I guess its’s a good thing I decided not to cancel HBO. If you’re considering ditching your premium subsctiption to the HBO service, you might want to re-think it too. Why? Read on.

The long-anticipated HBO Go app just hit the iOS App Store and Android Market, bringing original HBO series and a variety of blockbuster films to your mobile device. You’ll need an HBO subscription with your cable or satellite provider to get past the login screen, but unlocking all that the service has to offer is a pretty easy experience.

Although, it doesn’t seem Time Warner Cable is participating so if you’ve got that cable service, you’re out of luck — at least for now.

However, as I’m both a Time Warner and DirecTV subsciber (don’t ask) I was able to authenticae using my DirecTV sibsctiption and was off and running. This app features a pretty amazing collection of programming including pretty much every episode of every show HBO has ever aired plus many of their movies as well. Plus, you can also watch these programs via your computer as well. But you’ve got that fancy iPad or iPhone so why not watch it on those instead, right?

So, if you’re an HBO subscriber, head on over to your iOS or Android stores and check this app out. It’s pretty cool.

Good news for those of you currently using something other than an iPhone and in particular users of Android powered devices. Google has, in their infinite benevolence, updated the Gmail application for Android and has given it some new features and fixed a few bugs.

Some of these new and improved goodies include message actions sticking to the top of the screen while scrolling, view previous messages more easily like with the desktop client, performance boost for most features and limited support for Priority Inbox. Although, as someone who really didn’t take to Priority Inbox when it came to the desktop Gmail app, I’m not that excited about that particular part of the update.

Still, it’s nice to see that Google seems to be on top of it when it comes to improving the user experience on Android powered devices. With the recent (or pending for some of you) update to Android 2.2 (aka Froyo), Google seems to be on a path of improvement for its software. As an Android smartphone user, I couldn’t be happier about it.

The update is in the Android Market and available for all those running Android 2.2.

It must be nice to work for a site where people send you info about all kinds of interesting new gadgets and gizmos like they do over at The Boy Genius Report. Hopefully, we will start to get that kind of stuff around here soon enough or maybe even over at The Clickcast as well.

Until then, we will just have to bring you items of interest given to other sites we like and read. Case in point is the news that the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which we told you about previously, has now been “officially” leaked and is appearing on Verizon’s internal sales website.

The above image of the device was sent to BGR and pretty much shows that the Tab will be announced as a new Verizon device on Thursday. Good news for those of you waiting for a competitor to the iPad to appear on your favorite carrier. In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the specs for the new device, just to get you excited:

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Color me excited. I just fired up my HTC Incredible this morning to find a message alerting me that the update to Android 2.2 (aka Froyo) was ready to be installed.

Naturally, this made me very happy and I proceeded to do the update. Here’s what was added or otherwise made much better by this update, which changes your software to version 3.21.605.1 and Android version 2.2:

• 3G Mobile Hot Spot
• HTC Widget: Mail
• HTC Widget: News
• EAS Updates
• 720p Video Recording
• Amazon MP3
• Skype
• My Verizon

The rumored 802.11N wireless enhancement seems to be untrue as so far my updated HTC Incredible can’t find my N wireless network. That’s a shame. I will be testing out these changes and whatever else I can find today and will let you know if anything else seems odd or broken.

Plus, if I end up finding anything else cool not so far known with this update. If you guys decide to update, let us know your experiences in the comments.

If you’re an HTC Incredible user then this info is for you. According to an article at The Boy Genius Report, the Incredible is expected to get the brand new Android OS 2.2 (code name Froyo) in August. This information, taken from an email sent in by a tipster, goes into detail about the update and what users can expect from it.

Take a look below at the email and see if you believe what’s being said.

I wanted to pass along that the upcoming Incredible MR will also include Froyo (originally it was going to be two separate MRs). We are targeting the end of the month/first part of August. As a reminder, below are the highlights:
• Froyo
• 802.11 n
• 3G Mobile Hot Spot
• HTC Widget: Email
• HTC Widget: News
• EAS Updates
• 720p Video Recording
• Amazon MP3
• Skype
• My Verizon

If ultimately true, this update is very good news for current Incredible owners. these are features they will certainly all want to have as soon as possible. Of course, this means the rumored OS update that was supposed to roll out last weekend was either untrue or was halted to make ready for this improved one.

