Fresh details leaked Monday have an LTE iPad 3 shipping for at least two US carriers. AT&T and Verizon would both sell the tablet at 4G speeds, the Wall Street Journal said. Whether or not Sprint's upcoming LTE network wasn't mentioned, but the hardware would have the expected fallback to 3G in areas where LTE wasn't available.
Nokia is working on a CDMA variant of its Lumia 800 smartphone, the 800c. The phone is due to launch on China Telecom sometime in March, WPCentral learned. It will be available in cyan, white, and black, though pricing is yet to be announced.
A new rumor originating from WPDang has Nokia announcing the Lumia 730 phone. It would slot in between the existing Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 and run on the unreleased Windows Phone Tango. It would have similar specs to the 710, but would forego the ClearBlack display and polycarbonate casing.
AT&T's efforts for shared data plans came closer to fruition Sunday after leaks from its Telegence account management system. Staffers showed Engadget that the interface for family plans was being changed to include a data section so that staff could add the eventual data plans at the same time as voice and text. No clues appeared for when shared data would take effect.
Saturday Night Live made technology an unusual target after it poked fun at Verizon in a pre-recorded skit (below). A customer (Fred Armisen) comes in asking about the carrier's 4G LTE network and is barraged with an increasingly technical and nonsensical sales pitch. By the end, LTE is likened to orange juice, and Verizon is described as an "old person's nightmare."
A telling scoop Friday has shown that Verizon plans at least one more HTC Droid Incredible phone. The hardware seen by Phone Arena, known at least temporarily as the Droid Incredible 3, would be a major leap in speed over the Droid Incredible 2 with both LTE-based 4G and a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon. The hardware is conspicuously using the same Android 4.0 plus Sense 4.0 interface as the Ville and could be the first US phone to get the updated layer.
Verizon delivered one of its first smartphones of the new year Friday in the Droid 4. The Motorola headliner we tried at CES is up for $200 on a contract, making it one of the more affordable LTE phones. Buyers can also pick it up for $550 contract-free.
Verizon has just released a slew of software upgrades for its Android-powered gear, including the Droid Xyboard tablets which are getting the 1.6.0M_279 update. It promises to enhance third-party pen and native touch performance, better browsing, maintaining a data connection while swapping from Wi-Fi to broadband, and in a twist now has global roaming for data. The update is nearly 84MB.
AT&T and Verizon have reportedly lobbied to deregulate spectrum auctions and reduce the Federal Communication Commission's role in managing spectrum allocation between carriers. The companies are accused of pushing legislators to add a special provision to the JOBS Act (PDF) that would bar the FCC from excluding a company from bidding.
Google wrapped up and posted the finished version of Chrome 17 for the desktop on Wednesday. The new browser update takes site prerendering beyond just search results to include autocompletion. If the autocompletion in the address bar is headed towards a likely web address, the browser will start loading content in the background to speed up the perceived load time. It can give the impression that favorite sites load almost immediately, Google suggested.
Sprint in the wake of its fall results expanded its LTE plans and also touted the iPhone as a better option for its network than Android. The carrier now planned to add its original WiMAX city, Baltimore, to the cities getting LTE-based 4G by mid-2012. Sprint's home area of Kansas City was also new and would see a total of six cities getting the new network.
Sprint on Wednesday revealed a huge upswing in subscriber additions through its inaugural quarter of iPhone sales. It sold 1.8 million iPhones during the fall, 40 percent of which went to people new to the network. Apple's device was almost single-handedly responsible for returning Sprint to performance it hasn't seen in years: at 1.6 million net new subscribers, it saw the most adds since 2005 and had set a new high for its customer base at 55 million.
Apart from launching the Motorola Droid 4 on February 10, Verizon has a number of other promotions scheduled for that same day. While the Droid 4 has been officially confirmed, news of the other promos come from BGR and aren't yet a sure thing. The Droid 4 will cost $200 on a two-year contract, as expected. The other deals include a buy one, get one free for other smartphones, including the fairly recent RAZR MAXX and the new white and purple versions of the original.
