As an update for our earlier report that HTC has started fixing Wi-Fi security issues on several devices, we have learned that these fixes are already available to the affected phones as a part of a regular update on the device. The affected phones include:

• Desire HD (both “Ace” and “Spade” board revisions) – Versions FRG83D, GRI40
• Glacier – Version FRG83
• Droid Incredible – Version FRF91
• Thunderbolt 4G – Version FRG83D
• Sensation Z710e – Version GRI40
• Sensation 4G – Version GRI40
• Desire S – Version GRI40
• EVO 3D – Version GRI40
• EVO 4G – Version GRI40

If you are the owner of any of the phones mentioned above, you should have the fix available to you. However, there are certain phones which will need a manually installation of the patch.

“HTC has developed a fix for a small Wi-Fi issue affecting some HTC phones. Most phones have received this fix already through regular updates and upgrades. However, some phones will need to have the fix manually loaded. Please check back next week for more information about this fix and a manual download if you need to update your phone,” a notice posted on the company’s website read.

The Wi-Fi security issue was discovered by CloudPath Networks’ Senior Engineer named Chris Hessing. The vulnerability leaks that affected SSID ( network name) and Wi-Fi credentials were then issued as an alert by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). Because of this vulnerability, attackers are able to capture and harness information to hack the network of a user through the right application.

Even though the bug was discovered last September, Bret Jordan, Open1X Group’s security architect; still praised Google and HTC for their fast responsiveness and for working on the issue.

“Google has made changes to the Android code to help better protect the credential store and HTC has released updates for all currently supported phone and side-loads for all non-supported phone,” Jordan said. “Google has also scanned every application in the Android Market for this vulnerability and discovered no apps exploiting it at this point.”

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T-Mobile is preparing for a new bunch of Android smartphones and tablets that they will be exhibiting at next month’s Mobile World Congress and the CTIA. This means is that they will be clearing out their shelves to make room for the new models. And yes, they’re letting go of 6 Android devices which TmoNews has gathered to be:

• LG Doubleplay
• LG myTouch
• LG myTouch Q
• HTC Amaze 4G
• HTC myTouch 4G Slide
• HTC Sensation 4G

There hasn’t been an exact shelf life for these models. We heard that it will vary depending on each device. But it is possible that some of the HTC models could stick for a while, since they are still being advertised by T-Mobile. As for LG, we really can’t say the same….

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IBM and HTC have both partnered to bring Android to the next level—enterprise. Considering these two companies excel on both industries, it won’t be a difficult task for them to lead the way to Android’s adoption into enterprise set. With their partnership, they will create a business-centric software in which IBM has bundled up with the upcoming phones of HTC. This was earlier announced at the Lotusphere conference held in Orlando.

The non-exclusive merger will result to IBM’s suite of smart business solutions to be available on the future tablets and smartphones manufactured by HTC. Outside the conference, apps were not shown. At the same time, the major selling point was the integration and enterprise-level security. This—is something many BlackBerry and Apple users concur in agreeing; especially since Android is a year late compared to iOS in enterprise adoption.

There are several other Android phone manufacturers who are approaching business customers. In fact, most high-end phones are now equipped with an encryption option. But comparing them with LG’s VMWare virtualization software would be a joke. It has been the true separation between personal and work usage on just one smartphone.

As more and more consumers are making the switch to Android, we can only look forward to new innovations in the world of business and telecommunication.

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The HTC Flyer was HTC’s first tablet, which I have to say, although not too bad looking, it didn’t really impress, with perhaps the one exception of promoting the handwriting and drawing features on it. But otherwise it showed how HTC didn’t really understand tablets when they entered the market.

First, it sold for around $600 in most places, and that’s without the $80 stylus. That was one of the biggest mistakes HTC did, because they followed Motorola’s failed pricing strategy of starting with a high price. Both HTC and Motorola should’ve known from the beginning that a tablet that is more expensive than the iPad was not going to sell well, if at all, in the market.

I don’t know if the pricing was intentional, or because the components ended up being more expensive than they initially thought, or because they wanted to recover their development costs faster, but it was a poor strategy on their part, and unfortunately one they actually repeated with the Jetstream later on, which started at $700.

The other things they got wrong was the single core processor, which may be fine for a phone, but not for a tablet where you multi-task a lot more often, and definitely not for a tablet at that price. This was because HTC still had a very tight relationship with Qualcomm, and Qualcomm was far from having ready their dual-core processor, and they didn’t go with the Tegra 2 or OMAP 4430 either.

It also came with Android 2.3, which wasn’t the tablet optimized version of Android, and that plus the fact that they merely ported their Sense UI from the phones, made it look as if the Flyer is just one big phone.

But there’s some good news. A year after the launch, it seems that the Flyer is finally getting a tablet optimized version of Android – Android 4.0. It should receive this update sometime in the first quarter of this year, which means in February or March (I’d bet on March). Here’s the conversion between a HTC customer and the customer service:

HTC: or wait for the update to ice cream sandwich.
Bruno: When is the update expected?
HTC: the first quarter of this year.

Seeing how there are already a lot of 7″ alternatives out there, including the Kindle Fire or Nook Color, which can be rooted, and are somewhere around $200-$250, plus the upcoming Asus tablet that will cost $250 and have a quad core Tegra 3, HTC will have to do a lot more than just update its tablet. It will have to lower the price around that level, too, otherwise I doubt they’ll sell anymore of these. But at least they are supporting their original tablet customers, so that’s good. The question is until when? I’d like to see manufacturers bring the major Android updates for at least 2 years after a product launch. That means the Flyer should get Android 5.0, too (if only).

