[HTC Taiwan – Thanks Unimaginative]

Here’s the trick: You ask a friend for a card, any card, which Penn and Teller will guess via SMS. It seems impossible, even more so than your average card guessing trick, but since this is Penn and Teller we’re talking about, so the trick will be ruined.

The way it works is conceptually simple, but definitely convincing: You start the app, which opens a lookalike iPhone interface, complete with fake app icons-each one representing a card—and a fake icon dock, full of suits. When your friend gives you a card, you press two icons—one for the card’s rank, like 5, Ace, King, etc., and one of the dock icons for the suit. The app then automatically opens a fake SMS interface, which lets you carry out a fake SMS conversation with Penn and Teller, during which “they” invariably get the guess right, because you’ve entered it into the app. There’s a runthrough video on their site. It’s a neat gag.

But the very thing that makes it cool will probably doom it to a marginal life in the Cydia store: It mimics or “replaces” Apple’s interfaces and functions, posing as a homescreen as well as the native SMS client—something which has pretty much guaranteed a rejection in the past. It’s harmless, to be sure, but could well sound a few alarms in Apple’s app store approval dungeon. Penn and Teller hope to have it in the store soon, priced at $US2. [Penn and Teller via Techcrunch]

To be fair, we should have expected this: Back in June, there were reports that HTC representatives had been talking about a “With Google” licensing issue, which disallowed them from loading phones with propritary modifications to Google’s OS. Sense is all HTC, and the MyTouch 3G is slapped with a Google logo, so this forthcoming update, which was announced at a press conference in Taiwan and will be available from HTC’s website at some point in the near future, sounds like a distinctly foreign interest. So, balls.

It’s worth holding out for possible “clarifications” on this one—please, HTC, Google, or both, say it ain’t so!—but this hemisphere’s outlook isn’t so great. There’s nothing like a massive, terrible caveat to piss all over some otherwise wonderful news. At least we’ve got our homebrew.

AU: If I were a betting man, I’d place my money on the Three version of the Magic to be able to load Sense, but not the Vodafone version. The Vodafone version has the Google Logo on it…

[ePrice—Thanks, Denis]

Also intriguing is CDMA support—as in the kind of network that Sprint runs—adding on to Sprint’s Dan Hesse remark that Android is coming to Sprint this year and rumours that it’ll be Hero. You can see a lot of the new Donut features in action here, like universal search, in this video from the Google I/O conference.

Folks at XDA are working on a build that’ll run on the Dream (G1), though it works in the emulator right now. [XDA Developers, Images via XDA's cyanogen, Thanks Will!]

A couple interesting things gleaned about the Hero as I barely refrained from cramming it down my pants: There’s a ton of HTC software on there, not just the Sense UI—they’ve built their own mail client with Exchange support, and even a slick, iPhone-worthy Twitter app. Also, the grey Hero has a rubber back—only the white one is rocking out the Teflon (but it’s the only one that needs it).

Oh yeah, dear god please give me one. Right now. Thanks.

It is important to remember though that each version of the phone has certain advantages over the other, with 3’s version being proper Exchange server integration. I did a quick look for exchange software on the Marketplace with the Vodafone version, and the results didn’t instill too much confidence in the third party options currently available. Whether that’s worth a $30 a month premium though is a matter for each buyer.

[Vodafone via Lifehacker]

AU: Worth noting that this is a US review (obviously). I had a Vodafone HTC Magic delivered yesterday afternoon, and will look to see whether anything changes locally over the next week or so.

It’s not restricted to the $99 plan though – there’s a sliding scale of pricing available, as you can see below:

What do you think? Will you rush out to jump on 3’s Magic deal, or wait until Voda announce their pricing?

[Three]

UPDATE: The event’s all done, but it was all about the phone, not the carriers. There were, however some interesting elements discussed…First up, they’re not talking pricing or plans. This is a HTC event, talking about the handset and Android.

The Magic will be launching (whenever that is), with the Android 1.5 software (Cupcake). As we’ve been aware of for a while, some of the features in Cupcake worth noting are A2DP Bluetooth, onscreen keyboard, video recording, and the latest Webkit browser (including flash).

Watching YouTube on the Magic, you can select High Quality mode, just like on your PC. Not sure if the sceren would actually make the most of that quality boost for the extra data you’d chew through.

Regarding the Marketplace, apparently there are over 3200 free and paid apps on the marketplace, although there’s still no word on the Australian launch of paid apps. The powerpoint slide says “coming soon” though, whatever that means.

There are two different models available in Australia: One for Voda, one for 3. The Voda model has firmware updates over the air, the 3 does it using your PC; Voda you need to download an Exchange app, the 3 comes with the software pre-installed; Voda lets you geotag photos, 3 has a smart-dialler app; 3 comes with pdf, Word & excel viewer, voda you need to download. Essentially the difference is that Voda partnered with Google and HTC, 3 only partnered with HTC.

Battery life is better than the Dream (according to HTC) although apparently a large part of that is the cupcake update.

There’s still no 3.5mm headphone jack – which is kind of crazy in this day and age.

Exchange support is push, apparently, which is a pleasant surprise. Although after some further discussions the difference between the Voda and Three versions is obvious: The 3 version (which comes with exchange support) uses HTC software that licenses Microsoft’s Activesync, whereas the Vodafone version requires a (free) thrid party download, which may not feature all the same functions. So bottom line is that if you’re a business user, the 3 version may be a bit better for you.

3 are planning on announcing pricing at Midday today. We’ll keep you posted.

[Vodafone HTC Magic page]