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If you were gettin’ all antsy in the pantsies about yesterday’s launch of the LG Expo and it’s detachable projector accessory, you might be a bit bewildered right now. A full day later, AT&T’s still showing no sign of the handset.

WMExperts did a bit of digging, and found out that the Expo has been delayed for at least “a few days” due to shipping issues.

When this sort of stuff happens, it’s generally because a cargo ship coming from Asia had to turn around for one reason or another, or otherwise never left the port. There’s no word just yet on a new ETA for the handset – we’ll let you know if that changes.

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With Christmas looming, the post-holiday spike of app sales is just weeks away. As new iPhone owners find their way into the App Store for the first time, they’ll be looking for the best of the best to throw their money at – and Apple’s ready to cash in.

Earlier today Apple released “iTunes Rewind 2009″, a list of the top selling and most loved applications of the year.

They’ve broken things down in four ways: Best of Games, Best of Apps, Top Selling Games, and Top Selling Apps. The “Best of” categories appear to be staff picks, rather than a list of the apps with the best user ratings – which, considering that the ratings system is endlessly being gamed, is probably a good thing.

Here’s how it all worked out:

Best Selling Games of 2009:

• The Sims, EA
• The Oregon Trail, Gameloft
• Need For Speed, EA
• Madden NFL 10, EA
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour, EA
• Assassins Creed, Gameloft
• Flight Control, Firemint
• Cooking Mama, Taito
• Civilization Revolution, 2k Games
• Wheel Of Fortune, Sony
• Peggle, Popcap
• Sonic The Hedgehog, Sega
• Let’s Golf, Gameloft
• 2XL Supercross, 2XL Games
• Real Racing, Firemint
• Sally’s Spa, Games Cafe
• Stick Wars, John E. Hartzog
• Ragdoll Blaster, Backflip Studios
• Deer Hunter 3d, Glu
• Fast & Furious, I-Play
• Metal Gear Solid, Konami
• F.A.S.T, SGN
• Zenonia, Gamevil
• 3d Brick Breaker, Digital Chocolate
• Bookworm, Popcap
• Modern Combat: Sandstorm, Gameloft
• Doom Resurrection, id

As you can tell by looking at the top of the list, EA and Gameloft absolutely dominated the App Store this year. Few other developers have more than one item in the top sellers; EA and Gameloft both have 4.

Best Selling Apps of 2009:

• MobileNavigator North America, Navigon
• MBL.com at Bat, MLB
• Textfree, Pinger
• TomTom US & Canada, TomTom
• Golfshot, Shotzoom
• Slingplayer Mobile
• ColorSplash, Pocket Pixels
• PocketGod, Bolt Creative
• Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, Quickoffice
• The Moron Test, DistinctDev
• I Am T-Pain, Smule
• Red Laser, Occipital
• Camera Zoom 2, Kenditech
• AppBox Pro, ALLABOUTAPPS
• iBird Explorer, Mitch Waite
• Documents To Go, DataViz
• ViewTi Golf, ViewTi
• Emoji Icons, SpiceLoop
• AIM, AOL
• Weather Channel Max, Weather Channel Interactive
• Wolfenstein 3d, ID
• PicFree, Pinger
• Proloquo 2 Go, AssistiveWare
• CNN Mobile, CNN
• Camera Genius, CodeGoo
• MotionX GPS Drive, MotionX
• FlightTrack Pro, Mobiata
• Family Guy, Fox Mobile
• iSoda, Hottrix
• ESPN Radio, ESPN

Unlike the Top Games list, there aren’t any repeat winners here. It appears that we’re looking at the top grossing apps, not necessarily the apps that sold the most units. Note the appearance of Proloquo2Go, a $190 text-to-speech system for people who have difficulty speaking.

