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It's that time of year again: The weather's getting colder, the leaves are changing colors, and rumors of an Amazon phone are emerging from their summer homes to terrorize the world once more. Both the Financial Times and Jessica Lessin are reporting that HTC and Amazon are pairing up to build the long-rumored Amazon smartphone. If the report holds any ounce of truth, the device is close to completion so it's only a matter of time before an Amazon employee leaves a prototype of the phone in a bar somewhere. If Amazon is building a phone with HTC then it's a definite win-win for both parties: Amazon's Kindle Fires are some of the most successful Android tablets out there and it would only make sense for the company to move into the phone space with its own flavor of Android. HTC has long been struggling and recently posted significant losses, but the partnership would almost guarantee that a boat-load of HTC devices make their way to the hands of consumers—especially if earlier rumors hold true and Amazon offers the phone for free. HTC declined to comment about the report, and both companies declined to comment to the Financial Times or Jessica Lessin, so right now we can only speculate on what sorts of deals are happening behind the scenes. An Amazon phone running the company's own version of Android could just be the fastest way to customer's wallets but the big question remains: Would it come with a free year of Amazon Prime?

The next version of Google's platform, Android 4.4 KitKat, is set to arrive any day now. After three helpings of Jelly Bean, we would hope that the Nestle-inspired build should prove to be a larger update, but so far signs point to minor enhancements. Until recently, Google has done a great job keeping KitKat under wraps. Officially, Google has only said that its goal with KitKat is to "make an amazing Android experience available for everybody." Some posit this to mean we could see new Android-powered devices such as game consoles, smartwatches, smart TV, and laptops. Others look for a kinder, gentler platform that plays nice with older hardware. This past weekend proved to be the biggest break in regards to what Android 4.4 looks like as well as some of its potential features. Some changes and details may include tweaks to the app launcher, notification bar, and dialer. Nothing too crazy, of course, but rather a color adjustment here or a transparency there. When it might be announced Some rumors suggest that Google has lined up the KitKat introduction for as soon as October 15, but I suspect an invitation for an official event instead. At the least, I expect that Google would dish the new feature set in a live YouTube broadcast. Assuming it plans to introduce new Nexus 5 hardware, which it should, then we might look for at least one day's notice before the big announcement. Other dates tossed around of late indicate that the end of October might also be in order. Should that be the case, there's still time to send out a few "save the date" e-mails and blog posts. The software we could get So far, leaked images like those in the gallery above point to minor, cosmetic changes, rather than a massive overhaul. The application drawer could move away from the all-black background in favor of a transparent bar. The pervasive notification area also appears to get the same treatment; a few screenshots show the top bar as having the see-through effect. In a related note, a 9to5Google report shows the notification bar with colors that match or complement various apps. The dialer app, for instance, brings up a blue bar, while the Hangouts app has a green one. It's possible that these particular apps were designed with their own colors and that the transparency is otherwise still present. According to Italian Android blog TuttoAndroid, the lock screen will include shortcut to the camera application. The move would make sense as most custom launchers and lock screens have moved to integrate the oft-used feature. The Android 4.4 lock screen could include quick access to the camera. A slightly more meaty addition, TuttoAndroid site also claims the "always listening" functionality employed in the Motorola Moto X can be found in the Android 4.4 experience. Should this prove true, users can expect quick access to Google Now and searching without having to touch the phone. An Android Police report from this weekend suggests other changes could come in the area of app folders and widgets. According to their findings, folders are no longer limited to 16 shortcuts and will simply scroll if there are more. Widget placement moves out from the app drawer and back to the more traditional long-press method on the home screen. Speaking of which, users may soon find that the stock Android 4.4 experience allows for more than five home screen panels. The stock camera experience should see a number of adjustments as well, including options to apply filters, borders, and effects. While Google+ already allows for photo editing and manipulation, it asks that a user have already uploaded the image to the cloud. Other tweaks to the shooter could yield straightening, mirroring, and color balance. If the final product resembles the leaked images we saw, then the app itself could get a makeover. Tweaks could come in the form of streamlined UI with quicker access to flash settings, timers, and image size. As we discovered in a recent leak, other changes may include the option to save images locally in PDF format, export images in a variety of sizes and quality, and apply built-in filters and effects. Native printing could be built into Android and may allow for options such as paper size, number of copies, orientation, and choosing between color or black and white. From the sound of it, Google might simply include Cloud Print at an OS level instead of relying on its standalone application. We might also see wireless display support (via Miracast) in this next version of Android. One area where Google has struggled to gain traction, mobile payments, could be rolled into the Android 4.4 platform. Screengrabs show a "Payments" option, but it's unclear what its role could mean for people. Presumably this is simply the place where one manages their Google Wallet account. Perhaps the thought is that by including it in the standard Android experience, it gains a larger awareness. The more you know it exists, the more likely you might be to use it. An updated app suite As far as the Pure Google app experience is concerned, we may see Drive, Keep, and Quickoffice come preloaded by default (right now they're optional downloads or bundled with one carrier or manufacturer experience). As many of you know, this trio of products and services work seamlessly with other Google properties and adds a layer of productivity. To get a sense for how Android 4.4 KitKat might look in action, be sure to check out the video below. Again, the details are not all that obvious and easy to overlook. However, the experience seems to be one that is smooth and fluid. This is to be expected; Google will continue pushing for performance optimizations across the board. You might miss it the first time around, but the messaging app is nowhere to be found in the video. As the standard app for sending and receiving SMS and MMS, it's possible that Google is transitioning to Hangouts for its communications. We have long expected to see a unified chat and messaging service from Google; this could be the sign of such an animal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2ksOJl0PDDg When KitKat could land KitKat is expected to ship with the Google Nexus 5 smartphone first, and then later come to other Nexus devices via over-the-air updates. If history is an indicator, the most recent Nexus 4, Nexus 7 2013, and Nexus 10 devices, as well the previous generation Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 2012 to pick up the release first, maybe a few weeks after the launch. In terms of all other devices, I suspect the same rules still apply; newer and more popular models will get priority seating aboard the S.S. KitKat, like the LG G2 and HTC One. Note that phones that use custom interfaces (that's most of them) will take longer to get the update. Handset makers are becoming ever more vocal over social media so look for OEMs to detail specific devices in blog posts and status updates. Realistically, if you are running 4.1 or 4.2, you might expect some Nestle love this winter. What's missing? Taken as a whole, the 4.4 KitKat version of Android looks like it's a minor, not massive, step forward. But, given this is still a version-point update and not a full 5.0 release, we should keep our expectations in check. Is there something in Android that you see as lacking at the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean platform level? Which features in other smartphones that you would like to see come to Android? I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

