Verizon likes to find new and fun apps for DROID by Motorola smartphones. For March, they suggest some new routines.  Whether customers are thawing out of winter in the Northeast, craving some fun in the sun, or looking for an Ethiopian restaurant in San Diego to stimulate their taste buds,

We have similar tastes because often their highlighted  have appeared our favorite lists of top Droid apps.

This month's highlighted apps in the Verizon Channel offer five ways to enjoy March for FREE:  

• Customers can search for new restaurants to open their senses to foods with exotic spices with OpenTable.  This free GPS-enabled app allows customers to find close OpenTable restaurants refined by cuisine, price and availability in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Mexico.

• What's a tourist without a video camera?  Customers can rediscover the city they live in and share their encounters with Qik Video Camera.  This free app gives customers a way to record and share videos with friends, family and the world via Facebook®, Twitter and YouTube™.

• With the woes of winter winding down for many, customers can take their morning coffee and trade their traditional newspaper for AP Mobile to stay connected to events going on anywhere in the world.  Customers can sit on a park bench and read news from more than 1,200 trusted local sources and national and international coverage for free.

Millennial has released their latest S.M.A.R.T. report and the mobile web increased by approximately 4%, to 69.6M users in January,

Mobile behavior trends increased time-wise. January's average user session time of 4:57 (min:sec), increased to 5:14 (min:sec) in February, the longest session time we have seen since the June '09 S.M.A.R.T.

The iPhone remains the top smartphone, followed by the BlackBerry Curve, and Samsung Instinct.

Android impressions increased 25.3%; the largest month over month increase the OS has had on our network.   Apple increased once again and remained the number one device manufacturer with approximately 39% share of impressions. Following Apple's impression share lead, the Touchscreen category increased 17% month over month within the Device Input Method mix and led with a 54% share of impressions.Wi-Fi also retained the largest impression share of the U.S. Carrier Mix in February and held 26% share of impressions. 

Sprint is really going for a PR sprint this week.  The latest report from the Wall Street Journal, revealed that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse during a press conference next Tuesday in Las Vegas will unveil a new WiMAX device, the HTC Supersonic.

The HTC Supersonic is expected to run Google's Android 2.1 platform with HTC Sense UI, a 4.3-inch touchscreen display, a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and a 5-megapixel camera. The Android 2.1 offers pinch-to-zoom browsing, voice-to-text form filling and turn-by-turn voiced navigation. 

Sprint will offer the Nexus One via the Google Nexus One webstore, pricing has not been announced. Yesterday, Google started selling an unlocked version of the Nexus One for AT&T priced at $529.

"While a pricing plan has not yet been determined for Nexus One, we are confident that it will be consistent with Sprint's commitment to deliver more value than our competitors and keep pricing simple," Fared Adib, Sprint vice president of product development.

If you are an Android fan and also want to access the AT&T network, it could be good news to you that you can now buy a Nexus One for AT&T and Rodgers Canada.

Google recently reduced their early termination fee for the Nexus One to $150.  Sales figures have not been as good as the launch of the Droid by Motorola or the iPhone 3G.

The Nexus One  received a high-powered update with new features including multi-touch in the browser and maps.  It has voice to text filling in fields as well as turn-by-turn navigation.

Analytics firm, Flurry can detect and count unique devices in the market such as Google Nexus One and Motorola Droids.

Flurry estimated both sales of Nexus One Sales compared to Motorola Droid and the first generation iPhone, among others.

The chart above compares the sales results through each of their respective first 74 days. The launch dates were: iPhone, June 29, 2007; Droid, November 5, 2009; and, Nexus One, January 5, 2010.  Please note that we forecasted the last few days of Nexus One's first 74 days sales based sales of the first 70 days they tracked.

BlackBerry smartphone owners are thinking of switching to either iPhone or Android notes a new study from Crowd Science. Android users are almost as loyal as iPhone owners.

Nearly 40% of Blackberry users continue to prefer an iPhone as their next smartphone purchase, but a third of them would also switch to the Android operating system, according to the second smartphone brand loyalty survey conducted semi-annually via Crowd Science. The Crowd Scientists also found Android users rivaling iPhone users in loyalty, with about 90% of each user group planning to stick with their current brand when buying their next phone.

Asked specifically if they'd swap their present phone for the Nexus One, 32% of Blackberry users said "yes," compared with just 9% of iPhone users. This figure zoomed to 60% for users of smartphones not made by Blackberry or Apple.

Motorola Devour Rated 3.5 out 5 by Wireless and Mobile News' Review of Reviews

Reviewers of the Motorola Devour all like the solid  aluminum casing, nicely spaced slider keyboard, and MOTOBLUR social networking features. Every review that was reviewed commented that the touchscreen was responsive.

The Motorola Devour is often compared to the Motorola Droid which has the Android 2.1 operating system. The Devour comes with Android 1.6  that will be updated to OS 2.1 with voice to text form filling, Google map syncing, pinch-to-zoom browsing, and turn-by-turn navigation. The Devour's keyboard is seen as better than the Droid's, the display is lower resolution and the processor is slightly slower.