Best Games of 2009:

• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Tiger Style
• Real Racing, Firemint
• ZENONIA, Gamevil
• Ravensword: The Fallen King, Chillingo
• Earth Vs. Moon, Low Five Games
• Sally’s Spa, Games Cafe
• Ragdoll Blaster, Backflip Studios
• Canabalt, Semi Secret
• Blades of Fury, Gameloft
• Doom Classic, iD
• Sway, Illusion Labs
• geoDefense, Critical Thought
• Flight Control, Firemint
• Alive 4-ever, meridian
• Fantastic Contraption, inXile
• Samurai: Way of the Warrior, Mad Finger Games
• Backbreaker Football, NaturalMotion
• Meteor Blitz, Alley Labs
• Rolando 2, ngmoco
• Star Hogs, IUGO
• Paper Toss, Backflip
• Boost 3d, Jonathan Lanis
• Doodle Jump, Lima Sky
• Zen Bound, Chillingo
• Stick Wars, John E. Hartzog
• Eliminate Pro, ngmoco
• Tap Tap Revenge, Tapulous
• Call Of Duty: World At War: Zombies, Activision
• iBomber, Cobra Mobile
• Jet Car Stunts, True Axis

The contrast in Apple’s favorites vs. the top sellers is interesting. Where as Gameloft and EA dominate the top sales lists, only Gameloft even shows up here, with Blades Of Fury. It seems like Apple made it a point to highlight the smaller dev teams as much as possible.

Best Apps Of 2009:

• ReelDirector, Nexvio
• Magellan Roadmate 2010 North America, Magellan
• Jamie Oliver’s 20 minute meals, Zolmo
• I Am T-Pain, Smule
• CBS Sports: Live College Games, CBS
• Sketchbook Mobile, Autodesk
• Star Walk, Vito Technology
• Convertbot, Tapbots
• Leaf Trombone: World Stage, Smule
• Pano, Debacle Software
• Color Splash, Pocket Pixels
• (SHAZAM)Red, Shazam Entertainment
• SmackTalk!, Marcus Satellite
• Awesome Note, BRID
• Mathemagics – Mental Math Tricks, Blue Lightning Labs
• Tweetie 2, atebits
• Musée du Louvre, Musée du Louvre
• Flight Update Pro, Silverware Software
• CNBC Real Time, NBC Universal
• ESPN ScoreCenter, ESPN
• Vintage Video Maker, MacPhun
• Storyboard Composer, Cinemek
• Fandango Movie, Fandango
• Beejive IM with Push, Beejive
• Zipcar, Zipcar
• Credit Card Terminal, Inner Fence
• NBA League Pass Mobile, MobiTV
• NearestWiki, acrossair
• Golfshot, Shotzoom
• Mover, Infinite Labs

What do you think – any apps on the top lists that you wouldn’t have expected? Any that you expected to see that didn’t make it?

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Nuance is one of the most important companies in the mobile space, yet few cell phone owners have any idea who they are. You know that T9 feature that lets you blast out texts on your number pad? That’s theirs. If your phone does text-to-voice or voice transcription, that’s probably their technology too.

Nuance’s latest move to take over the mobile world: the iPhone. While they don’t have anything on the iPhone out-of-the-box (yet), they’ve just released an App called “Dragon Dictation”, which lets you speak your texts and emails. Drunk texting just got even easier – well, as long as you’re not slurring too bad.

Here’s how it works: Launch the app, hit the record button, and speak. Once you’re done, they pass the clip through the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine, and return the transcribed text, which you can push into an SMS, E-mail, or to your clipboard for use with any other app.

The transcription service was more accurate than I would have expected, though not perfect. My harsh Californian (read: non-existent) accent must have been tripping it up – it would nail “Blu-ray” in one sentence, and then miss it the next time. Tapping any word it got wrong presents a list of other words it thinks you may have meant. It seems to work better when you talk at a certain pace; not too fast, and not too slow. Once you find the right cadence, accuracy is pretty solid.

Whether it’s perfect or not, it’s free – for now, at least. Nuance says that the gratis pricing is “for a limited time”, which means you better grab it while it’s hot. Here’s the iTunes link.

