It's anyone's guess whether we'll see this mythical Supersonic from HTC show up at CTIA next week (wouldn't that be awesome?), but a phone identified as the HTC A9292 has recently made an appearance in yet another internal system which can't be a bad sign. As a refresher, the A9292 is popularly believed to be the Supersonic, a 4.3-inch Android-powered beast for Sprint that could become one of the carrier's very first WiMAX-enabled phones. This time around, the phone's turned up in a warehouse portal used by indirect third-party dealers, which would seem like a sign that they're getting ready to distribute these bad boys; hopefully we'll know all in just a few days' time out in Vegas. Stay tuned.

[Thanks, Wonsanim]

Oh, bollocks! After hearing for days that Verizon Wireless would be pushing out the highly anticipated Android 2.1 update to its stable of Droid users, along comes this. Internal company documentation clearly states that the aforementioned update won't be going down today, and there's no clear indication of when it will. To quote:

• "The OTA software update for the Droid by Motorola is TBD. A new date will be communicated as soon as possible.
  
• The 3/18 OTA software update will not happen as planned. A new date will be communicated as soon as possible."

We knew things were just too quiet after the noon hour, and now we know why. An impromptu support group meeting has been scheduled for 1:30PM ET, though we're hearing the location is still being decided...

After Windows Phone 7 Series' grand unveiling at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress last month, Microsoft has circled back over the last several days during GDC and its own MIX10 conference to fill in many of the holes in this story -- in particular, details around the app development ecosystem and how third parties can take full advantage of it have been focal points. Of course, it makes sense: a modern smartphone is only as good as its software catalog, and Redmond's clearly keen to show that it knows how very true that is. XNA -- the technology that underpins Zune games and a host of Xbox content -- figures prominently into the equation, but Silverlight is a huge, unavoidable component as well, making development for WP7S devices a starkly different experience for studios and independent code monkeys than in versions prior. We're going to be periodically updating this post as we get new info on the platform, but for now, follow the break for everything you need to know -- so far -- about Microsoft's latest and greatest mobile platform.

We've held no punches in sharing our thoughts on Palm's recent ad campaigns, but the one spot that was actually not heinous has seemingly served as the basis for one of Microsoft's first-ever WP7S commercials. Debuting here at the tail-end of MIX, the ad spotlights Anna -- a fictitious gal we've certainly heard of before -- using her new smartphone to share photos with her dear lover Miles. It also features Luca, a kid with an undying love for playing Xbox LIVE titles, who seems to be caught somewhere in between the world of nature and nurture. At any rate, it's worth your while to give the new Microsoft commercial and the Palm ad which it has oh-so-much in common with right after the break.

Oh, and Palm -- we guess "Windows Phone 7 Series was your idea," right?

Update: Yes, that definitely looks like an HTC HD2 at the 0:43 mark, but you can rest assured WP7S won't ever come to that gem in native fashion.

[Thanks, Sean]

Hang with us for a sec as we conjure up a speculative device from a sordid collection of rumors. By now we've all seen the leaked BlackBerry slider right? How about the "Mr. T" phone, heard of that? Maybe you've heard of it by its other codename of Talladega? The connection here is that all of these devices are thought to be one and the same although that's definitely not confirmed by any stretch.

Things got a bit more interesting today after a loose-lipped CEO of a RIM parts supplier (Woojeon & Handan) mentioned a brand new BlackBerry "T" phone launching next month during an interview posted on joins.com (a popular Korean news site). According to our translation or the Korean jibba jabba:

"The Canadian company RIM famous for BlackBerry smartphones is releasing a new model next month. Known as the "T," The new model is an ambitious product aimed at competing against iPhone's storm of success. Rim will present it ("T") as its flagship model to compete in global markets such as the U.S. and Europe."

Funny, we thought that the original Storm was RIM's answer to the iPhone. Anywho, Reuters picked up on the Woojeon & Handan interview today but shied away from mentioning the name or the "next month" timing, saying only that W&H would supply parts for a new RIM product to be released later this year. With any luck, we'll get a full reveal of the mythical BB slider next week with the kickoff of the big CTIA show.

[Thanks, Frank]

Plug your cell phone charger into the wall. Feel it. Is it warm? Then like it or not, you're wasting electricity. AT&T would like to change all that with this new Zero charger, a tiny black brick which automatically cuts power to itself whenever your cell phone is disconnected. While it's not quite as amusing as an ejector seat, it's certainly more practical, and the wall wart's modular USB design means you can charge almost any mobile with interchangeable cables (sold separately, of course) while you wait oh-so-patiently for the cellphone industry to finally stop using proprietary ports. If you've got a vampire draw problem, let AT&T be your garlic this May.

