Sprint to carry iPhone 5 at same time as AT&T and Verizon, which is nation’s third largest carrier has been struggling of late and the addition of the iconic device on TRULY unlimited plans would certainly be a differentiator. Sprint will also carry the iPhone 4 and the Sprint iPhone will be launched simultaneous to AT&T and Verizon…………….
Verizon introduced a new 300MB data plan for $20/month for the carrier’s mid-Atlantic region and had now announced a regional data deal perfect for the back to school crowd. The promotion will be available to subscribers in Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, and North Carolina from August 18th through September 30th and Verizon actually going right after AT&T’s $15 data plan that provides users with 200MB of data usage per month……………
Sony PlayStation Vita handheld will miss Christmas in US and Europe and Sony has confirmed that the Vita won’t hit the American and European markets until early 2012. In the U.S., the Play Station Vita will have an initial price of $249 for a WiFi-only version and $299 for one that works over AT&T’s wireless network and in Japan, the Vita will sell for ¥24,980 for the Wi-Fi version and ¥29,980 for the 3G model. The new gaming system, which will be a follow-up to both the successful but aging PlayStation Portable (PSP) and the slow-selling PSP Go and the Vita will feature a 5-inch touch screen on the front of the unit and a touch pad on the back for controlling games using hand gestures…………..
T-Mobile loses 150,000 customers this year and still working through its deal to merge with AT&T, the mobile network lost 50,000 customers in this second quarter alone. According to the report the carrier lost a total of 50,000 customers last quarter, which is actually an encouraging sign, considering it dropped a whopping 99,000 during Q1 and 93,000 during the second quarter of 2010. T-Mobile partly made it up in sales of pre-paid sales, as the pre-paid customer segment is rising in the company’s portfolio and AT&T is still pushing ahead with the acquisition of T-Mobile USA………….
AT&T to release the LG Thrill 4G might have to wait just a bit longer. From the previous leaked documents, slating an August 7th comeout for the LG Thrill 4G, and now another official looking missive has surfaced, pushing the release date back to August 21st. The Shack will take pre-orders for the LG Thrill 4G handset until Aug. 15, and those of you that already have yours on order should be getting word from Radio Shack about the delay soon.
Microsoft has been ordered to pay US$70 million to networking vendor Alcatel-Lucent in a years-old patent dispute that at one time could have cost Microsoft $1.5 billion and the suit was brought by Lucent in 2003, before it merged with Alcatel. The patent was originally applied for by engineers at AT&T, covers a method of entering information into fields on a computer screen without using a keyboard and an earlier trial involving the same parties found Microsoft guilty of infringing on that patent in the company’s Outlook e-mail software, Windows Mobile, and Microsoft Money…………….
AT&T’s entire line of 2011 smartphones will start receiving Gingerbread updates starting with the Motorola Atrix 4G and Samsung Captivate and every AT&T mobile phone introduced in 2011 will be receiving an upgrade from Android 2.2 to Android 2.3. Although Google released Android 2.3 in December, handset makers and carriers alike have been slow to push the software and only recently have new smartphones included Gingerbread out of the box and few have seen an upgrade to the new software. The delivery methods will vary from device to device depending on the file size, but most will be receiving over-the-air (OTA) updates when possible and there’s no hard details on the timing for everyone else……………
Apple selling a contract-free, $350 iPhone 3GS for the prepaid customer segment and the next iPhone, which may or may not feature a radical design will be coming out or announced by the end of summer, late August.AT&T began selling the iPhone 3GS for $99 with a two-year contract and the contract-free version of iPhone would appeal to consumers that are increasingly reluctant to commit to pricey and long-term agreements…………..