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But if you’re interested, go check it out. Sounds like it’s more than just a store: there’s some promotion and giveaway stuff going on as well. It’s new enough that it isn’t even in the Marketplace, so you’ll have to get it on your phone by other means, but give it a few days and I’m sure it’ll show up in the usual spots.

[via The Inquirer]

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Short Version: To put it simply, I didn’t know that I needed the Backflip case until I had one. The idea of a case with a built-in kickstand seemed worthwhile, but I didn’t think it was something I’d find myself using often. I was dead wrong.

Slightly longer version:

I don’t use phone cases.

Sure, I buy them. I’ve probably bought two or more cases for each phone I’ve ever owned. But after 2 or 3 weeks, I stop using them; the phone goes into my pocket bare-chested for battle against keys and coins, and the case sits in a drawer somewhere. That’s not to say that there was anything wrong with any of these cases – I just get annoyed by the bulk or the silent benefits and take them off and forget.

With that said, I don’t see this case leaving my iPhone any time soon.

The BackFlip case is unique in that it provides functionality to the iPhone beyond simply protecting it. You see, the back side of this case has a small fold-out leg, not unlike that of a photo frame. Flip it out, and bam – your iPhone is standing on its own at right around a 45° angle, ready for hands-free viewing. It’s essentially an iZel (or any other iPhone viewing stand, such as the Movie Wedge) combined with a standard silicon case – and that’s exactly why it rocks.

The trouble with these aforementioned standalone stands is just that – they’re standalone, separate entities. For them to be useful, you’ve gotta remember to bring them along. You’ve already got the handset, the Bluetooth headset, the power charger, and whatever other accessories you’ve got to keep track of. Perhaps I’m just forgetful or terrible at preparing, but I find myself thinking “Wow, I wish I had my iPhone stand with me” right now more often that I actually get to use it. The BackFlip stays on my iPhone, thus solving that issue.

I’m honestly quite surprised at how often I’m finding myself using this thing. I’m propping my iPhone up at coffee shops to keep an eye on texts, on airplanes to keep my hands free and my neck-unkinked, and on my nightstand as an alarm.

Even with all that use, I’ve only found a few things not to like about it. The stand is slightly tougher to get back in place in the case than I’d have imagined, though it’s by no means unreasonable and you’ll get the hang of it within one or two attempts. Additionally, there is a small gap between the edge of the case and the edge of the kickstand when it’s in its closed position. I expected this to let in a good amount dirt and grime. While a fair amount of pocket particles did work their way in, it was considerably less than I expected; it was a bit more than you’d get with a standard silicon case, but not enough that it’d be an issue as long as you pop the case off once a week for a quick wipe down.

In a world of $5 silicone cases, the $29.95 BackFlip may seem pricey; consider that it fully supplants the $25 iZel, however, and the price seems just right.

What we like:

• Incredibly useful. I’d take it over any standalone solution I’ve seen so far, if only because I can’t forget it.
• Nice, durable high-quality silicone. It’s the good stuff, not that junk that falls apart if its left in a hot car.
• Full access to all of the iPhone’s buttons, the silence switch, and the dock port
• Can be used in portrait or landscape mode

What we didn’t:

• The stand is a bit tough to put away at first

Product Page: BackFlip iPhone Case with kickstand

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Just one month after the release of the Motorola Droid, the first software patch has arrived. Verizon has just begun distributing the OTA update – so if you aren’t seeing the update alert already, you should be seeing it before too long.

First things first, make sure your device is up to at least a 40% charge (or 20%, if it’s currently plugged into a power source), as you won’t be able to upgrade otherwise. After that, it’s just a matter of waiting around for the update to land on your device – or if you’re feelin’ antsy, try manually updating (”Home” > “Menu” > “Settings” > “About phone” > “System updates”).

Check after the jump for the change log.

