With Sprint’s new, shiny and huge HTC EVO 4G and the upcoming iPhone 4 hogging the smartphone spotlight, the focus is off of Verizon and their lineup of Android phones. But not for long.

Next week on June 23rd, a day before the iPhone 4 is released, Verizon, Motorola, and Adobe will be holding a press conference. That press conference, we hear, will be to introduce the world to their two newest Android devices, the Droid X (formerly known as the Droid Shadow) and the Droid 2.

The Droid X seems to be the closest competitor to the HTC EVO 4G, with a 4.4 inch screen, an 8 MP camera capable of shooting 720p video, and a 1GHz ARMv7 processor. It also comes packed with a built-in HDMI port, 8GB of storage, a multi-touch keyboard, and Android 2.1 with some form of Motoblur, Motorola’s social networking software.

The familiar touch sensitive shortcut buttons from the original Droid have also been replaced with real buttons. The device looks monstrous next to the iPhone and HTC EVO, but is also said to be rather skinny  From everything we’ve heard, this phone is going to be snappy, snazzy, and sweet, and a top player in the smartphone battle for dominance.

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It’s Tuesday so that must mean it’s a day for lawsuits, at least where Apple, Inc. is concerned. Case in point, our favorite fruit flavored technology company is suing hardware maker HTC for infringement of 20 patents concerning the iPhone user interface and its hardware and architecture. The lawsuit was filed with the U.S. International Trade Comission and in the U.S. District Court of Deleware.

Steve Jobs himself had this to say about the lawsuit: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Jobs. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” Yeah, he seems a bit miffed about the whole thing.

Although the Google Nexus One is not mentioned specifically in the lawsuit and HTC does make several other Android handsets, some could argue the touchscreen models interface does look quite a bit like the iPhone’s. Still, “quite a bit” does not necessarily a lawsuit make. Could it just be a bit of posturing to warn others away from trying to steal Apple’s ideas or to slow down the progress Android is making in the marketplace? Maybe.

Apple has the right to defend it’s ideas and the cash to try and punish those it deems responsible for stealing said ideas. However, I was kinda hoping to get my hands on a Nexus One when it is released for Verizon. I hope this lawsuit doesn’t hold that up. Neither HTC nor Google has issued a statement yet concerning the lawsuit.

Seeing as how I use AT&T daily in Los Angeles and find the 3G service to be spotty and occasionally non-existant, I have a bit of a hard time believing that AT&T’s 3G network speed is actually the fastest. However, based on a recent study conducted by PC World, that seems to be the case.

The study, a collaboration between PC World and wireless analysis firm Novarum, took place from December 2009 to January 2010, and compares the four major U.S. wireless carriers (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile) in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle on both mobile phones and laptop data cards

Highlights of the study include:

• AT&T: average download speed 1410 Kbps, average upload speed 773 Kbps

• Sprint: average download speed 795 Kbps, average upload speed 396 Kbps

• T-Mobile: average download speed 868 Kbps, average upload speed 311 Kbps

• Verizon: average download speed 877 Kbps, average upload speed 434 Kbps

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Got an iPhone or an iPod Touch? If so, it’s time to connect them to iTunes to get the latest version of Apple’s operating system for these devices. This latest version, dubbed 3.1.3, addresses a number of issues including the following:

CoreAudio
Playing a maliciously crafted mp4 audio file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

ImageIO
Viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Recovery Mode
A person with physical access to a locked device may be able to access the user’s data

WebKit
Accessing a maliciously crafted FTP server could result in an unexpected application termination, information disclosure, or arbitrary code execution

WebKit
When WebKit encounters an HTML 5 Media Element pointing to an external resource, it does not issue a resource load callback to determine if the resource should be loaded. This may result in
undesired requests to remote servers. As an example, the sender of an HTML-formatted email message could use this to determine that the message was read.

The update also offers the requisite “stability and usability enhancements.” Confused? Don’t worry, just update and things will be fine. Although, if you’re worried, you could wait a couple days to see if this latest update breaks something else, which sometimes happens. For more on this update, visit Apple’s Security Update site.

If you’re one of the many, many people currently using Apple’s iPhone 3G or 3GS, you’re in for a treat very soon because your beloved devices are getting another OS update to version 4.0. According to an article over at Boy Genius Report, details are now coming out about just what enhancements and features iPhone OS 4.0 will have.

Obviously, there is some speculation here but the OS is reported to include the following:

• There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense for that as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)

• “A few new ways” to run applications in the background — multitasking.

• Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient.

• The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date.

• Some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.

So there you have it. Who says you need a Google Nexus One?