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It's not a tumor! I mean... it's not a rumor! Well, the details may be, but we now have some fair photos of the LG Xenon. The snaps are making the rounds today, along with the date 04/09/09, and some adjustments to the rumored specs. I'm pretty sure (not 100%, but close) that we will have something to say about this device during or immediately after CTIA.

I hate to give you guys the copy-and-paste treatment, which is why I threw in the Schwarzenegger joke at no extra charge. Pictures grabbed from BGR, by way of... well, the name on the pictures. Is it just me, or does this phone remind you of another?






Suspected Specs:

•     Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
•     950 mAh battery (really?)
•     4.6" x 2.11" x .62"
•     240×400, 2.8" LCD
•     2 MP stills and video
  
•     80MB of memory with microSD support up to 16GB
•     Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR
  
•     USB 2.0
•     Wi-Fi 
•     AT&T
  
  

The HTC-made G1 with Google takes on BlackBerry's Curve 8900 in this T-Mobile smartphone DogFight!

With all the news re-focusing on the iPhone lately, it's nice to see Pre rumors heating up again.  In an article published by Gizmodo, beta tester Jim Van of Logicomm in Rhode Island has been working with the Pre for some time, and says that the device will be released on April 30th for $299.99 on a two-year agreement.

Some things working against him, however: (1) we're wondering how he escaped some sort of NDA to tell the public about launch and pricing information, (2) since when are beta testers given this type of information, and (3) like any rumor, there is no evidence to back any of it up (or any secondary sources).  Since the information has been made public, Jim Van has made his Twitter account private. 

Take it with a grain of salt, however should it be released in April, it would give Palm more marketing time before the potential launch of a new iPhone.

Don't judge a book by it's cover: Pantech's Matrix and Matrix Pro look very similar, but one's a messaging phone while the other is a full-on Windows Mobile smartphone. Which one's for you? Watch and decid

Like Aaron promised last week, the iPhone 3G was released yesterday, in a footloose and contract-free form.

The 8GB and 16GB handsets aren't cheap, but really, what price can you put on freedom? (Well, apparently $599 and $699, respectively, which is nothing to sneeze at.) AT&T will give you the grand honor of allowing you to buy one — but only one — and only if you're a current customer. If you're not, well you can get one through Apple, who doesn't care who you are as long as you pony up the dough.

Apple's mellow stance regarding the sale restrictions contrasts its usually strict policy, which BoyGeniusReport thinks indicates that a new iPhone is definitely heading for release soon.

This isn't really news, but I can't wait for the app to be released before mentioning it. Recently, Androidandme.com started their own developer's challenge called Android Bounty. You can read all about it over at Torrent Freak, where I first learned about Torrent Droid. The winner(s) of the contest, Zerofate, conjured up some code that allows Android owners to scan a bar code at the store, select a torrent site and torrent to download, and have a full album or movie waiting for them at home when they get there.

I'm not going to bother fueling the debate about whether or not these apps should be available. They just arrrrr!

Android Market alternatives are out there. If you are a developer who wants to avoid Google's copy protection in favor of a different flavor (or no protection at all), you could sell your apps through SlideME. They also offer the SlideME Application Manager, SAM, for browsing and buying programs from Android devices. Payment can even be made directly to a SlideME debit card so coders get paid quick.

Then there's Cyrket - a site that mirrors the official Android Market. It doesn't do much to make the catalog more navigable and user-friendly. However, each app description features a QR code, so you can take a picture and be linked to the app in the store on your Android device. This doesn't always work for me, but it's no fault of Cyrket. I don't see a lot of apps that I should be able to. And no, it's not my filter settings. Some odd quirks have popped up in the Market, and it's getting to be a bit of a hassle.

The design was sufficient at first, but now the ol' shop feels like it's bursting at the seams. I can't just check under the latest submissions for all categories to find the best stuff anymore. There's just too many products to swim through. Little bugs and hiccups (like the breaking of some updates by freshly-instated copy protection) are understandable at this stage, but I think the layout is in need of a serious overhaul.

Here are the additions I would consider a priority:

• One touch updates: I'd like to see a list of apps with updates available, each with a checkbox next to it - all of them selected by default - and a big button at the top of the screen that says, "Update All."
  

• Suggestions based on a user's ratings: As the size of the catalog grows, this will be more important. I think a selection in the menu would be appropriate. Pop-ups or an intro page might be too obtrusive.
  

• Sorting by multiple criteria: The ability to sort by date and rating would be fantastic. The popularity tab is virtually useless - the content rarely changes, and even if ratings are taken into account, number of downloads carries too much weight.
  

• Filters: If I could limit my search results to apps that only have a 3.5 or above rating, and have been on the market for at least a month, and have over 5,000 downloads, I'd have a much easier time finding what I want. It would also make finding the best new apps simpler.
  

• Screenshots: SlideMe got this right, and... it doesn't look good, Google.
  

My last suggestion isn't as much about the Market as the apps that are accepted. Programs should be required to store all images in a designated folder on the SD card. If I want to look at my photo album, I've got to get past fifty movie posters, banners, and album covers first. They take forever to load, and are a pain to delete - you have to do that one at a time. Please fix this, 'droid devs.

So there are my top suggestions for improvements to the market. None of them are absolutely necessary, but I think given any of them, we'd miss them if they were taken away. What else would you suggest? Better comment filters? Rating of raters? App trading? Audio comments so we can give shout-outs to our homies under that lame vocabulary-building game? Just kidding, I love those. I suck at them, but I love them.