Motorola Pulls Out Another Full Page NYT Ad Aimed At Apple’s Head

Oh my, how I love some good ol’ fashion mudslinging.

“Flash Websites? There’s A Phone For That.”

To any ne’er-do-blog-read layman, the full page ad that Motorola just put in the New York Times might just seem oddly worded. To anyone who has even considered considering themselves a gadget geek — or has, at least, turned on their TV anytime in the past year and a half and seen Apple’s “There’s An App For That” campaign — there’s no question who this one’s aimed at.

This isn’t the first time Moto has done this. Heck, it’s not even the second. Moto pulled out two separate full page ads (here’s one, and the other) during the iPhone 4 Antennagate madness, lambasting Apple with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

This one isn’t quite as clever as either of the first two; the whole matter of Flash on the iPhone is neither original nor fresh, by any means, and “There’s an App for that!” jokes are up there with “Yo Momma” jokes and Borat quotes on this list of “Jokes that one guy just won’t stop using”. But Flash is something that nearly all consumers would recognize (Thanks, Youtube and/or Farmville!), so juxtaposing your handset’s support for it against the competitions lack thereof probably isn’t a bad idea. Even if Flash on Android doesn’t really work that well.

More DroidX Custom Roms Starting to Emerge

For those who follow the android world, you all know that Motorola decided to make it 
impossibleharder for custom ROM developers to create custom ROMS for the Droid X as well as making itimpossible slightly more difficult than normal to root the phone. Well since then the phone has been rooted, and a recovery method was put in place to allow people to flash new ROMS and test the vulnerabilities of the Droid X without fear of permanently damaging the phone. This recovery fallback has allowed ROM development to speed up a little bit and now the first totally custom ROMS are available for people to flash (they are froyo2.2 based). Sapphire was the first to be released but now the other developers are starting to trickle in with their own versions. The process to flash the phone is quite a bit more difficult and time consuming than other phones such as the eris or the nexus, but it is finally possible to bypass that pesky eFuse that Motorola insisted on using to taunt developers with. Below is a video of one of those roms running froyo on the DroidX



For those of you who own a Droid X and want to try out the new roms you can go to the xda-developer forums for the Droid X and read up on it. Be careful though, the process isnt a walk in the park, it does take some work.

Motorola Motoroi XT720 Headed to Cincinnati Bell

Remember that Motorola phone that showed up a while back and was never to be heard from while its siblings got more love on other carriers in the United States? That phone was the Motorola Motoroi (otherwise known as the Motorola XT720) and – at the time –  we had our eyes on the thing expecting it to be one of Motorola’s flagship launches here in the States.

Since then, it’s been launched in numerous other markets, but a reliable source of ours has confirmed that the Motoroi will be making its way to the United States. Cincinnati Bell – who unexpectedly sold out of their very first Android phone in a matter of days, the Bell Blaze – is expected to carry the device sometime in Q3 of 2010.

This comes right after we heard of the Motoroi getting a UK launch and that the phone would get a significant upgrade, to boot. Unfortunately, we can’t confirm it’ll get the same internals that the UK version is getting, but it will still be stocked with Android 2.1 (but MOTOBLUR is still up in the air, last we checked). With that, we should also be seeing it equipped with an HDMI-out port, 720p video recording capabilities, and an 8-megapixel camera.

If we happen to get our hands on any more pricing and availability details, we’ll pass them along. Cincinnati Bell truly is looking to turn heads with their Android plans, and the Motoroi will do justice in turning a lot of attention to the regional carrier. Now let’s see if any other carriers on this side of the globe will finally be getting their hands on it, as well.

If you fancy further conversation with fellow Motorola Motoroi fans, be sure to make yourself known at the Motoroi section at AndroidForums.com. Similarly, if you’re a Cincinnati Bell customer and feeling like a million bucks with all of these new Android announcements for your carrier, be sure to express your excitement in the Cincinnati Bell section.