I owe you all an apology. A few days ago I got a tip ensconced in a riddle shrouded in mystery. It was a good tip, a tip about HTC's forthcoming Android device, the Passion (aka Dragon), being a GSM phone and not a CDMA device bound for Verizon. The tip from a very good source, and it countered a few reports floating around the Web (including one of my own) sourced from a less known place. I wanted to run the tip but couldn't post certain details, lest I expose my source. So I wrote a rather hasty post in which I tried to prove my theory instead of saying "A reliable source just told me..." Why'd I go that route? Dunno, maybe because it was a Monday and I was all high on life? Dunno.

Anyway ... Thanks first of all to Brian for pointing out in the comments that I couldn't even keep my battery icon and signal strength icon straight.  Jeez.  #EPIC_FAIL on my part:

First things first, that is a signal strength indicator, not a battery status indicator. See that battery shaped icon right next to it? That's the battery indicator. (The dragon leaked photo has half battery and full service).

Brian also pokes holes in the rest of my logic, and rightly so.  Read his comment here.

Second, thanks to Barry for emailing me to suggest that I should have added this bit of clue to my fuzzy logic:

I don't know if you're right, but CDMA phones usually have that LBS (Location Based Services) icon in the status bar, don't they? I don't see that on the Dragon shots in your photo. But I do see it on the Sprint Hero, which is CDMA.

Right on, Barry.

Third, John posted this tasty bit earlier today over on DroidDog:

The phone will indeed be a GSM device first on T-Mobile UK (thanks, Jimmy).

And last, which in retrospect should have been first, I got a tip from a very reliable source that the HTC Passion (or Dragon, or whatever it will ultimately be called) is not headed to Verizon. As said source pointed out to me, why in the world would Verizon launch an enormous ad campaign for the MOTO Droid only to then launch a competitively-spec'd Android device from HTC weeks later? Makes no sense.

My source went on to say that the phone in question will be released by HTC before the end of 2009, and it will be a GSM device (at least at first, as John points out in that DroidDog post). Said source also told me I was missing something obvious, but that he'd already said too much.

Me? Missing something obvious? Duh.

Looks like there's more to this mystery. Let's hope HTC - or T-Mo UK, or somebody - clears it all up soon.

More at DroidDog.