It's a mighty aggressive schedule for a handset that hasn't even been announced yet, but the latest scuttlebutt regarding the HTC Incredible suggests that the phone will make its debut on Verizon's airwaves about two weeks from now. It was already known that the Incredible was destined for a rendezvous with Big Red, but this latest word solidifies and specifies that future nicely -- and it's claimed to come directly from internal sources at Verizon. There's also further mention of 512MB of DRAM allied to a downclocked Snapdragon CPU (capable of 1GHz, running at 768MHz), an 8 megapixel camera, a 1,300 mAh battery, and body dimensions almost indistinguishable from those belonging to the Nexus One. Good thing too, since Verizon is still keeping us waiting on a mysterious Spring release of Google's own-brand phone. We get the feeling Android 2.1 and the new Sense UI will fill that gap nicely, however, and if you really must have that 1GHz speed, there are ways to achieve such things too.

[Thanks, Carson R.]

Google's been iterating its Maps client for Android devices at a positively ridiculous pace lately, burning through versions 3.4 and 4.0 in a span of just a few days last month -- but hey, March is upon us, which apparently means it's time for another fresh cut. This time around we're looking at 4.1, though the mere 0.1 bump in the version number really doesn't do this thing justice -- they've redesigned the results screen, added a swipe gesture for moving between results, served up a new Latitude widget for the home screen, and brought in support for multiple Google accounts (for seeing different Buzz follows, for instance). The icing on the cake, though, is a new live wallpaper for Android 2.1 phones that's a live map of your location, which sounds absurdly awesome -- assuming it doesn't beat your battery to a bloody pulp with constant GPS access, of course. It's available now from the good ol' Market for devices running Android 1.6 and up, so if you're on a device that's still stuck on Cupcake, feel free to shake your fist angrily at the sky a couple times. Interestingly, Google specifically says that the live wallpaper feature works on "Android 2.1+" devices -- a sign that the next major build is around the corner, perhaps?

HTC hasn't filed its official reply to Apple's patent lawsuit in court yet, but the company just gave us an updated and expanded statement on the case, saying that while it "strongly advocates intellectual property protection," it disagrees with Apple's actions and will "fully defend itself." Natch. HTC obviously wasn't eager to divulge whether or not that means it's going to countersue Apple with its own patents, but we're sort of expecting it -- we'll find out more when lawyers do their thing in a few weeks. Oh, and we also asked HTC if and when Google would get involved, but didn't get an answer -- we'll let you know if we hear anything. Full statement after the break.

It's hard to argue that Windows Phone 7 Series' Metro UI concept isn't utterly unique in the mobile world, but it was wasn't the only option Microsoft considered -- far from it, in fact. The company has published a bunch a design concepts it churned through on its wild, wacky journey to finalizing Metro as we know it today, and one thing's for certain: they'd clearly planned on simple, square lines, partially-obscured typography, and in-your-face colors pretty much from day one. After careful consideration of everything they've got here, we still think we like the production design best, but that's kind of besides the point -- why, pray tell, couldn't these have just been user-selectable themes?

Microsoft certainly set off a firestorm of controversy yesterday with the revelation that Windows Phone 7 Series won't have copy and paste, since it doesn't necessarily line up with what the company has said in private before -- and the issue seems to have gotten even more clouded as people have started hacking around the emulator. So let's set the record straight on what we were told, since it wasn't ambiguous in any way: Microsoft says leaving clipboard operations out was a conscious design decision based on user research showing that people don't actually use copy and paste very often, and that instead 7 Series features a systemwide data detection service which recognizes things like phone numbers and addresses so you can take action on them. Third-party apps can hook into this service, so that an email address can be routed to the email client of your choice, but there's no copy and paste functionality. We specifically asked about Office and OneNote, and we were told that Microsoft's research shows that people mostly want to view and comment on documents, not move things around. We also specifically asked if copy and paste was coming later and were told no, although we'd guess that it's at least being worked on for a future version. Don't take it from us, though -- listen to Microsoft's Todd Brix for yourself:

We've definitely learned a ton about Windows Phone 7 Series here at MIX, but getting the full picture on multitasking has been difficult, since the OS isn't ready, no one has final hardware, and the emulator seems to behave differently than actual devices and Microsoft's descriptions. So let's set the record straight on multitasking: it's not going to happen, at least not in the traditional way. Not only have we directly confirmed this with Microsoft executives several times, but the developer sessions here are totally clear on the matter -- you don't tell 1000+ devs that they should expect their apps to be killed whenever the user switches away from them if you don't mean it. Now, that's not to say that the OS can't do multitasking: first-party apps like the Zune player and IE can run in the background, and third-party apps are actually left running in a suspended state (Microsoft calls it "dehydrated") as long as the system doesn't need any additional resources. If the user cycles back to an app, it's resumed ("rehydrated") and life continues merrily along, but if the user opens other apps and the system needs additional resources, the app is killed without any indication or remorse.

