droidStory

What started out as a pleasant surprise this morning, quickly turned into utter disappointment. My DroidX is now completely unusable after I installed the OTA Update for Android 2.2 that Verizon began pushing to phones today (see previous post).

The DX wont go past the Motorola boot screen, and will not go into recovery mode either.  Well actually the phone does finish the boot sequence and you can hear email notifications and incoming calls, but the screen keeps displaying the Motorola logo. I can also see the redesigned 2.2. screen lock screen when taking screen shots via USB debug and the SDK (see right).

I called Verizon support, and they let me do the usual reboot routines to no eval. The rep told me that they’ve experienced the same problems with the Froyo update of the original Droid and that about 3% of phones were affected by this. She told me to go to the Verizon store so that they can reapply the update, which should fix it.

Update: I went to the Verizon store during lunch. They tried different things in the back room for about an hour – what a great way to spend a lunch hour   No fix. They are now shipping a new DX to me overnight.  I had to push a little for them to waive the Fedex priority fee.

While waiting I met two other Droid customers who had issues with their phones. One had a Droid Incredible that would not browse the Internet any longer after the latest software update. The tech was going to do a hard reset. The other had a Droid2 stuck in a reboot loop. He received a replacement phone.

Update1: Other people experiencing the same problem. Do you have any problems with the update?

Our company phone system allows me to forward voice mails as file attachments. Unfortunately, playing the WAV files on my Android phone doesn’t work. There are some apps in the market that allow you to play the different wav-file formats, but I decided it wasn’t worth buying/installing yet another app for the few times I needed this feature. Instead, I enabled a simple conversion-mail-back service on the DroidStory server.

If you ever need a quick conversion of a voice mail wav file to mp3, simply forward your email containing the attachment to wav2mp3_at_droidstory_dot_com and you’ll get a MP3 file mailed back.

That’s it, no registration or setup required. Enjoy!

PS: No worries – your privacy is ensured. Our server space is much too valuable to keep your files. All data gets removed right after conversion. Guaranteed!

As previously posted, Google is discontinuing the Nexus One. Well, it only took a couple of days before the remaining stock was depleted. Incidentally, I just sold my N1 on eBay, since I have now moved on to the Motorola DroidX. The Nexus One was/is a great phone and surely helped pave the way for the rapid growth of Android.

Wow! Both high-end Droid’s, the Motorola DroidX and the HTC Droid Incredible are sold out at Verizon. What’s up with that? It seems odd that powerhouse Motorola can’t keep up with the sales demand, manufacturing enough units for the launch.

Is this just the latest marketing fad in showing off the popularity of a product by artificially limiting initial supply, or are component shortages truly to blame? Either way it looks like both phones are sold-out online and in stores.

Verizon and Motorola, with help from Google and Adobe unveiled the new Motorola DroidX today.

The phone will go on sale on July 15th for $199, after $100 rebate with a 2 year contract. Anybody with a contract ending in 2010 can upgrade!

• $29.99/month smartphone unlimited data plan
• $20/month for tethering (WiFi & USB) for up-to 2GB of data, 5cents/MByte overage fee

Specs:

• 1GHz TI OMAP CPU
• 512MB RAM, 8GB internal flash memory
• 16GB SD card included, expandable to 32GB
• 8MP Camera, dual LED flash
• 4.3″ Display, 854 x 480, 400,000+ pixels
• 1570mAh battery
• HDMI out port
• 3 microphones (one noise-canceling)
• Ships with Android 2.1 including new version of MotoBlur
• Android 2.2 (Froyo) will be released this summer

There is no doubt, we are only days away from the release of this phone on the Verizon network. Here’s another hint – the spec sheet from the Verizon equipment guide:

via BGR