Whats new:

x OS stability is improved.
x Battery life is improved.
x Camera auto focus functionality is improved, and time between shots is reduced.
x Enhancements for three-way calling.
x Audio for incoming calls is improved.
x When receiving a call on call waiting, the speakerphone now remains on.
x Bluetooth® functionality is improved; background echo is eliminated. x Improved Bluetooth phone book transfer of contacts to in-vehicle
Bluetooth solutions.
x After closing a GPS application, the GPS icon will now automatically be removed from the notification panel.
x Users can now receive SMS and MMS messages after an EMS message is received.
x SMS and MMS may now be sent to seven-digit addresses. x Google® contact merging has been updated to accommodate
seven-digit numbers. x Visual Voice Mail notices now arrive instantaneously. • The corporate calendar widget user interface is updated.

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As the old mantra goes, “Cheaters never prosper”. In this digital age, it may be time to revise that saying. Granted a veil of anonymity by the Internet, cheaters surely prosper from their cheating; it’s just that when they get caught, they go down hard. Alas, “Cheaters may temporarily prosper – but if they get caught, they’re totally boned” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Such was the case earlier today, when the development company behind over 1,000 iPhone applications was busted scamming the review system. In a flash, the developer — and all one thousand of their applications — have been pulled from the store.

On Saturday, a friend of the iPhone photography blog Iphoneography reached out to the blog for a bit of help pooling details on what he believed was a review scam. While looking through the applications offered by Molinker, he noticed that as many as 90% of the reviews on some of their applications appeared to be written by a group of people who only reviewed Molinker applications. On Molinker’s “NightCam Pro”, for example, 42 of the 44 5-star reviews appeared to be fake.

Once they’d managed to accumulate enough data that the tomfoolery was almost undeniable, iPhoneography and the original sleuth both sent a 5+ paragraph report of their findings off to Apple’s VP, Phil Schiller.

At first, there was no response. Had their complaints gone unheard? Was Phil Schiller’s inbox but a brick wall in disguise? Then it happened; in the blink of an eye, all trace of Molinker was gone. Not only had the reviews been pulled, but the entire catalog of Molinker’s 1,011 applications had disappeared.

Schiller later responded via email, saying “Yes, this developer’s apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either.” (There’s gotta be some joke here about Phil Schiller doing away with a mountain of shilled reviews, but I’m not going to be the one to write it.)

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a developer with many hundreds of applications in the store feel the crush of Apple’s banhammer, but it’s the first time to my knowledge that Apple has ever made a huge blow against review fakers.

[Via Giz]

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[This guest post was written by Peter Farago, VP Of Marketing at Flurry. Flurry is an analytics platform that has been weaved into over 3,000 applications across the iPhone, BlackBerry, JavaME, and Android platforms, allowing developers to track and research usage and sales trends. You can read more of Flurry's findings over at the Flurry Blog.]

Consumer spending during the holiday retail season, beginning with Black Friday, is among the most important predictors of U.S. economic health. Since the late 90s, tracking online sales of websites like amazon.com on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday, has become a second important barometer. The National Retail Federation, the world’s leading retail trade group, extrapolated that total spending for this year’s Black Friday “weekend,” Thursday-to-Sunday, was up 0.5% from a year ago. Additionally, Lazard Capital reported Cyber Monday sales were up strongly over last year, by 35%.

As we enter the holiday season, downloads in the iPhone App Store can also serve as an indicator of consumer spending. While App Store sales are small relative to online and retail, Apple’s September announcement that the App Store surpassed two billion downloads demonstrates how quickly this digital market is growing, having doubled in just the last four months. Further, according to Admob, the App Store is already generating over one billion USD in annual sales. Finally, the iPhone OS installed base, which sold more than 12 million units world-wide for the quarter ending September 2009, is reaching meaningful critical mass. Flurry estimates that, life-to-date, more than 34 million iPhone and iPod Touch devices have been sold in the U.S. through the end of September 2009. This equates to roughly 10% of the U.S. population.

Monitoring application downloads tracked by Flurry over the last six months, we observe strong patterns of seasonality and an aggressive ramp toward the holiday season. Note that because the iPhone installed base grew so dramatically between last year and this year, we have selected a time series trend analysis versus a year-over-year comparison. The chart below reveals three phases: first, strong summer downloads; second, a dip in September Flurry attributes to back-to-school; and third, strong growth over October and November leading up to the holidays. Specifically, October downloads exceeded September by 30%, and November further grew over October by an additional 16%.