If that sounds familiar, it's because it's basically a single-tasking riff on Android and Windows Mobile 6, both of which also purport to intelligently manage multiple running applications like this, and both of which usually find themselves greatly improved with manual task managers. We'll have to see if Windows Phone 7 Series can do a better job once it ships -- we have a feeling it will -- and later down the line we'll see if Microsoft decides to extend multitasking to third-party apps. But for now, just know that you're not going to be running Pandora in the background while you do other tasks on a 7 Series device -- it is a question we have specifically asked, and the answer, unfortunately, is no.

P.S. Still don't believe us? Hear it for yourself directly from Microsoft's Todd Brix:

So... look. Sometimes you find yourself in a Vegas club at 3AM, holding a Windows Phone 7 Series testing device loaded up with a working copy of The Harvest, and you shoot what might be world's shakiest video of the gameplay using a nearby Nexus One. It's practically a rite of passage in this town, right? Video after the break.

Update: Also, sometimes you find yourself in a Vegas hotel the day after the Vegas club, nursing your brutal headache and desperately seeking a second opportunity to film that hot unreleased game with a better camera. Video of that is after the break, too.

Making the rounds, are we Google? Just over 24 hours after we saw an AT&T-friendly Nexus One go on sale, along come Sprint yelling "me too!" at the top of its lungs. Today marks the day that Google's first-ever smartphone now has at least a holding place on all four of the major US carriers, with T-Mobile nabbing it first and Verizon users still waiting for that vague "spring release." Unfortunately, Sprint's making us wait when it comes to finding out an exact price and release date, but at least we're assured that both are coming "soon."

Possibly confirming those leaks suggesting that the first volley of Droid updates to Android 2.1 would be limited to just a quarter million folks, Verizon just shot out a statement to let everyone know that the over-the-air push is "being deployed to a small number of Verizon Wireless test users tomorrow afternoon." Beyond that, no dates are given for the rest of us to get in on the action -- probably because Verizon and Motorola need to see how the first group manages before sending out the remainder -- so for the moment, just hope that you're one of these incredibly blessed "test users" and stay tuned.

Numbers released by Flurry Analytics yesterday suggested that Google's Nexus One had sold around 135,000 units in 74 days (the same amount of time it took the iPhone to hit a million) -- not a staggering number by any measure. Now, we don't really have any way to assess the accuracy of Flurry's data, but we spoke with Google's team about a few things, and here's what they had to say. For starters, Google wanted to assert the idea that selling lots of a single handset isn't the company's primary goal, an idea which makes sense considering how many handsets are currently available with Android. In our conversation, Google actually called out the sales figures for the Droid and seemed eager to make the point that their game is more of a war of attrition fought on a variety of fronts. Read their statement -- and lots more -- after the break...

We just spent some quality time with the MIX10 build of Windows Phone 7 Series running on the same prototype hardware sourced from Garmin-Asus that we saw at MWC -- and apart from a few Murphy's Law-style demo hiccups, we loved what we saw. One thing that immediately caught our attention was the fact that lists of items "compress" slightly once you've reached their end -- something we hadn't noticed before. In general, it's pretty impressive how much attention Microsoft is paying to the finer aesthetic points of the platform, from the slight "tilts" of items that you've pressed to the 3D effects you encounter as you flip through photos. Another thing we've confirmed here is that the test units do have accelerometers, refuting an earlier rumor that had been spreading out in Barcelona -- we know this because the display auto-rotated while viewing a photo. Check out the full video -- along with a shot of the phone resting alongside its Zune HD cousin -- after the break.

Speaking at a MIX10 session about Windows Phone 7 Series architecture this morning, Microsoft's Istvan Cseri mentioned that the Windows Phone Marketplace -- the one and only clearinghouse for apps in WP7S -- will be able to remotely revoke licenses. Since devices will only run properly-licensed apps, this effectively means the company will be able to shut down apps remotely -- a capability they'd probably invoke if a Marketplace app were to badly misbehave en masse, for example. To put it bluntly, Cseri says that apps simply aren't in control of their own life cycle; the user controls installation and removal while the Marketplace ensures that the license is valid.

On a related note, we know that Microsoft has a series of not-yet-finalized "business, technical, and content" guidelines for accepting and rejecting apps submitted to the Marketplace, and we've got a particularly interesting case: apps are being "discouraged" from using the phone's Back button. They're being so strongly discouraged, in fact, that Todd Brix -- senior director of mobile platform services product management at the company -- told us that apps can and will be straight-up rejected for using Back for anything but dismissing dialog boxes. We won't know the full rulebook until Microsoft releases it in May -- but in the meantime, don't bother making anything too controversial with those free tools, eh?