Motorola has released software updates for its Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx smartphones, bringing a number of minor tweaks and bug fixes. The Android 2.3.6 build, which was announced in December, resolves issues related to mobile hotspot functionality and visual voice mail, while improving stability when switching through the home screen panes.
One unintentional early adopter has posted the as yet unpublicized Android 4.0.4 for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. The update was sent out over the air to an Android Central reader but can now be installed by anyone comfortable with digging into the platform to manually install firmware. As it's intended for the regular upgrade path, it only works with the official firmware and not mods or custom installs.
The ZTE Jetpack, a 4G LTE mobile hotspot to be sold by Verizon, has made its way through the FCC. The device, which can support up to ten Wi-Fi-ready devices, sustains download speeds of 5Mbps to 12Mbps and upload speeds of 2Mbps to 5Mbps. FCC approval is one of the last hurdles before the product will hit Verizon's shelves.
(Update: Google follow-up An investigation into Google's supported device has revealed that Google has quietly demoted the CDMA version of the Galaxy Nexus. The Verizon model, and possibly the upcoming Sprint version, aren't listed anymore as supported hardware, Droid-Life said. Google now claims "no CDMA devices are supported" and has also pulled the Nexus S 4G and Verizon-edition Motorola Xoom from the list.
The GSM version of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus appears to have added official support for Google's Wallet app, which now appears in the Android Market for AT&T subscribers. Early buyers were able to run the NFC payment app, however the title was invisible when attempting to search for it in the Android Market directly from the phone.
Apple and AT&T are leading computer and phone support in conditions that are still on the decline, Vocalabs found in a pair of studies of phone help quality. Apple was still out in front by a significant margin in computers, with 54 percent very satisfied to 49 percent of HP owners and 44 at Dell. The figure for Mac help was still down a full 19 points from the first half of 2010, however, where Dell and HP had always been at their lower levels.
Mobile device chipmaker Qualcomm and network and communications gear Ericsson on Thursday announced they've reached a significant milestone by handing over a call from an LTE network to a WCDMA network using a single radio. They used the Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) 3GPP specified feature to hand off the Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call when a user left the coverage area to the more widespread 3G network. The hand-off was made on December 23, 2011 on the Ericsson network on a handset using Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor at the heart of new phones and tablets.
Sprint is planning a short but key promo to catch customers that might leave. Details uncovered by SprintFeed show the carrier using e-mail or physical mail to offer a discount to customers "at a high risk of leaving Sprint." If tagged, they will get amounts between $25 to $100 off their next phone if they're upgrade-eligible, with the amount most likely depending on the device.
Verizon's $3.6 billion purchase of AWS spectrum is now also attracting the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee. A hearing will likely occur sometime in March, a staffer revealed, though who will be called to testify hasn't yet been shared. Rivals, such as Sprint, are calling for other elements of the contract to be scrutinized due to fears that the deal will result in an unfair advantage for Verizon.
Two sources have hinted that the Droid 4 may have an imminent launch and a moderate price point. The Droid-Life contacts had it shipping on February 9 for $199 on a contract, or as much as the pared-back 16GB Droid RAZR. It was originally rumored to come a week earlier but was moved back for unknown reasons.
RIM's BlackBerry London has been refined in looks ahead of what could be an attempt to return to the US in force. New leaks to CrackBerry have the render of the first BlackBerry 10 phone's expected finished look making it considerably more refined than the very angular, Porsche Design-like look of a dummy unit. A presumably mock screenshot also points to a more refined media player than either on BlackBerry 7 or on the PlayBook.
In December, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam told listeners at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference that the carrier would begin offering shared minute family data plans some time this year. The timing of such plans may be sooner rather than later. Engadget has posted a screenshot of internal training material referencing shared or account level billing.