It looks like the UK is going to get the phone ahead of the United States. HTC yesterday morning announced the HTC One Max, which is scheduled for availability on Verizon and Sprint in the United States this coming holiday season. As far as the UK market is concerned, if you want the phone right away, you'll have to be willing to go to Vodafone to get it. The carrier today confirmed it will have the launch exclusive on the HTC One Max for the first few weeks of availability. The HTC One Max packs a huge 5.9-inch 1080 x 1920 super LCD display, making it more of a phablet than a phone, and the same chassis we've seen in HTC's other 'One' handsets. Under the pod, you're looking at the same Snapdragon 600 CPU that we saw in the HTC One: 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, a large 3,300 mAh battery, a 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera (again, the same as the HTC One), 4G LTE support, Android 4.3, and HTC's own Sense 5.5. It should be noted that while the back is removable (to allow for storage expansion), the battery itself doesn't come out, so that 3,300 mAh battery is not designed to be user replaceable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7GVz8owzbwY Vodafone will be getting the HTC One Max later this week. It will be available for £49 up front on a two-year contract at £47 per month. This pricing puts the phone in direct competition with Samsung's phablet, the Galaxy Note 3. Our friends at LAPTOP have already gone hands on with the HTC One Max. Check out the video below and be sure to click through for first impressions!