Historically, the week after Christmas has been the strongest for data downloads to mobile phones, since consumers load up after receiving new handsets as holiday gifts. With download growth at its current rate, Flurry predicts that December downloads will exceed November by at least 20%, making it a strong season for Apple.

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User B3ler3fonte of the infamous XDA-Devs forum managed to get his hands on a brochure that was presented to attendees of a meeting in Vienna way back in October. After a night of scanning, the document has found its way to the Interwebs.

HTC’s Leaked 2010 Roadmap:

Legend

Say hello to the followup to the HTC Magic/Hero, the Legend. The frame, which they’ve shaved down to 11.4mm, is completely metal. As the presence of the “chin” on the body indicates, it’ll be running Android — hopefully with HTC’s Sense UI. Down near the bottom will be an Optical Mouse. Look for this one around March 2010.

Salsa

It’s HTC-Made, it’s apparently running Android – but surprise! No chin. The Salsa is a candybar QWERTY phone, coming in at a sickly-thin 8.6mm. Expect a bunch of pre-installed social networking features when it hits in June 2010.

Tide:

Touchscreen yes.. keypad yes.. keyboard.. no? Is that a first for Android devices? It may well be. The Tide is another Android-based social-networking-focused handset. I’d imagine this one would come in relatively cheap when it launches in April 2010.

Buzz:

HTC just can’t get enough Android. The HTC Buzz seems to be a higher end version of the HTC Tattoo – they’ve kept the swappable covers, bumping the screen up to 3.2″ and the camera up to 5MP with autofocus and flash. Look for it around May 2010.

Bravo:

This is the beast of the bunch, the one thus far referred to by the rumor mill as “Passion” or “Dragon”.

We’ll let the specs do the talking: 1 Ghz, 720p video capture, 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED Screen, either 256 or 512 MB ram (brochure says 256, source says its been bumped up to 512 since), a 1400mAh battery. According to the brochure, it’s coming in April 2010.

Photon:

WinMo 6.5, 3.2″ HVGA screen, 256MB RAM, 5MP camera, Snapdragon CPU clocked at 600Mhz. Look for it in April.

Trophy:

The Trophy looks to be HTC’s followup to 2009’s HTC Dash. QWERTY keypad, 5MP camera, 1400mAh battery. Oh, and that 3.0″ display? It’s a capacitive touch screen.

Tera

It’s like a Touch Pro 2 mini – albeit only slightly smaller. They’ve bumped the screen size down from 3.6″ to 3.0″, and loaded it with WinMo 6.5, 256MB of RAM, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and a 1300mAh battery. If the Touch Pro 2 was too big in your pocket or too heavy on your wallet, this one should be a little bit better on both fronts.

[Via AndroidAndMe]

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You knew this was coming. Someone’s driving a car. They’re talking on their cellphone, too. The car crashes. It crashes into another car. The driver of the other car dies. And now the family of the killed driver wants to sue someone. That “someone” just so happens to be the wireless provider and the manufacturer of the phone.

Linda Doyle, 61, died on September 3, 2008 as the result of injuries sustained in a car crash. Her car was hit by Christopher Hill, 20, who says he ran a red light because he was distracted by the ringing of his cellphone.

And now a lawsuit has been filed against Sprint and Samsung. Sprint, for providing the cellphone service, and Samsung, for creating the phone itself (the UpStage).

A similar suit was thrown out of court in 2003, when judges ruled that the car crash was caused by a distracted driver and not a cellphone. (Yes, it’s a bit like “guns don’t kill people.”)

What’s going to happen with the lawsuit in question? We can only guess. A lawyer chimed in with, “[The case] deals with the widespread use of a product we now know is involved in significant risk and deals with the ultimate question of who should contribute in minimizing the risk.”