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Hot on the heels of Verizon’s Twitter campaign (follow @DroidLanding for details), as well as our own coverage of the Droid X here at The Flickcast, the wireless company has now released a sneak peek of a 60-second trailer for their hot new Android-based smartphone.

The video as well as the Twitter campaign have really served to build the hype in advance of the official Motorola Droid X launch, which begins today at Verizon retail stores nationwide. Since June 21st, Team Droid X has been tweeting tantalizing details concerning the whereabouts of  twenty of their so-called ‘Droid Designates’.

Advanced copies of the massive smartphones hidden in various states across the U.S. As the weeks rolled on, the hints became more and more specific, eventually culminating in a GPS coordinate that could be entered into Google Maps to learn an exact location.

Obligatory twitpics of the winners of the Droid X scavenger hunt began popping up late last week. One-by-one, the beaming faces of Droid X owners holding up their new smartphones really had me thinking that Verizon knows how to run a successful viral twitter campaign. And clearly, getting advanced copies of a hot new phone out in the wild only stokes the interest all the more.

Hit the jump for all of the launch-day details as well as the sneak-peek video!

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A new report from comScore on U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share reveals some interesting statistics for both domestic cell- and smart-phone users. For fans of Google’s open-source Android Platform, the good news is that Android is continuing to grab ever-larger shares of the U.S. smartphone market. With the sheer number of outrageously great Android-based smartphones being released in 2010, it makes sense that devices based on Google’s OS would jump a healthy 4.0% over the previous period.

Over 234 million Americans age 13 and older are currently using mobile devices and comScore’s report ranked mobile equipment manufacturers (OEMs), smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. according to their share of current mobile subscribers, and finally mobile content usage (how mobile device owners used their devices).

In terms of top manufacturers of mobile devices, manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 22.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up one percentage point from the preceding three month period. LG ranked second with 21.5 percent share, followed by Motorola (21.2 percent share), RIM (8.7 percent share, up 0.5 percentage point) and Nokia (8.1 percent share).

Of all mobile device users, 49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period. RIM, with their business-friendly Blackberry phones was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share and Microsoft with 13.2 percent.

Google saw significant growth during the period, up 4.0 percentage points to capture 13.0 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.8 percent. Despite losing share to Google Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow.

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The long-awaited Android Mobile OS v.2.2 (AKA “FroYo”) has officially rolled out, but before you get too excited, it’s only for Nexus One owners.

Revealed last month at Google’s I/O Developer Conference, FroYo represents a huge leap forward in features for Google’s mobile OS. The newest Android version boasts not only faster performance, but a virtual laundry list of cool features like the ability to create a 5-device mobile hotspot, built-in tethering support, improved cloud-to-mobile device functionality, Adobe Flash 10.1 optimized for the mobile platform, and the list just goes on and on.

Owners of other Android-powered handsets such as the HTC Evo, Droid Incredible and even the upcoming Droid X will unfortunately have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the new OS. Because most of these phones run a customized version of Android, or have an add-on UI layer like the ‘Sense UI,’ it’s up to the manufacturer to handle their own roll-outs.

That said, if you are using one of these HTC mobile devices, all signs point to August before you’ll be able to get your hands on FroYo.

For those lucky few with a Nexus One, expect an over-the-air update sometime soon.

Even though as a recent convert to Verizon and a happy HTC Droid Incredible owner I’m reluctant to see any new phone that makes mine obsolete or diminishes it in some way, it is nice to see that Verizon and Motorola keep trying to raise the bar with newer and more feature-rich smartphones. Case in point is the announcement late yesterday of the actual specs, release date and pricing for the next generation of Motorola DROID, better known as the DROID X.

Here’s the summary of specs for the device in a nice, easy to read list.

• Texas Instrument 1GHz Processor
• 4.3″ display with 854 x480 resolution, 400,000 pixels
• 8GB internal storage• 16 GB microSD card expansion (expandable to 32GB)
• 8 MP camera with dual flash, HD camcorder
• Integrated Multitouch keyboard, optional Swype keyboard
• 3G Mobile hotspot functionality with support for up to 5 devices, 2GB cap, $20 monthly fee
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• Support for Exchange and Gmail for Business
• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 ready
• Android 2.1 with a “toned down” version of Motoblur

Yes, there’s no “out of the box” Flash support and no you don’t get Android 2.1 (aka Froyo) but Verizon does say they will be releasing an upgrade for both “issues” in the latter half of the Summer. So, you got that going for you if you end up getting the device, which is nice.

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