if they don’t need to (case in point: the original 2G iPhone). But Samsung might add it to their flagship as yet another differentiation versus Apple.

All this is extremely speculative at the moment; just about the only thing we know for sure about the Galaxy S III is that it won’t shoe up at Mobile World Congress in late February. I’ve been hoping that someone would use one of these waterproofing processes on a mainstream device for a while now. Samsung, are you up to the challenge?

[via Cult of Android]

This game has picked up plenty of traction lately and not just on mobile. It’s currently available on Xbox live and even offered as a PC game so we are getting some intense graphics and awesome gameplay here. Obviously it wont look as it does on the PC side of things but the graphics are rather impressive for Android.

If you are a fan of “tower” type games you’ll want to check this out. It has received its fair share of awards such as Best Mobile Strategy Game from IGN and more from other mobile gaming sites. If the title doesn’t make things clear — this is the opposite of tower defense. Instead you’ll be on the offense throwing waves and waves of tanks into battle and hoping for the best. It’s all about strategy and choosing the right route, squad, and weapons.

Anomaly Warzone Earth HD offers excellent gameplay, an immersive story-like campaign and great graphics to seal the deal. If any of this interests you it’s available today from the Android Market starting at $3.99 so head down to the link after the video below and give it a try. Some are reporting the additional download wont start — give it a try and let us know in the comments below what you think.

Market Link

[via Anomalythegame Blog] — Thanks MarK

What caused this drop in enthusiasm? Without a doubt, it was Apple’s release of the iPhone 4S on October 14th. Though Android presents cutting-edge hardware from various manufacturers basically year-round, Apple fans get only one phone release a year, and 2011′s iPhone 5 4S was off the summer release schedule by several months. Though the 4S hardware is a modest update at best, the addition of a new US carrier, support for HSPA+ (late to the party, as usual) and Siri all made for a considerable showing for late 2011.

The Nielsen numbers don’t reflect total sales or marketshare, where Android soundly beats iOS in every market. In places like the UK and most of Asia, Android still outsells all iPhone models nearly two to one. Both platforms continue to grow in both total numbers and smartphone marketshare as RIM’s Blackkberry and Windows Phone shrink. That said, with Android and iOS’ combined smartphone share reaching towards 85%, one wonders where the saturation point is – soon enough, it’ll be a true duopoly. Then both operating systems will have no one but each other to take users from.

[via TechCrunch]

The Android app for Facebook has 58.3 million active daily users compared to the iPhone app having 57.4 million active users. This data comes from the AppData tracking service. Apparently, Android is growing very quickly with Facebook users too.

The app is said to be getting 550,000 activations per day. Timeline was also available on the Android app before iPhone app showing that Facebook may be favoring Android with updates coming to it first. It’s worth noting that when you look at an entire month, the iPhone app is still ahead with 99.1 million monthly active users compared to Android getting 85.4 million users monthly.

[via TechCrunch]

The 90-second ad is mostly about the phones’ respective cameras: both shoot 8 megapixel stills and 1080p video. T-Mobile argues in favor of the Amaze 4G, with arguments about panoramic views, face recognition and sports-friendly burst modes. And 8-bit robot samurai fists. You can probably guess who emerges victorious, but if you’re in suspense, check out the video embedded below:

Even as a rabid Android supporter, it’s hard to deny that the cameras in the iPhone 4 and 4S are impressive. But as our own Amaze 4G review states, the Android competition is fast catching up, and the Amaze 4G meets or beats just about every Android phone we’ve tested as far as camera quality goes. Better than the iPhone? Well.. no. But given the extra features and the lack of iPhone availability on T-Mobile, it’s definitely the best you can get on the carrier.

For even more iPhone-bashing ads, check out Samsung’s awesome Galaxy S II spot and T-Mobile’s previous efforts poking fun at Apple’s ubiquitous format.