To expand that a little further, yes, I should hope by now we all recognize that it’s extraordinarily dangerous to talk on the phone or text while driving; don’t do it. At the same time, there are plenty of dangerous activities that people engage in every day—driving in and of itself is pretty dangerous when you think about what’s going on—that don’t generate this type of lawsuit.

Once again, technology has evolved faster than our capacity to utilize it well.

Flickr

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The iPhone officially went on sale in China at the end of October and in Japan in summer last year, but many people in one important Asian market were still waiting for it the whole time: Korea. After getting the official government approval in mid-November, the country’s number two mobile carrier, KT Corporation, started rolling out the iPhone on November 28. And it can be happy about a pretty successful roll-out.

Between 60,000 and 65,000 iPhone 3GS were reportedly pre-ordered in the first week. This is pretty impressive in a country, which is as over-saturated with high-quality domestic phones as Japan (where the iPhone sells pretty well, too) and where the percentage of smartphone users is said to stand at the one percent level. In fact, media reports suggest KT Corporation was totally overwhelmed by the interest and couldn’t handle the pre-orders properly.

Koreans have to pay $340 for the 32GB iPhone 3GS, provided they agree to the $39 fee for the cheapest monthly plan KT Corporation offers for it. The 8GB model costs $115 under the same condition and can be free when users sign for more expensive monthly rates. Every Korean iPhone customer will be able to use KT Corporation’s 13,000 Wi-Fi spots all over the country for no cost.

I am really wondering how the iPhone renders Korean websites though (many of those are Internet Explorer-only).

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Just about each and every time we review an Android phone, one of the first questions that shows up in the comments is, “So – how is it at syncing?” The answer to that is a bit complex. If you’re just looking to sync with Google services (like Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.), it’s great. Anything outside of that and, well, it kinda sucks. For anyone accustomed to using an iTunes-like interface for adding music, dragging and dropping things into folders may seem a bit archaic.

We’ve seen a good amount of clamoring for an Android-edition of Markspace’s The Missing Sync application, which has made its name by filling in the syncing-gaps on every platform from Windows Mobile to the Sony PSP. Clamorers, be still; Markspace has now answered the call. So what does it do?

• Automatically converts movies for playback on your device, then transfers them
• Photo syncing on both Mac and PC, with iPhoto support
• Lets you sync your Android phone with iTunes
• Contact sync with Exchange, Address Book, and Entourage.
• Document Syncing
• Ringtone Creation and Syncing
• Podcast subscription support

Markspace has most of this stuff working on just about every Android device out there. They’re having some issues getting contact sync working on Android 2.0, so the Droid is limited to just the media-related stuff until they figure it out.

In the coming weeks, Markspace will be adding Calendar, To-Do list, Notes, and Bookmark syncing, along with fancy features like SMS backup and wireless, proximity-based syncing.

At $40 bucks, it certainly doesn’t come cheap. If you’re willing to splurge for the syncing functionality, however, you can find it right here.

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The word “droid” is short for “android.” When you think of androids you think of robots. “Robot” is a Czech word that means “drudgery.” “Drudgery” is defined as “dull, irksome, and fatiguing work.” And let me tell you: it is dull, irksome, and fatiguing to sit through this latest Verizon Droid commercial.

The ad, which just started airing on TV, takes aim at the iPhone, calling it, among other things, “digitally clueless.” The implication is that the Droid, well, isn’t. It’s fast, and ludicrously so (“a racehorse duct-taped to a scud missile); it knows its way around the Web (“like a circular saw through a ripe banana”); and it’s built not to look pretty, but to do.

To do what? I don’t know, it just “does.” Or as they say in the Spanish commercials I see on Fox Sports en Español and GolTV, “Droid hace.”

Attack ads are weird. You know how in politics, politicians will always claim to run a clean campaign with no negative ads, but then that promise is broken as soon as their poll numbers turn south? And then how people always tell pollsters that negative/attack ads don’t affect them, yet when exit pollsters ask them the same question they’re all, “Well, my guy said the other guy hates puppies, so…” That’s what’s going on here: Verizon is trying to knock the Apple off its little perch. Maybe it’ll work?