Google has posted a signup page for the Sprint version of the Galaxy Nexus. Potential early adopters can get information about when the Android 4.0 phone hits the carrier and also might get news of "Nexus products, services, and features." Those who put in a ZIP code can get locations for shops when orders start.
RIM's new leader Thorsten Heins in further interviews has outlined how he plans to take on competition in the short term. He revealed to Reuters that just 20 percent of BlackBerry owners are using a modern version of the OS, in some cases using BlackBerry 5 or even older. Much of the company's focus would be on getting them to upgrade to new phones, including special carrier deals that could bundle devices together or give carriers phones with bundled apps.
Last month, the ZTE V66 popped up at the FCC awaiting approval for its 4G LTE wireless. Now, thanks to the Bluetooth SIG filing, onlookers have a better view of the seven-inch tablet. The device is expected to show up on Verizon's shelves in the not to distant future.
Verizon owners of the HTC Rezound may be getting more of a phone than they realized. A member of the XDA-Developers forums has posted claims indicating that the phone which runs on the carrier's CDMA network may be a truly global phone, packing GSM/HSPA radios as well. Both HTC and Verizon claim it doesn't have this multi-band capability.
Motorola Mobility posted fall results Thursday underscoring the gap between its ambitions in tablets and its actual performance. The company shipped 200,000 Xoom and Xyboard tablets in the last three months of 2011, which while better than its low point in summer was still lower than what it managed in the first two quarters of 2011. It shipped just one million of its Android tablets all year, which Apple's iPad at its current pace can eclipse in less than a week.
AT&T on Thursday marked very mixed results from its fall quarter that were partly self-inflicted. The season marked its best ever for smartphones, owed primarily to the iPhone 4S launch. About 7.6 million iPhones were activated out of the 9.4 million smartphones sold, making Apple's platform 80 percent of AT&T's customer base.
LG Electronics on Wednesday revealed that its Optimus LTE handsets have sold more than one million units. The Android 2.3 device, touted by its maker as the first that combines an HD touchscreen with LTE for 4G, is sold in Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the US, sometimes under different names. The device sold 600,000 in its first three months on the market in Korea after its October launch last year.
Clearwire on Tuesday showed a significant recovery from near death with early estimates of its results. It swung from a loss in the summer to net positive earnings in the fall, owed directly to adding more subscribers and cost-cutting. The 4G provider expected to have gained 900,000 total customers, or an 11 percent jump just in one season.
Hidden at Casio's booth at CES was a prototype of a smartphone even more rugged than its G'zOne line that has been caught only two weeks later. The phone seen by MyNavi would borrow the G-Shock name from Casio's watches and, with a thick outer frame, could take up to a 10-foot drop without breaking versus the more common three feet. It could also stay immersed in water up to 33 feet deep and take a ton of pressure, although it's not clear if this would be metric or imperial.
Following unintentional slips, Verizon on Tuesday confirmed that the Droid RAZR MAXX will be on shelves this Thursday, January 26. The extra-long lived 4G smartphone will be the new high-end version of the RAZR and carry the 32GB that was cut in half to lower the price for the original design. A RAZR MAXX wil cost $300 on a contract like the original 32GB version.
Verizon on Tuesday posted a rare loss for its fall quarter despite an otherwise upbeat result defined by the iPhone. It lost 71 cents per share through pension compensation but had its best subscriber additions in three years, adding a net 1.5 million new customers. Having shipped 4.2 million iPhones, the credit could go primarily to Apple for the record performance.
The International Telecommunication Union this week gave a label to a whole class of future 4G standards. Both LTE-Advanced and WiMAX 2 (WirelessMAN-Advanced) will be classed as IMT-Advanced. While the actual speeds of the standards vary, the ITU is promising "at least 100 times faster" performance than 3G and to get the higher speeds using less wireless bandwidth.
Verizon may roll out Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in early 2013. Citing industry sources, Light Reading Mobile claims that Verizon’s VoLTE service will go live nationwide next year and that it has been successfully trialing an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based app in two markets. Verizon had originally hoped to launch the service in 2012, although if it begins its roll out before the end of the year, it may be in limited markets.