The 3.2 megapixel camera and media capabilities such as music playing are good.  For video it is suggested to download Motorola Media Link to sync media.

Reviewers didn't comment on the neat feature of the Motorola Devour is the wireless Motorola Phone Portal, that allows you to see what's on the Moto Devour from your computer and perform functions. One reviewer did like that the MOTOBLUR allows you to track via GPS a stolen Devour and keeps a backup of data.

Other features of the Motorola Devour are a slide-out QWERTY keypad, 3.1-inch, 320-by-480 pixel touchscreen, 3 megapixel camera, touchpad, Wi-Fi, GPS and pre-installed 8 Gigbyte microSD card. 

The Motorola Devour is sold from Verizon for $150 with contract after rebate. We don't know if it will qualify for  Verizon buy one get  a smartphone deal, yet. Don't forget you can avoid waiting for a rebate when you use the Wireless and Mobile News' online coupon-link Instant Phone Rebate Only Available with Online Purchase.

Wirefly is currently offering the Motorola Devour for $29.99 for new Verizon customers with a contract.

The U.S. government in its efforts to expand broadband across the great digital divide is offering free web-testing on their website and Android as well as iPhone apps to check broadband speed. Their website is such a big hit, it, took 30 seconds to load, we're still waiting to view their original post.

The free Broadband.gov apps test broadband speed and gives the Feds a way to see if the carriers and providers are really giving the speed and service they say they do.

If you want to test your broadband speed from a computer they ask for your address, this test took us longer than Speedtest.net or other web based broadband testing sites It's powered by Ookla and M-Lab.  It tests latency and jitter. The web version does not work in Firefox or Safari.

The Android App is available on Android Market and the iPhone app is in the App Store.

We did a quick text on a Google Nexus One with only one 3G bar and the download and upload speed were good. If you think your carrier is not doing a good broadband job, you may want to download the app that reports your speeds to the FCC.

The applications are part of the FCC's national broadband plan, due out next Tuesday, to offer affordable broadband to all of the U.S.

Opera Mini 5 Beta is now available for Android and Droid smartphone. The news release claims that  Opera Mini 5 beta for Android brings a fast and cost-efficient web experience to any handset built on the Android platform.

Opera Mini, compresses data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone, resulting in significantly improved page loading and speed. Opera Mini offers a desktop-like web browsing experience on a mobile phone.  Features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and bookmarks. With Opera Mini optimized for Android, more people will be able to get a PC-like browsing experience on their mobile handsets.

"Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite Web sites and services," said Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Products, Opera Software.

Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone. To download, visit m.opera.com/next with the Android browser or search for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Market.

GPS-based telematics firm, GuidePoint Systems, is now offering a new tracking, safety and convenience application for users of Motorola's Droid® and other smartphones that run on the  Android.

The new free Guidepoint app, allows users o to control their vehicle or gain access to a variety of location-based services including stolen vehicle recovery, driving directions, emergency help and other assistance.

The Android app uses a smartphone's built-in GPS technology and its wireless connectivity to deliver the phone's exact location to Guidepoint.  Once the app is activated, users can set up an online account with Guidepoint and access services.

Android developers can now download the third release of the Android Native Development Kit (NDK)  from the Android developer site.

It can be used to target devices running Android 1.5 and higher. In addition to a few bug fixes and improvements, this release includes toolchain improvement, OpenGL ES 2.0 suppport and a new name "r3."

A native Gowalla app is now available for Android, it's called a place-sharing app that offers special rewards.  The new native application greatly improves the Gowalla experience by providing additional features and more accurate location data through its use of Skyhook Wireless' SDK.

Gowalla for Android is available for free in the Android Market and at Gowalla.com. It gives users way to explore places.

The Gowalla community has now checked in at 600,000 places in over 165 countries. The combination of Gowalla for Android with quality travel-related content provided by Travel Channel will continue to inspire more people to go out and discover the world around them.

The Motorola BACKFLIP is now available on AT&T.  The BACKFLIP is AT&T's first Android smartphone. It has a back-flipping design that folds back that  you can use it with the back of your hand which comes in very handy. The QWERTY keyboard is on the back of this flipping phone. You can also unfold it so that it works like a picture frame, making it easier to view movies.

Another super handy feature the BACKFLIP is MOTOBLUR social networking syncing and networking through widget of email, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail, Picasa, work and personal e-mail, and Last.fm

BACKFLIP comes with a full HTML browser that can be viewed on the 3.1" high-res, touch screen display and makes use of 7.2 HSPA 3G. Other features include a 5 megapixel camera with video capture, Wi-Fi and GPS.

Getfugu,  mobile search tool, announced that they have added a new feature for its popular mobile search tool called "Get Tickets."

Getfugu users can search and purchase tickets directly on their mobile phone by simply saying the name of the event into their phone.