(Apple isn’t “above” running attack ads, either. You’ll recall the long-running “Mac vs. PC” ads, yes?)

Who would have thought, years ago, that we’d be seeing “my phone is better than your phone” commercials on TV?

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When’s the last time you ordered something off of QVC? For me, the last time was when I was 11 years old. Christmas was coming, I hadn’t bought my family any presents yet, and QVC just seemed so damned convenient. Combine that with the fact that I knew exactly where my parents kept their credit cards, and you can probably guess what happened next. Why yes, customer service agent, I am Mr. Kumparak.

With that said, I don’t know a damned soul under the age of 65 who is a regular QVC customer. If you are — and hey, more power to you — and you happen to rock an iPhone, time to celebrate! QVC has just launched an iPhone app which allows you to see all items currently being shown on-air, “Today’s Special Value”, and other at-home shopping treats. Just be sure not to buy any disgustingly overpriced Wii bundles.

You can grab the app here.

[Via IntoMobile]

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While Verizon might not be shoving the HTC Droid Eris down our throats the same way they are with its Motorola-made sibling, the Droid, the Eris is still one slick little piece of mobile kit. What it lacks in form factor (that is, a physical keyboard), it makes up with its drop-dead-gorgeous Sense UI. The only shortcoming, as I see it, is that it’s still stuck on Android v1.5 while the Droid is touting around 2.0.

That issue will be fixed before too long, says Verizon. We already know that HTC is cracking away at getting Sense to play friend with version of Android 2.1, and now Verizon has set a loose date for the Eris’ update: Q1 2010. While they didn’t specifically say it’d be 2.0, they did say that it would include the turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation function – which, unfortunately, only absolutely proves that it’ll be at least v1.6. Fortunately, InformationWeek dug for a bit more info, and Verizon confirmed that the Q1 upgrade would likely bump the Eris up to v2.0 or v2.1.

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Looks like Apple’s lawyers will be extra busy in the coming days. Some entity by the name of St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants has filed suit against the house that Jobs built, alleging that the iPhone infringes upon several of its patents.

The patents in question have to do with the iPhone’s digital camera. St. Clair is seeking unspecified damages and wants to take the whole thing to trial.

Apple hasn’t said anything about the allegation quite yet.

St. Clair has sued other companies over the same patents in the past, including Canon in 2003 (it won $34 million in damages) and Sony (it won $25 million in damages).

So that’s it, Apple being sued by a company that has won several similar lawsuits in the past.

Flickr

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[via WMPowerUser and Engadget]

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When we mentioned a few weeks back that GelaSkins was now printing custom skins for mobile phones, MobileCrunch reader Ankit Gupta said “This is something you guys should just do a contest for… give away 5 of these or something, you know?”

Yes, Ankit – we know. Ask, and you shall receive. We’ve teamed up with GelaSkins to give away skins to 5 lucky TechCrunch Network readers, custom printed for any one of 13 different phone models they support. Want one? Find out how to win after the jump.

How to enter:

Entering is about as easy as it gets: Design a skin for your phone, and send it to us at greg+skins@crunchgear.com.

Rules:

• You can design the skin however you’d want. We’d recommend doing the design in the GelaSkins Creator and either taking a screenshot of your finished design or hitting the share button and sending us the link, but you’re free to use Photoshop or any other tools you have available.
• You must be 18 or older and a resident of the U.S.
• Your design must be for one of the phones that GelaSkins currently prints skins for. These are: iPhone 3G/3GS/Original, Palm Pre, BlackBerry Tour, BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Curve 8300, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Pearl 8100, BlackBerry Pearl 8110, BlackBerry 8800 World Edition, HTC G1, Razor V3 (V3c, V3m) , or Razor V3i (V3t, V3r)

Our 5 favorite designs (whether they make us laugh or they’re just nice designs, anything can be our favorite) will win. We’ll pick the winners next Thursday, December 10th. Have fun!