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After that long disaster of Carrier IQ in late 2011, HTC has decided to remove Carrier IQ from their CDMA phones starting this month. Last week HTC rolled out a maintenance update to the HTC EVO 3D on Sprint which removed Carrier IQ from those devices, which Sprint said they turned off the switch on Carrier IQ during the big scandal late last year. HTC is starting with their CDMA models in removing the Carrier IQ service, Verizon customer need not worry since Carrier IQ is not on Verizon devices.

According to an HTC representative, updates will begin this month for Sprint devices, though specific models and timeframes were not mentioned. Since the HTC EVO 3D has already been updated to remove Carrier IQ, who can we expect to be next? All of the relevant phones will have a security update, which may include various other bugfixes as well. All told, 26 million CDMA customers (including HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Palm and other manufacturers) are affected by Carrier IQ, though the wireless provider says that it has ceased using the software’s functions.

Carrier IQ almost certainly isn’t intended to be used as spyware. Its primary function is technical logging that helps carriers hunt down bugs and improve their networks. But the wide range of access that the software has, including visited websites, call logs, location and other data. Carrier IQ didn’t help matters when it threatened legal action against a security researcher who exposed the software’s potential breaches.

So make sure you apply any update that comes to your device so you can get rid of Carrier IQ once and for all!

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If you own any of these devices and want to get the bootloader unlocked, hit up the source link below and get the process started. It’s actually pretty easy as long as you follow the directions HTC gives you on their Developer Portal. If you want to find out if your bootloader is locked or not you can simply power down your device then press the Power button and Volume down together, you will be booted into the bootloader and at the top of the screen it will say “LOCKED” or “UNLOCKED”, if your locked let’s go unlock it for you.

Have you unlocked your bootloader yet? Hit up the comments and let us know how hard or easy it was.

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With so many awesome phones being announced at CES this past week, it’s going to take a really big phone to help HTC recover from not announcing a single thing at CES this year. But if the HTC Ville can live up to the hype, I think it can do that and much more. Now we are hearing that it could be launching on T-Mobile. While T-Mobile has played a big part in HTC’s success in Android, it looks like HTC is hoping to continue that trend. A quad-core phone has got to be running fast, since my 1.2GHz dual-core phone runs so fast even with sense, but faster without sense. Just imagine how fast a quad-core HTC phone would run?

We should start hearing more from HTC or more rumors about future HTC products in the next few weeks, since Mobile World Congress is just around the corner in late February. What’s your opinion so far of the HTC Ville? Is the screen to small? Is the design to different looking compared to HTC’s other devices? Let us know what you think of the HTC Ville in the comments.

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• Updated Peep client (to align with Twitter)
• Battery life improvements
• Security update

I know you guys with the HTC EVO 3D are dissappointed you aren’t getting Ice Cream Sandwich yet. Yes, HTC did say they’d start rolling out ICS updates for their phones in January, but you know how updates are in the Android world unless you have a Nexus. Now back to the HTC EVO 3D and it’s newest maintenance release from Sprint and HTC.

The OTA should start rolling out to devices today, but you can manually force the update check by tapping Menu > Settings > System updates > HTC software update > Check now. Once you get the update let us know in the comments how well it’s working out for you.

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That’s right folks, the first HTC phone to feature Beats Audio natively in the US has now dropped it’s price by $100. With CES taking place this week, and a ton of new phones and tablets being announced, could it be possible that Verizon is launching a new flagship 4G LTE phone this week? Guess we will have to wait and see.

In my opinion the $299 price tag plus the 2-year contract on Verizon without unlimited data was really not a good deal. The $199 price tag is a little bit easier to swallow. But why get the Rezound when you can get a Nexus with Android 4.0 right?

Also need to point out that HTC has added the Rezound to the list of the phones that the bootloader can now be unlocked at the HTC Dev site. So if you were looking to get the Rezound, now might be a good time to pick it up.

Are you interested in getting the Rezound? Did you just buy one for $299 and now you’re pissed that it’s $100 cheaper? Let us know in the comments.

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Sometime in December HTC did warn investors that there would be a big fall in their profits for Quarter 4 of 2011. Q4 2011 generated T$11.02 billion ($366m) in net earnings, which marks a significant drop from the T$14.8b ($492m) the company pulled in during the same period a year earlier.

Initially we all thought this was because of the disastrous November that HTC had, but December was just as bad. Compared with 2010, HTC saw a 20.3% drop in revenue. HTC isn’t back tracking just yet, they aren’t in the hole as deep as some companies like RIM, HTC is still a big company with a nice portfolio of competitive products in both Android and Windows Mobile phone markets. HTC kind of slowed down their launching of new devices in Q4 as far as Android devices go, we don’t really pay attention to Windows Phones as much as Android phones.

Now what HTC needs to do is stabilize their profits and keep pushing out great new phones and tablets – perhaps get rid of HTC Sense – so they don’t fall any further.

It’s important to point out that these numbers are unaudited, so they could change in the foreseeable future. But for the world’s number four phone manufacturer to see a loss like this is still surprising. HTC still lacking to compete with the top two manufacturers Apple, and Samsung.

Are you surprised by HTC’s 2.5% drop in Q4 of 2011? Let us know in the comments.

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