Verizon on Thursday began offering the BlackBerry Curve 9370, as expected. The handset supports both Verizon's native CDM as well as world roaming through quad-band GSM for voice as well as GPRS and EDGE data networks. NFC carries over.
As expected the LG Spectrum we had a chance to check out at CES has launched at Verizon on Thursday. It sports a 4.5-inch, 720p display and connects to the carrier's 4G LTE network in areas that support it. The handset launches with Android 2.3.5 but will be upgraded to Android 4.0 in the future.
A focus group member claimed Wednesday to have been asked to give feedback on devices revealing at least some of its plans for the near future, most of which were for Verizon. The range-topping device purportedly identified by a Droid-Life reader would be very different than the rugged phones Casio usually ships, carrying a 4.5- or 4.7-inch Super AMOLED screen, a quad-core processor, LTE-based 4G, NFC wireless, and eight-megapixel back and two-megapixel front cameras. It would have a large-capacity 2,000mAh battery and ran the "latest Android," which looked to the reader to be Android 4.0.
On Thursday, Verizon will be initiating its first 4G LTE services for 2012 in five new markets. The wireless carrier will be turning on its high speed network in Glens Falls and Utica in New York; Lawton, Oklahoma; and Brownsville and McAllen in Texas. Verizon will also be expanding its 4G LTE service in the Atlanta, Houston, and Spokane.
The sustained effect of the iPhone 4S is triggering a decline in Android's US market share, Nielsen showed Wednesday. Although Android had an average 51.7 percent share for the fall among recent buyers, a month-by-month breakdown by the researchers showed that its share among recent buyers dropped from 61.6 percent in October to 48.7 percent in November as iPhone sales traffic picked up. By December, Android and iOS were near even, at 46.9 and 44.5 percent each.
Verizon has stopped activating Alltel phones on its network, effective yesterday. Alltel customers who haven't already moved their legacy phones over to Verizon's wireless service won't be able to do so. Anyone with an inactive Alltel phone will have to buy a Verizon phone, although they may get one free on a contract.
Verizon has reduced the price of its Motorola Droid RAZR by $100, with the smartphone now priced at $200 on a new two-year contract. It had originally cost the $300 that Verizon typically reserves for its highest-end smartphones. No reason was given for the rapid price cut.
Apple showed it was just now starting to catch up to iPhone 4S demand on Tuesday after the online Apple Store saw lead times contract. Having been set back by a week for nearly all of the smartphone's existence, orders for AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon models now take three to five days to ship regardless of capacity. Individual carriers make it more difficult to gauge demand, although Verizon is showing a delay only on the white 32GB iPhone.
AT&T's version of the Samsung Galaxy Note may have a short-lived exclusive if a rumor from Monday proves true. The 5.3-inch mega smartphone was said by SlashGear to be coming to Verizon as the Galaxy Journal. Little is known about the changes, although it would most likely be a straighforward switch with CDMA instead of GSM for voice, with the LTE adapted to Verizon's 4G bands.
A company called Kopin has shown off its wearable, Motorola-branded computer, the Golden-i. It connects to the cloud using 4G and has many possible uses, from law enforcement, to medicine (such as surgery) to mechanical work at home. It sports Kopin's uniquely dense one-inch display, which equates to a traditional 15-inch monitor due to its proximity to the wearer's eye, and the display appears to be 18 inches away.
Nokia's Lumia 900 might have only a short exclusive period on AT&T and an upgrade before it's out of the market. A rumor floated on Sunday to recently accurate Paul Thurrott had AT&T getting just 45 days' lead time before other US carriers were free to pick it up. They would still have to negotiate, the source from a rival carrier said, but a summer release was considered realistic.
Samsung used CES to introduce Americanized versions of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE and Galaxy Note. We've tried both at the show both to get an early look at their US appearances and how well they might fare in the real world. Full details are after the break.
