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IRL: Nike+, UTStarcom PPC-6700 and the Droid Incredible
Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment. We have an inside joke among the Engadget staff: one of these days, we say, we'll publish IRL: The Luddite Edition. It's not that we go home to bunny-ear TVs and VCRs, though for a group of journalists trained to calculate pixels per Super AMOLED inch, we're awfully set in our ways. That, and there's nothing like brainstorming IRL ideas to make a grizzled tech editor feel a little nostalgic. That's the place Darren was in when he dug up his PPC-6700 from '06 -- and Lydia, too, who thinks about ditching Nike+, but won't. As for Billy, he's not wistful; just biding his time until he can replace his Incredible with something he really wants. So how good is good enough for a bunch of tech writers? Meet us past the break to find out.
Windows Mobile 6 promised for Apache owners on Friday
Although frankly the benefits they'll see are marginal -- especially if they've already upgraded their handsets to AKU 3 -- many Sprint PPC-6700 / Verizon XV6700 devotees will nevertheless be delighted to learn that xda-developers forum member helmi_c is promising an Apache-compatible build of Windows Mobile 6 to be released this Friday, and he's got the screenshots that claim to prove it. As tipster Joey put it, "many of us [6700] owners have been kinda left out in the cold with no WM6 love for the 6700," but where manufacturers and carriers fail to act, you can usually count on the tireless community over at xda-developers to provide a solution -- and from the looks of things, helmi_c's build even trumps the standard upgrade by cooking the HTC Touch interface right in. Good stuff if it does indeed pan out, so we'll keep you posted.Update: Helmi_c wrote in to let us know that he is actually based out of the ppcgeeks community, and the links in this post were quickly adjusted accordingly. Because seriously, would you want to step in between factions of highly motivated geeks and developers? No thanks.[Thanks, Joey S.]
HTC self-brands Hermes (TyTN) and Breeze (MTeoR)
It's been a crazy few years for the once unknown Taiwanese OEM known as High Tech Computer. Although still not a household name like Sony or Samsung, HTC has leveraged its strong ties with Microsoft to offer tantalizing products that have made us early-adopters stand up and take notice, and now the company feels that it's in a strong enough market position to ditch the Qtek brand and begin selling phones under its own name. The Qtek phase-out was announced as part of HTC's official unveiling of the 3G Hermes Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone -- now known as the TyTN -- as well as the compact, UMTS-capable Breeze smartphone -- which is now called the MTeoR (yeah, we're noticing a MOTO-like naming trend too; see the rebadged STRTrk for further proof). In announcing July's European launch of these self-branded handsets, HTC reemphasized its dedication to the many carriers selling its products under their own names, but this development certainly bodes well for the company's overall name-recognition; imagine, instead of lying and telling people we have a Treo because Sprint-branded-UTStarcomm-PPC-6700-based-on-the-HTC-Apache sounds so nerdy, we may one day be able to proudly proclaim "Oh, it's an HTC." [Warning: PDF link][Via Geekzone, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