As an example, here’s the design I would enter if I weren’t, you know, throwing the contest:

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After we found out about the Samsung Trance’s then-impending software update a little early, I honestly didn’t expect to hear about it again. If things had gone smoothly, I probably wouldn’t have.

We’re hearing a ton of reports that the over-the-air update is breaking things, primarily surrounding text messaging. Whenever people hop into their inbox or try to view new messages, their handset resets itself on the spot.

I’ve been indirectly involved with a carrier software update in the past, and the fact that a bug like this slipped through the cracks is pretty mind-blowing. All of the carriers are generally insane about their certification process, often keeping things in testing for weeks on end. Something like this is bound to be taken pretty seriously.

We’ve reached out to VZW for a comment on the matter – hopefully a patch is already in the works.

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Way back in early October, we broke the story that an LG Lotus 2 was in the works. At the time, more than a few people didn’t seem to believe that a followup to the original Sprint Lotus would rock a touchscreen on the face. This morning, pics of the device have surfaced, and whaddya know – its got a touch screen.

Our sources still pin this one on a launch sometime in January, so if the idea of an LG Lotus decked out with a touchscreen and support for 32GB microSD cards gets you all hot around the collar, you don’t have too much longer to wait.

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Though its had an application store of its own for many months now, Palm’s webOS has really yet to flourish as a development platform. As it currently stands, webOS’ App Catalog only offers up around 400 applications. This stunted growth is largely because Palm still considers the App Catalog “beta” – thus, they’re being rather selective with what gets in. Once the beta tag is pulled away, however, Palm expects a barrage of applications to hit their store.

While plenty of these new apps are sure to be free, their developers still need to put food on the table. Looking to capture these developers before the floodgates open, AdMob is today announcing beta support for the webOS platform.

They offer one ad unit at the moment, which can be placed inside of a webOS app to push CPC text ads or CPM banner ads. To comply with Palm’s app distribution strategy (which allows app developers to make apps for webOS without paying the $99 developer’s fee, be it that their application is completely open-source), AdMob has made their webOS SDK entirely open source.

You can check out the new SDK over at AdMob’s Google Code page.

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Remember that leaked Android 2.1 ROM for the GSM HTC Hero from a few days ago? Looks like there was more to it than meets the eye. Tucked deep inside the ROM was a list of around 20 Android-based handset codenames, nearly all of which have never been seen.

The goods, as uncovered by maxisma over at AndroidSpin:

• Bahamas
• Bravo
• DesireC
• Dragon
• Dream
• Espresso
• Halo
• HeroCT
• HeroC
• Hero
• Huangshan
• Incredible
• Legend
• Liberty
• Memphis
• Paradise
• PassionC
• Passion
• Sapphire
• Supersonic

Some of these are handsets we’ve already seen hit the shelves (Dream = G1, Sapphire= Magic, Hero, etc) while others are codenames that were previously rumored (Passion, Dragon). Most, however, are brand new to the rumor mill. Might HTC really be working on 15+ new Android handsets? We can only dream.

Via BGR

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Considering that it’s still one of the App Store’s top grossing apps of all time, I Am T-Pain is pretty great. With that said, it’s not exactly something you’d want to pull out at your family Christmas party. Believe it or not, Grandma probably wont be impressed with the on-the-fly Auto-Tuning technology be it that you’re singing songs about strippers.

Making things a bit more family friendly while adding a bit of holiday cheer, Smule has just snuck a handful of festively themed tunes into the app’s catalog of songs.

The new songs are completely free, but Smule’s being pretty smart in the way that they’re listing them; rather than bunching them all up together, they’ve interspersed them amongst their premium songs. While the free songs are easily distinguished from the for-pay songs, it’s a pretty clever way of getting people to scan through everything Smule has to offer.

If nothing else, it’s great news for the lazy-but-still-festive. Door-to-door caroling is a pain; now you can just record it on your iPhone and, as an added bonus, you’ll sound like a totally awesome robot.

The new holiday tunes:

• O Holy Night
• Jingle Bells
• The Twelve Days Of Christmas

You can find I am T-Pain in the app store here.

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