From the Editor's Desk: Fires, forks and fall

Woke up this morning to the first hints of fall here in Northwest Florida. Don't worry, that'll change soon enough -- 90 degrees and high humidity likely isn't going anywhere just yet. But for now, I'm back from one trip, getting ready for yet another, and am just enjoying the cooler temps, light breeze and the fact that the Steelers are on TV tonight.

A few thoughts on the past week, and a few on what's coming up:

• Picked a hell of a time to be out of pocket, eh? We were at the announcements for the new Amazon Kindle Fires (all three of them), plus the three Motorola phones that Verizon's letting loose. And I haven't touched a single one. We'll have to rectify that soon enough. But judging from Kevin's and Anndrew's hands-ons with the RAZR M and the RAZR HD, plus the Kindle Fire 8.9, we've got some more decent hardware headed our way.
• So where was I? At the second HTC Frequencies event, where we get to have some great candid (and a lot of off-the-record) discussion, plus behind-the-scenes looks at things. It's tough to explain the importance of events like this without having been there, but any time you get a manufacturer or carrier to open up and help explain the things really work, it's better for everyone.
• Speaking of the Kindle Fire ... Put ads on it, or don't put ads on it, but Amazon should have had its story straight on Thursday. That was bungled from the start, making far more headlines than it needed to.
• I'm also not reading too much into Amazon using Bing as the default search on the new Fires instead of Google. Amazon's got every right to do so. If you think Amazon should have to use Google by default just because it's using Android, you're missing the whole point about Android being an open-source OS.
• Why are forks so hard for so many to understand?
• Speaking of Motorola ... Anyone who says that Google didn't take enough control over the RAZR M, RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD doesn't understand the first thing about smartphone production cycles. These things have been in the works for months and months, long before the Google-Motorola deal finally went through.
• Where we're really looking ahead is to this week's Motorola-Intel event in London. This is the new stuff, folks -- the stuff we saw announced at CES way back in January. I'm not 100 percent certain we're going to see a Google-inspired Moto phone just yet (if ever, outside of a Nexus, perhaps), but we are going to see the first non-Chinese Moto-Intelretail device, and the shift in architecture is a big deal.
• There's gonna be a little Apple news this week, right? Should be interesting to see the finished version of iOS6. What Android features do you think they'll ape this time?
• I'm doing the Ausdroid podcast on Tuesday. That's early Tuesday morning, U.S. time. Love those crazie Aussies. And, yes, we'll get a podcast of our own done this week. Promise.
• Our forums have undergone a pretty major upgrade this weekend. Yeah, they look a little different -- easier on the eyes, methinks -- but a good bit of the work has been on the back end, behind the scenes. If you run across Cory Streateror any of the mods, give 'em a high-five. (Update: Whoa. Just learned how much work really is going into this. If you see those guys, give 'em a big ol' hug. Or buy them something.)It's hard work, but it should make for a better experience. We've got a running thread here for issues that are cropping up.

And now, back to the sunshine.

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