For example, a user could ask for events like Lakers (by saying "Lakers Tickets") or concerts (by saying "Bon Jovi tickets"). Getfugu's Get Tickets application will provide dates, times, specify the venue and even tell the consumer how many tickets are available for purchase.

In a gesture to make searching on touchscreen Android phones easier, Google Labs has launched Gesture Search.

Gesture Search is a Android 2.0 or above app in the U.S.. Gesture Search lets you  find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by  drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen.

Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A”. If your handwriting isn’t all that neat, that’s okay. If the “A” you draw looks a bit like an “H”, as seen in the bottom left corner of the screenshot, “H” results will be brought up as well.

You can erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.

Gesture Search improves search quality by learning from  search history, so Anne’s contact info will jump to the top of the list the next time you write “A”. What do you think does it get an “A” or and “H.”

To download Gesture Search, search for it in Android Market. You can get more information on our Google Labs page.

Last week, Motorola sent out an update to the Motorola CLIQ Over-the-Air (OTA) and some customers had some problems if they "factory reset" their Motorola CLIQ Android smartphones. There is now a solution available for the problem.

Android Developers have told us that Android updates for Android smatphones with MOTOBLUR are more complicated because of the additional code and support neeed for  MOTOBLUR.

This is an official response from Motorola:

Last week, the Motorola CLIQ 1.3.18 over-the-air software update began rolling out to consumers.  While the vast majority of updates were successful, a very small number of consumers reported a date error and found that, after factory resetting their device, their phone was not functioning properly. We have identified a workaround solution for these consumers, which can be found on the Motorola support forum (http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/us/support/tmo/index.html).

To our consumers, we apologize and are working swiftly to reconcile the situation. We are also revising the over-the-air software update so that this workaround solution is no longer needed. Consumers will be notified on their device when the revised update is available.

If you would like to provide more guidance to your readers, below is additional information for consumers:

To our consumers who downloaded the update and their device is working properly, no further action is needed. To our consumers who never received a notification to download the update, please do not take further action. You will be notified on your device when the revised update is available to you. To consumers who received an error or whose device date reads December 31, 1969, please visit the support site listed above for assistance.

David Ginsburg from Innopath will be offering insight into the situation in an article later today.

The future of smartphones, look less like a clamshell, more like the Palm Pre and Nexus One according to these recent reports.  There are a number of smartphone devices being retired, a photo shows a new form factor for BlackBerry and the next 'Nexus One" is at the FCC and it is suspected to be for Verizon.

Leaked documents revealed the BlackBerry Flip (the only clamshell BlackBerry), BlackBerry Storm(the first BlackBerry touchscreen)  and BlackBerry Curve 8830 are now considered "Current devices with limited or no remaining shipments from the vendor." Other dying devices are the popular Samsung Omnia and Samsung Saga.

An unnamed source has posted photos of a next generation BlackBerry that is a portrait slider, somewhat like the Palm Pre.   If  you look at the photo the top portion looks like the BlackBerry Storm, suggesting a possible touchscreen too. 

The Motorola Devour is coming to Verizon in March,  and as of today, you can start ordering the phone from some retailers.

Although the Devour is not officially a Droid smartphone form Verizon it has some of the same features as Droid with the addition of the super-socialnetworking MOTOBLUR.

In a video from Motorola, a neat feature shown of the Motorola Devour is the wireless Motorola Phone Portal, that allows you to see what's on the Moto Devour from your computer and perform functions.

Other features of the Motorola Devour are a slide-out QWERTY keypad, 3.1-inch, 320-by-480 pixel touchscreen, 3 megapixel camera, touchpad, and preinstalled 8 Gigbyte microSD card.

The Qualcomm chipset makes it very fast.The Motorola Devour has Google Android Navigation with voice navigation.

If you can't wait to devour the new Android phone Motorola Devour and want to save some money, you can now order it from Wirefly for $49.99 with select service plans starting at $59.99 a month for voice for new customers.  Wirefly always offers free shipping.

We don't know yet, what kinds of specials Verizon  will be running on the Motorola Devour. Recently, Verizon started a Buy One Get One Free deal for Palm Pre Plus, Droid, Palm Pixi and Droid Eris. Don't forget you can avoid waiting for a rebate when you use the Wireless and Mobile News' online coupon-link Instant Phone Rebate Only Available with Online Purchase.

Google has released - Google Earth for Android. They claim its is theri fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet, with a smooth framerate and a b 800 x 480 screen. The app only works on Android 2.1 smartphones and on the Nexus One superphone.

Google Earth for Android has a new Roads layer, that drwas road labels drawn on top of the satellite imagery. They have also have  included voice recognition. If you search for a location with request, such as "romantic getaway, Lake Tahoe"  and  you will see a map with balloons for the hotel locations.

With Google Earth for Android you can also browse photos, places, and local businesses, whether it is in your local community or on the far side of the globe. Click on an icon to see photos, videos, and read about prominent places in the world. You can easily customize your version of Google Earth to display the layers that most interest you.