Merely days after Stu Reed racked up as he waltzed out of Motorola's doors for the final time, and nary a fortnight after the same firm's chief marketing officer did the same, along comes word that two more bigwigs have now left the building. Effective immediately, Larry R. Raymond has replaced Steve Strobel as treasurer, while Stephen Nolan "is taking over as the head of mobile devices in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)" -- a position that was held by Mike Fenger just last week. According to a company spokeswoman, the "leadership changes are part of an overall plan to swiftly transform the senior executive team." Hey, if it's lookin' for turnover, it's certainly doing something right. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

[Via PhoneScoop]

Is that an exodus we smell, or what? Nary 24 hours after Motorola's chief marketing officer decided to start his weekend early by parting ways with the company, along comes word that the (now-former) president of Motorola's Mobile Devices business is doing the same. According to a breaking release from Moto, Stu Reed's departure is "effective immediately," and Greg Brown, company president and CEO, made mention that the outfit "appreciates [his] many contributions and wishes him the best in the future." As of now, there's no word on who's lined up fill Mr. Reed's shoes, but it seems the pool of choices could be dwindling.

We know, we know, it may be difficult to understand how companies that lock you in the moment you decide on a phone / plan -- only to be about as helpful as a bottomless bucket the moment turmoil arises -- could be hated. Nevertheless, we can't say we're shocked at all to hear that cellphone providers are among the least liked in all of the service industries. In a recent report released by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, it was found that "fewer than half of respondents were completely or very satisfied with their cellphone service," and sadly, that's hardly different than in years past. Among the biggest gripes were high prices and mandatory contract extensions, and while pro-rated ETFs are fine and dandy, there's still a few less notable carriers that haven't swallowed that pill just yet. As for internal rankings, Verizon and Alltel each scored higher than the rest, and Sprint was found bringing up the rear.

[Via Wired]
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We aren't saying that this is a widespread issue just yet, but a (rightfully) annoyed tipster has informed and shown us that his "refurbished" 8GB iPhone seems to have the same "negative black issue" that some iPod touch owners are currently grumbling about. Granted, he admits that the photo makes things look a little worse than they do in person, but the problem is still apparent. So, dear readers, are any of you experiencing iPod touch-like display issues on your iPhone?

[Thanks, Jason G.]

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]

Ah, the plot thickens. Just days ago we got wind that Apple could be facing a few hurdles in the European market, and considering that operators are now referring to the company as "unbelievably arrogant," we'd say the two have some serious issues to work through. According to Avi Greengart, a principal analyst at Current Analysis, Apple is making demands that "simply cannot be justified no matter how hot the product is," but failed to note exactly what these were. Interestingly, it was even noted that several carriers felt adamant that "they would never offer the iPhone." C'mon, who are these guys kidding -- somebody will end up bending to Apple's demands if it means offering up the oh-so-coveted handset. At least, we sure hope so for you folks across the pond.

[Via MacRumors]

According to the Korean Consumer Agency, 433 complaints regarding cellphone malfunction were lodged in 2006 -- a staggering 33 percent bump over 2005. Ultimately, some 73 percent of those were attributed to actual defects in the phones; of those, the largest culprit seemed to be call quality, accounting for 38.1 percent of the calls. Interestingly, Pantech and Curitel phones seemed to be the most finicky, with 167 complaints levied against their models. Motorola was on the opposite end of the spectrum with a mere 30 complaints, though we're guessing that's largely because Moto simply sells far fewer phones in Korea than the country's home brands do. The reason for the sudden upswing in angry calls? Telecoms Korea hypothesizes that miniaturization is to blame -- as phones get slimmer, defect rates go up. As long as these carriers and manufacturers are taking care of the issues, they've got nothing to worry about.

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]