Nike is revealing a new version of its FuelBand today at an event in New York City. Dubbed the FuelBand SE, the new fitness tracker sports a variety of color accents and represents the sporting goods maker’s first non-cosmetic update to its activity tracking wearable since the gadget’s introduction. The FuelBand, for those who aren’t familiar, is a wearable wristband that provides users with a visual readout of their steps taken during the course of a day, and also offers up a ‘Fuel’ tally, which is a metric made up by Nike that calculates based on your activity level through things like walking, running, paying basketball and more. They don’t share much about how they come up with that number, but it’s likely not terribly scientific and meant primarily as a motivation device to get people moving more frequently. This new second-generation product has a similar design to the original version (but with red, pink or yellow accents), with a rubberized band that fits snugly around the wrist available in different sizes. This edition is intended to be better at encouraging users to move, and harder to cheat with. Nike reports that doing things like punching your fist in the air to game your score won’t up your Fuel score, according to CNET. It also looks to offer up better ability to differentiate between different types of activity, like cycling, spinning and rowing. Nike’s new hardware is sealed and waterproofed, making it usable in the shower, and it’s got a highly refined motion detection algorithm. There are regular reminders (once hourly) to prompt you to get up and stop being so lazy, and there’s a new shortcut to let you double tap the button to access time. It uses Bluetooth 4.0, too, which should make it easier to sync data and provide a bit of a battery boost. There’s also a brand new app redesign to do along with it, with more granular and informative charts and graphs related to activity data. A new Fuel-per-minute metric offers a look at your average intensity, rather than just cumulative activity totals. Finally, there’s sleep tracking, which the first generation device lacked entirely. Sleep tracking is available to users of the Fitbit Flex, and the Jawbone Up, so that’s a huge addition in terms of playing catchup with the competition. The FuelBand SE is still iOS only, however, so don’t be expecting an Android app anytime soon. Users not in the Apple flock can still use the website, however

There was a brief moment when we were excited about the future of curved smarphones. But LG and Samsung are killing that interest very quickly. Just a few days after Samsung announced its bizarre, curved Galaxy Round, renderings of LG’s own curved smartphone have also leaked out. The device, known as the LG Flex, features a 6-inch curved display, which should make it more comfortable to hold. Or something. There is a difference, however subtle, between the curved devices from Samsung and LG: While the Galaxy Round is curved on is horizontal axis (side-to-side), the LG Flex is curved on its vertical axis (up and down). It’s too early to say which approach makes more sense for smartphones, but we do know this: These things are going to be an absolute nightmare in your pocket. Do you want your phone curved horizontally or vertically? LG and Samsung are trying out both approaches. Another thing to point out: While the LG phone is known as the “Flex,” the new device isn’t actually flexible. So don’t get your hopes up on that front just yet. LG plans to officially announce the LG Flex at an event next month, so we should know pretty soon whether the curved approach to smartphone is really the future of the form factor. Right now, though, things aren’t looking good.

Firefox OS is unquestionably a work in progress, but with a point upgrade a few weeks after launch (and the release of the ZTE Open), at least we can confirm that Mozilla is, in fact, putting the work in. The 1.1 version of the software is available now for users of the mobile operating system, featuring a number of enhancements. At the top of the list is the arrival of MMS support, letting you send and receive images, audio and video files and the like via messages. Performance has also been enhanced, with smoother scrolling and faster load times. There's music search built in now, too, plus an API for push notifications for app developers. All that, plus improvements to email, contact management, calendar and keyboard.

One of the more ambitious and interesting hardware projects on a crowdfunding platform recently has to be the Quasar IV, a smartphone designed entirely around security, encryption and identity protection. QSAlpha’s Quasar IV uses authentication tech called Quatrix, and a hybrid Android/Linux and Quatrix mobile OS called QuaOS to make sure communications in and out of the phone are protected. The Quasar IV is going to be made, despite the fact that there are only nine days remaining in its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, and only $48,796 raised out of $3.2 million sought on a fixed funding goal (meaning they don’t get anything if they haven’t got the whole amount committed). While the Quasar IV won’t raise that much money in the next 9 days, it apparently will get made regardless thanks to help from outside investors. On the Quasar IV Indiegogo page, an update posted a few hours ago says that production with “one of the world’s largest consumer electronics OEMS manufacturers” has already begun, as a result of support from “various vendors and companies” who share the founding team’s passion for a vision of an ultra-secure mobile device. Early backers will be added to the pre-order list for the Quasar IV automatically, and will be notified about how to buy one when the time comes, which QSAlpha CEO and founder Steve Chao says will happen sometime in Q2 2014. There’s very little in the way of information about who has picked up the tab for the initial production run, but Quasar’s appeal, while niche, applies very specifically to firms that require incredibly high levels of security and encryption, which are resistant to outside attempts (*cough* NSA *cough*) to read said data. QSAlpha has said it was inspired by the stealthy ways of the ninja in designing the phone and its operating system, and there are, conceivably, clients who would pay well for a phone that stays truly off-grid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TJ8edQY5Sfo Indiegogo has sort of become a place for ambitious new smartphone concepts to go to attract a lot of attention before falling well short of their funding goal (see the Canonical Ubuntu Edge), but it looks like the Quasar IV might become real with a little help from some potentially high-powered friends. Or, it could always disappear in a puff of smoke, ninja-style.