You may have heard some rumblings that Motorola is going to hit the Canadian mobile scene hard with MOTOBLUR-enabled devices. While this tickled my interest-bone a bit, there wasn’t really much more to it than rumor… That is, until now. We’ve just received a short statement from a Rogers connection, stating that Rogers will indeed bring MOTOBLUR-enabled devices to the fore real soon. In addition (and as an aside), Rogers will bring the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 to offer soon as well.
Very cool.
We’ve also just received a press release from Motorola themselves, stating that Motorola will bring the BACKFLIP, DEXT and QUENCH to all three national wireless carriers in the first half of 2010. Canadians, I hope you’re ready to get an extended fill of Android+MOTOBLUR.
Of course, no carrier pricing or release dates have been made available, all I can tell you is these devices are coming in the ‘first half of 2010’. While we wait for more details I’m going to reach out to some of my contacts at the ‘big 3’. I suspect I’ll get a tight-lipped answer, but hey, you never know.
Full details of the Motorola press release after the jump.
MOTOBLUR™ Debuts in Canada – Say Hello to the First Phones with Social Skills
Only MOTOBLUR organizes all your messages from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter along with your emails and texts, and streams them to a single live widget for immediate reply – right from the home screen
TORONTO, Ont. — March 3, 2010 — Motorola Canada today announced that MOTOBLURTM, its revolutionary social service for Android-powered devices, is coming to Canada with all three national wireless carriers in the first half of 2010.
MOTOBLUR is the only solution to sync all your friends, posts, feeds, messages, e-mails, photos and much more—from sources such as Facebook®, Twitter®, MySpace, Gmail™, Yahoo! and work email—with continuous updates, automatically delivering them to your home screen for immediate reply. MOTOBLUR delivers these updates in easy-to-view streams, so there is no need to switch between different mobile applications to keep up with the latest content, allowing you to spend less time managing your life and more time living it.
“We are thrilled to be bringing Canadians three unique MOTOBLUR handsets with all the major wireless carriers,” said Rick Gadd, Vice President and Sales General Manager, Mobile Devices, Motorola Canada. “With MOTOBLUR, we are differentiating the Android experience and delivering phones that are truly instinctive and socially smart.”
Life: Organized, Streamed and Delivered
Only MOTOBLUR automatically delivers conversation threads, friend updates, stories, links, photos and more, to live widgets on your home screen for immediate reply:
- Happenings: View your social site updates in one spot with the live Happenings application. Every friend feed, status update, wall post, bulletin and photo upload is automatically delivered and ready for immediate reply, anyway you like.
- Messages: Quickly scroll through the Messages application for a snapshot of current work or personal emails, social site messages and texts, and view messages all together in the universal inbox or separately by source.
- Social Status: Blast your status right from the home screen and even save time by updating your status to one or all your social networks at once.
- News Feeds: Keep track of your favorite news feeds, sports scores or even celebrity gossip without leaving the home screen.
Even cooler is MOTOBLUR’s ability to back up and restore all your contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, and email and social network messages via the secure MOTOBLUR server. Lost or stolen phones can be found with integrated AGPS from the online owner’s portal, and data can even be wiped clean. Simply enter the account username and password on the next MOTOBLUR phone, and all the information will be ready and waiting. Now there’s peace of mind!
Integrated Contacts with Context
MOTOBLUR keeps track of contacts so it’s easy to keep up. Only MOTOBLUR syncs and merges friends from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter together with your work and personal email contacts into a single phone book. Contacts are automatically synced to the phone from personal and work email as well as social network accounts, and MOTOBLUR updates any changes friends or contacts make to their information so you don’t have to. When making or receiving a phone call, your friend’s latest profile picture and status is shown on the screen. In the contacts view, see your communication history with each person and their latest social network broadcasts organized in an easy-to-read manner so you’ll always know the latest info about friends and family. Plus, communicate with them anyway you like, directly from their contact information.
Customize with Apps and Widgets
Mix and match thousands of applications and widgets from MOTOBLUR, Android Market™ or pre-loaded Google™ mobile services. Everything from messages to news feeds to sports scores to the Happenings widget to Google Maps™ can be added to create custom home screens that fit anyone’s multi-faceted life.
Canadian MOTOBLUR Line Up
The following devices featuring MOTOBLUR will be available in Canada:
MOTOROLA BACKFLIP™ — Backflip’s unique reverse flip design makes it easy to enjoy videos, music and photos, while its QWERTY keyboard allows you to blast through e-mails, texts, news feeds, social network messages and more. Navigate quickly and easily through menus and features with the new and unique BACKTRACK™ feature. BACKTRACK is a touch panel located on the opposite side of the device, offering you a new way to scroll through the web, texts, e-mails and news feeds without obscuring the home screen.
MOTOROLA DEXT™ — Flick through your latest updates and fire back a response on DEXT’s slide-out QWERTY keyboard – no apps to open and no menus to dig through, just instant social gratification. Snap photos with DEXT’s 5 megapixel camera with autofocus; upload photos simply to your favorite photo sharing or social sites; and make and take clear calls even in noisy environments with dual microphones and noise cancellation technology.
MOTOROLA QUENCH™ — This sleek, customizable touch tablet fits nicely in a palm or pocket. QUENCH’s easy-to-use touch pad and enhanced browser bring to life content rich web sites (busy banners, full videos) that many of today’s phones can’t handle. And with pinch and zoom capabilities, it’s easy to enlarge and enjoy all this great content.
Stay tuned as Motorola turns the mobile phone into a whole new kind of social in the first half of 2010. For more information about MOTOBLUR, please visit www.motorola.ca.