We're seeing a serious flow of tips from people upset with supposed performance issues on a good pile of HTC's newest sets. Handsets like the HTC TyTN II, Touch Dual, Touch Cruise, Wings, Titan, Vogue, Libra, and Iris are all apparently affected by underperforming video drivers which in turn slow the device significantly. The list -- and length -- of threads covering this is snow-balling at the well known XDA-Developers forum pages, as is talk of class-action suits. A site has now been set up called HTCClassAction to help people sort through all the buzz and get the nitty gritty details, so hit the read link if you're inspired to learn more. Of course we'll hopefully hear something official from HTC on this in the near term and will be sure to fill you in as we do.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

So even though Sprint has come out and officially said the reason for the LG Rumor's disappearance is the "high sales volume" of the handset, it doesn't look like anyone's really buying it -- and there's still a lot of credible chatter out there that firmware-resetting keystroke bug is indeed the real reason the Rumor went MIA. Although there's apparently a fix on deck, Sprint still hasn't decided on when to release it to existing customers -- we're assuming that its inevitable popularity is causing fits at Sprint HQ.

Update: PhoneNews is reporting that the update is now available to Sprint Rumor owners under Menu > Settings > Others > Update. It'll be interesting to see how this affects the Rumors availability.

The iPhone 1.1.1 update has a hidden little surprise for y'all: Bluetooth audio streaming is now available off of your iPhone for whatever you darn please, meaning you can finally listen to music from the phone wirelessly. Oddly enough, this "function" has been unleashed by a Visual Voicemail bug that leaves Bluetooth audio on even after you've left the Voicemail interface. Of course, it's only mono audio, and the audio keeps playing out of your built-in speaker -- if you plug in headphones to cut off the speaker you'll lose Bluetooth streaming as well -- but it's nice to see Apple forking over some "should have been there in the first place" functionality accidentally to go along with all that stuff of the same ilk 1.1.1 took away from us.

Oops, researchers just unveiled a pretty serious security vulnerability in the iPhone. More specifically, it's Apple's Safari web browser which exhibits the vulnerability. Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators have used the vulnerability to take malicious control of the iPhone from rogue websites loaded with the exploit. Once in, researchers have full administrative access over the phone allowing them to listen in on room audio or snatch the SMS log, address book, call history, email passwords and more -- we're talking full access to your phone. Researchers note that the only way to stay safe is to check those URLs and only visit sites that you trust (which isn't very reassuring) and "may or may not be exploitable" from Mac and PC versions of Safari -- the same vulnerability exists only they haven't written the proof-of-concept exploit to test it yet. Apple has been notified of the vulnerability and a proposed fix with full public disclosure coming at the BlackHat conference on August 2nd. You listening InfoSec Sellout? That's how you report a bug. Check the exploit in video form after the break.

[Via MacRumors]

As smartphones become ever more complex and powerful, simple math dictates that the incidence of severe software issues is going to go up. Sad as it is, that's to be expected, and we can't really recall the last time we extensively used a smartphone -- regardless of brand or platform -- that didn't exhibit some bugs. That being said, when a phone won't frickin' come out of standby, you'd think they'd be able to catch that before shipping. Many owners of Toshiba's ultra-powerful G900 Windows Mobile 6 Professional handset seem to be reporting a hodgepodge of problems that are necessitating returns, chief among them being that once the phone goes to sleep, it doesn't want to wake up until a reset is performed. Toshiba's apparently promising a fix in the next few weeks, but for folks trying to make this beauty their primary mobile, that's little consolation for the moment.

[Thanks, Gudmundur]

Apparently, HTC's P3300 Artemis microSD-handling capabilities fall well short of its ability to look good (yeah, it's hot -- this one definitely left a lasting impression on us when we saw it at last year's Fall CTIA). Users have been reporting a variety of issues with the P3300's slot, ranging from an inability to correctly read directory structures on expansion cards all the way to data corruption. Help's on the way, though, in the form of a freshly-released update straight from HTC itself that should clear those pesky microSD woes right up. If you're into trackballs, navigation, and a Palm V-esque form factor, you probably own one of these things, so go patch 'er up, will ya?

[Via the::unwired]

Just as Japan announces that it'll pretty much have an eye on every single cellphone user in the nation, Korea is going against the grain somewhat by offering up an anti-eavesdropping service on users' handsets. SK Telecom, KTF, and LG Telecom will all be offering private long code service, a digital encryption system to keep voice snoopers at bay, and will dub the service "Voice Private." Marketed primarily towards people of utmost importance, such as politicians, public officials, journalists (ahem), and CEOs, the luxury will purportedly operate on any mobile phone and will cost between W1,500 ($1.60) and W2,000 ($2.13). Interestingly, it wasn't noted if these fees were a monthly charge (less likely) or a per-call exaction (more likely), but regardless, the service should go live just as soon as the Ministry of Information and Communication approves it.

Anyone who's had the good fortune of seeing a Pearl in the flesh knows that it's one extraordinarily good looking phone, particularly by BlackBerry standards. Unfortunately, where we come from, phones that don't ring are called "paperweights" -- which is exactly what the Pearl becomes when the trackball gets nudged. You know, like if it's in your pocket, or your purse, or pretty much anywhere besides a stationary counter top. As it turns out, when the phone rings, the handset immediately silences the ringer with even the slightest movement of the trackball, regardless of whether keylock is enabled. While we do appreciate the Pearl taking the initiative for us and ignoring phone calls so we don't have to, there is an occasional situation where we like to make the decision ourselves, and until RIM issues a fix users simply don't have that option. Strangely, two Engadget editors patiently attempted to explain the issue to a RIM representative this week at CTIA for several minutes without success; we think the first step to RIM issuing a fix would be for the company to understand the problem, so we could be in for a bit of a wait. Maybe the words we were using were too big?

Nope, this ain't no April Fool's joke, people, this is the real deal: when everybody's clocks skip forward an hour for Daylight Savings Time this year (at 2:00AM on the first Sunday in April -- i.e. early tomorrow morning), your Treo 700w's calendar appointments may not. Like putting your WinMo phone in travel mode to another time zone, apparently a bug in the 700w may cause your appointments to time-shift back one hour -- so your noon appointment will stay put, so to speak, at 11:00AM. Palm's got some workarounds on their site so you shouldn't be too put out, so make sure you sort it out soon before Monday morning when you're an hour early to all your meetings. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if America would just get rid of DST -- Arizona, Hawaii, and portions of Indiana excepted, of course.

[Via TreoCentral]