It isn’t overly likely that the ban will be put into place. For one, Motorola would need to post a 100 million Euro bond if it wants to hold up the sales injunction. Moreover, these decisions are often overturned on appeal, as we saw with Apple’s case against Samsung in Australia. But weaknesses in Apple’s historically crack legal team are starting to show: the sales injunction against Samsung in Australia was overturned, the company failed to secure an injunction against the same company in the US, and now Motorola’s found a weakness in their patent portfolio in Germany, where a sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is still in place. When Samsung introduced a revised Galaxy 10.1N model, specifically designed to avoid infringement on Apple’s patents, Apple promptly filed suit on the new version.

I’m a die-hard Android fanboy, but that doesn’t mean I want Germans, or anyone for that matter, to be denied the choice of Apple products. The worldwide patent wars are getting ridiculous – IPCom, considered a patent troll even by corporate standards, has won a preliminary injunction against HTC that could force the company to exit Germany completely. There’s clearly something rotten in Deutschland when it comes to the world of intellectual property, and in the end consumers get the raw deal. If anything positive comes out of all this, it’ll be that Apple begins to think twice about firing patent lawsuits from the hip. It’s likely that if they can’t get today’s German ruling overturned, the case will be settled with Apple licensing the relevant patent from Motorola for lots (and lots and lots) of money.

[via SlashGear]

Overall Consumer Reports’ review was actually quite positive, citing that the iPhone 4S and the newer model of the iPhone 4 both outscored their previous incarnations, largely on strong battery life and the novelty of Siri. But they simply couldn’t recommend the iPhone over three recent Android phones: the Galaxy S II, DROID BIONIC and the LG Thrill. The larger screens on the Android phones, especially those that used Super AMOLED displays, were lauded in particular. Consumer Reports isn’t exactly the go-to place for electronics reviews, but many Americans and worldwide readers won’t make a major purchase without their seal of approval.

To be fair, Apple isn’t behind in every category. Though Samsung is outselling them on the worldwide stage and HTC is winning on the American home turf, Apple still pulls in more profits than just about anybody, and their customers are fiercely loyal to the company and the iOS platform. But with Android competing from dozens of major manufacturers, in every market and price point, the veneer on those shiny iPhones is definitely beginning to peel. Time to give those lawyers another run at your competitors, eh, Cupertino?

AT&T has released the results for Q3 and talks a bit about the iPhone and Android devices in with the usual profit numbers. AT&T notes that the iPhone was its most popular smartphone with 2.7 million activations during the quarter. That counts up to more activations than all other devices combines. However, AT&T also notes that the iPhone and Android together were almost half of its total 4.8 million smartphones sold.

Android is also catching up to the iPhone quickly on the network with sales of the Android devices on the network nearly doubling year over year. AT&T postpaid customers are now using more smartphones than dumb phones for the first time. AT&T reports a total of 68.6 million postpaid subscribers and 52.6% of that number is smartphone users. In the same quarter last year, only 39.1% of all users on the network were rocking smartphones.

[via SlashGear]

Ballmer said, “You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone and you do to use and Android phone…It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones.”

While Ballmer blasts Android for usability, he is more forgiving on the iPhone and Apple in general calling the company “a good competitor” and especially praising the new Siri assistant feature on the iPhone 4S. Despite heaping a bit of praise on Apple, Ballmer still maintains that the Windows Phones are better than both Android and iPhone offerings.

He claims that Windows Phone is much better than the competition at putting the user’s information front and center. According to Ballmer with Windows Phone, you don’t have to go through icons and pages to find the information users want.

“Both [an iPhone and a Windows phone] are going to feel very good in your hand and both going to look very beautiful physically…. but when you grab a Windows phone and use it… your information is front and centre… and you don’t have to scroll through seas of icons and blah blah blah.”

“A Windows phone gets things done.”

