We've seen this coming for at least a week or two now, but for what it's worth, Motorola has now made it official that the CLIQ and CLIQ XT won't be seeing upgrades to Android 2.1 in the second quarter of the year (which ends today) as had been previously promised. That's certainly a bummer, especially considering that the devices run Cupcake, which is -- at this point, anyway -- a truly ancient iteration of the platform that many modern, popular Android apps don't even support (Donut seems to be a pretty popular cut-off point). So, when is it coming now? Hard to say; all Moto's saying is that it'll happen "as soon as possible" and that it's going to "take more time on the release to optimize the experience in some key areas." Droid X, anyone?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola pushes back Android 2.1 update for CLIQ, CLIQ XT originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We'll get right to the point: the Facebook app for your iPhone / iPod touch is now drinking the iOS 4 Kool-Aid. Fast app switching, high resolution icons (better than the one seen above, since that's pre-update), Korean / Russian localizations, and... that's about it for now. Maybe background image / video uploading is on the list of to-do's, but at least it won't look quite as pixel-deficient on the home screen next to Twitter.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Facebook for iPhone / iPod touch now iOS 4 compatible originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, we admit it, as far as Motorola's concerned hacks like us probably have no business browsing its Motodev pages, but we can't help but be a little peeved at the freestyle updates the company is making to its Milestone XT720 spec sheet. The processor hasn't changed -- it's always been a 720MHz-capable TI OMAP3440 -- but its speed rating has fluctuated between 550MHz, 720MHz exactly, and now the most enigmatic value yet: "up to" 720MHz. The RAM too has gone on a rollercoaster journey, jumping from 256MB at first, to a tasty 512MB, and now back down to a lean quarter gig. What's going on over there, too many webmasters spoiling the spec soup?

[Thanks, Marius]

Milestone XT720 spec changes again, this time for the worse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It hasn't gotten quite the attention of the iPhone 4's antenna problems or its proximity sensor troubles, but iOS 4 has caused some heartbreak for corporate users who connect to Exchange servers -- checking mail or syncing contact and calendars can stall out interminably, with no option but to restart and try again. We've definitely had this problem ourselves, but happily Apple's right on the case with this one -- iOS 4 users who need to get their Exchange on can download an updated configuration file that seems to make things better. The new settings don't seem to do much other than increase iOS 4's idle timeout, but if it works, it works -- and in our limited testing things appear to be going swimmingly. Okay, that's one -- now let's polish up the rest, shall we?

[Thanks, Paul]

Apple patches iOS 4 Exchange issue originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the news today that Microsoft has killed its troubled Kin line didn't come as the craziest of surprises, it's definitely left a lot of lingering questions about just what happened. Now we may have a little insight into what went wrong -- and what might be in store down the road -- thanks to a reliable source of ours who's shared some news on Redmond's inner turmoil.

Apparently, the troubles started long before the swirling Pink phone rumors (and way before the name Kin was ringing in our ears). According to our source, the birth of these devices began with a decision at Microsoft to create a platform agnostic, cloud-centric featurephone. A featurephone that could be had at a relatively low cost, and sold to a burgeoning market of teens and young adults who had little need for a BlackBerry-level device (or pricing). The first step in the project was acquiring Danger to leverage the work it had done with the Sidekick platform, and aligning with Verizon as a launch partner who could offer attractive pricing plans for the devices to a big pool... and here's where the trouble begins.

Continue reading What killed the Kin?

What killed the Kin? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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