Motorola Officially Announces XOOM Pricing.

To all the eager Motorola XOOM hopefuls, the cat is now out of bag:

• Unsubsidized/Contract-free: $799 WiFi + 3G

• Unsubsidized/Contract-free: $699 WiFi-only

Are either one of the above prices, a 10.1″ 1280 x 800 resolution display, 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2, dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage enough to sever ties with carrier subsidies?

T-Mobile Lowering Prices On Even More And Even More Plus Plans.

Starting February 23rd, being a T-Mobile Even More or Even More Plus customer is going to become a lot more worthwhile. The nation’s 4th largest carrier announced today that Even More Plus (contract free) plans will drop in price from $79.99/month from the original $99.99/month. Even More (contract) customers can expect to see their bill drop as well — down to $69.99 from $79.99.

As an old T-Mobile customer longing to return to the underdog carrier, it’s refreshing to see them constantly trying new plans and actually trying to please their customers as opposed to some other *cough* AT&T *cough* *cough* Verizon *cough* carriers…

AT&T: Voice Over LTE Coming In 2013.

Those chomping at the bit for some Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) action on America’s most reliable network AT&T will have a little while longer to wait. AT&T CTO John Donovan confirmed with Forbes during an MWC interview that the carrier still has a ways to go before offering VoLTE to the public. Overall, VoLTE is but one small part of a claimed 7-year road map the carrier has in the cards.

With Donovan talking proudly of 2-way and group video chat as well as focusing on the importance of mobile apps, bandwidth and the ability to actually connect a call aren’t going to come any easier. Let’s hope the next 7 years at AT&T is better than the last 3.

Pwnage Comes In A Tool, A 4.2.1 Tool

The moment we’ve (I most definitely) been waiting for, PwnageTool 4.2 has been released. This is big news for all jailbreakers and unlockers that have been waiting for the magical OS X app that pwns the (lowercase) I out of your device.

When greenpois0n was released a week or so ago, we told you all about it, but we also mentioned that only iPhone 4 users could update while perserving their baseband, as to not lose their unlock. The iPhone Dev Team were finally given permission to use the “feedface” untether exploit for 4.2.1 in their latest tool – giving everyone out there the ability to create a custom ipsw as well as perserve their baseband.

More info after the break…

Apple Wins GMSA’s “Phone Of The Year”. #mwc

HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and many others had plenty of exciting announcements and new devices to show off at this year’s MWC. And looking back over 2010, the same companies had equally impressive portfolios spanning many different price points, form factors, etc. And yet, Apple’s iPhone 4 is the recipient of the GSMA’s coveted “Phone of the Year” award for 2010. At first, it seems slightly odd given that Apple never attends shared events let alone announce/release new hardware alongside dozens of other manufacturers vying for the spotlight. But the GSMA has an open, impartial mind it seems.

For those who are slightly aggravated still, the GMSA did award “Manufacturer of the Year” to HTC, and Rovio Mobile whose game, “Angry Birds”, won two awards — “Best App Overall” and “Best iOS App”.

If you feel Apple unfairly took home the crown, offer up your own choice for “Phone of the Year” in the comments after the break…

Android Market Reaches 150,000 Apps And Counting.

9 months ago, the Android market contained less than 50,000 apps. Fast forward to the present and that number has risen, dramatically. The latest word from Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, puts the current number at just over 150,000 — a 3x in crease! No, it’s still a far cry from Apple’s 300,000+, but we’ll take it nonetheless.

While Apple hit 150,000 apps back in February of 2010, iOS and the App Store has (1) been around longer and (2) featured a web store (iTunes) that users can browse through the vast library of apps with. Up until just a few weeks ago, Android didn’t have the latter meaning sifting through each and every app had to be done on your phone. Now that the tables are more level, we expect to see Android’s popularity and app count increase accordingly.

Nvidia Boasts SoC “Stark” For 2014. Offers 100x The Performance Of Tegra 2.

Let the title sink in for a moment — “100x the power of Tegra 2“. What could you or would you do with that kind of power? Probably give up desktop (and possibly even traditional laptops) altogether. We may be drooling of late 2011/early 2012 “Kal-El/Tegra 3 SoCs, but the graph above shown off by Nvidia at the 2011 MWC shows us what we should really be looking forward to.

We of course have to reign in our emotions just a tad. The “100x” figure is your typical marketing jargon used to introduce hype and false excitement into a given market. But this market is already stuffed full of excitement, so it’s not necessarily in need of more. Nonetheless, we expect a massive improvement in 2014 by the time the Stark architecture drops. 100x the performance of Tegra 2 or not, it is going to be wicked fast.