[via SlashGear]

We give Apple a lot of grief here for outdated software, lackluster hardware, litigating for a monopoly, designing form over function, needlessly restricting their App Store, engineered obsolescence, hyperbolic marketing and… where was I? Oh yes, despite all that, Apple makes a fine-looking phone operating system. Many have tried and mostly failed to emulate the shiny, glossy look of iOS on Android, with possibly the best example being the custom ROM MIUI. If you’re not quite ready to take the flashing step, consider the new Espier Launcher, which will let you ape Apple’s darling design without lowering yourself to last year’s hardware.

Espier has been in development for some time, but now it’s available via a free download on the Android Market fore anyone running Froyo or later. The custom launcher app replicates the iPhone homescreen almost exactly, displaying 4×4 grids of apps and not much else. You can pin apps to the dock or bunch them up into iOS 4 folders, or if you need to search and can’t bring yourself to hit the nearest capacitive button, just slide over to the left. All joking aside, it’s an impressive achievement, and there are worse (and certainly uglier) ways to get your homescreen on.

Notably absent are any sort of widgets, resizing or many display options, but if iOS is your bag that’s part of the draw. There’s no app drawer because, well, they’re all right there, and the standard Android notification bar makes sure you won’t miss any alerts. Check it out in the Android Market before Apple stars launching their air-to-ground lawyers, and while you’re there, check out some other apps that have been performing iOS’s innovative “new” features for years.

[via Lifehacker]

That’s a steep decline from current Apple users. 44% of iPhone 3 and 3GS owners said they’d buy the new phone, while a surprising 42% of iPhone 4 owners said they’d spring for the modest upgrade. Keep in mind, nearly all iPhone 4 owners will be paying full price for the 4S, since they’re at most about 16 months into a 24 month cellular contract. What’s even more surprising is that only 24% of Blackberry users said they’d buy a new iPhone, despite RIM positively bleeding marketshare in the last few months – no points for guessing where the rest are probably going.

In other news, the iPhone 4S’s lack of true 4G connections is a major disappointment. Over 70% of smartphone owners and 50% of iPhone owners lamented the lack of LTE in the new model. The iPhone 4S will feature an HSPA+ radio, achieving speeds which AT&T has been advertising as “4G”, but it won’t be able to connect to the faster LTE network on Verizon or AT&T. That’s a pretty typical move for Apple – remember that the original iPhone launched with EDGE amidst a sea of 3G smartphones and featurephones.

There’s no denying that the iPhone 4S will sell a boatload of units, but as with previous generations, it’s mostly selling to the Apple faithful. Expect a larger turnaround when the true iPhone 5 appears next year – of course, by then Android phones will be even further ahead in specifications and market share.

[via eWeek]

The first is Vlingo Virtual Assistant, which is a free app with ads or $2 to remove the ads. It has more than a million downloads and the app is one of the best by some accounts. You can voice dial with the app, send texts, and emails as well as conduct local search. Sonalight Text by Voice is the next app and it will cost you $20 per year. It lets you text using your voice and reads them back to you too.

Google Voice Search/actions is the next on the list and it is free. You can access this by clicking the mic button on the keyboard. The fourth choice is Edwin, Speech-to-Speech. This gives you voice control for different features and you can ask it odd questions since it works with Wolfram Alpha. It is free as well. The last is Speaktoit Assistant, also free. This app is like Vlingo in functionality and has an avatar on screen you talk to.

[via ExtremeTech]

According to reports, the line in front of the Samsung store is longer than the line in front of the iPhone store. I’m surprised that fights between the Android geeks and the iPhone 4S geeks didn’t break out. There was a catch to the smoking good Samsung deal though. There are only ten of the Galaxy S II smartphones offered at the bargain price each day.

Apparently, the Samsung store is up and running until this Friday and then it will close. You had better count the folks that are in line to be sure you need to stand around at all if you want one of the smartphones. The iPhone 4S will go on sale in Australia this Friday so the Samsung store is closing as the iPhone 4S gets ready to start selling.

[via SlashGear]