Author: Joe Pawlikowski

At the time of ints conception, toll-free phone lines made a world of sense. Many businesses wanted to encourage phone sales, but hefty long distance charges created friction for the consumer. These businesses could ease that friction by purchasing an 800 number that would essentially transfer the long distance charge from the consumer to the business. That is to say, Ma Bell didn’t care how she got paid so long as she got paid.

Toll-free numbers still exist today, though they really only serve the function of creating an easier-to-remember phone number (i.e., it’s easier to remember the seven digits after 800 or 888 or 877 than it is to remember an entire 10-digit phone number). Cell phones, with free long distance as a standard feature, started killing the usefulness of 800 numbers, and the switch from traditional copper wire landlines to VOIP services really put the nail in the coffin. New technology made the idea of toll-free obsolete.

That is, at least as it pertains to voice calls. In general voice calls are a nonfactor for modern telecoms. You can look right to Verizon’s Share Everything plans as evidence. Every plan, even for feature phones, comes with unlimited voice. They’re not just handing that out, without an alternative tier, if voice is a valuable asset. Instead telecoms today focus on the one feature that can earn them billions: data. And as we’ve seen, the quest to squeeze more money out of us for the same data usage is in full effect.

While Verizon’s and AT&T’s ploys to charge more for less data have prompted some users to simply fork over more money, many have chosen the alternative, which is to curb their data usage. So, as in the days when Ma Bell turned to big business to fund people’s increased use of long distance, so will Verizon target big businesses — namely big content businesses — to fund consumers’ rising data consumption habits. CFO Fran Shammo yesterday talked about the idea of businesses paying Verizon for data usage, allowing consumers to view that business’s content without depleting their data plans.

“The content providers will be willing to pay for the content, if we don’t charge the consumer,” Shammo said.

The topic of net neutrality, a fight that Verizon fights alone, came up, but Shammo rightly brushed it aside. “This is who pays for the delivery of the content,” he said, as opposed to carrier-driven content prioritization. Yes, allowing users to consume certain content without depleting their data plans can be considered prioritization. But to me it seems to be a minor point. What I’m wondering is…

Where is this money coming from?

Content companies doesn’t exactly have Scrooge McDuck money. While some content providers have found ways to be profitable even as advertising dollars have dwindled, others have gone through massive restructuring, including layoffs. Then again, the prior statements refer primarily to text-based content providers. No text-heavy publication would have to pay Verizon; that kind of content requires very little data. It’s streaming video where we see the opportunity.

At the same time, a content provider has to be very sure that mobile video can truly rake in the dollars. They have all the same overhead costs as they do now, plus the money they’ll pay Verizon for the toll-free service. All in all they have to think that the revenues from more easily reaching Verizon’s customers will far outstrip the money they pay to Verizon. Otherwise such an arrangement doesn’t provide enough value to the content provider.

(To be even more clear, the content provider has to find that the profits from serving video to Verizon customers who wouldn’t have viewed the content if charged for the data would outstrip the costs paid to Verizon for the toll-free service.)

At a distance, it seems far-fetched. Then again, basically every media company has placed an enormous emphasis on making money from mobile content. If they think they have a model that works, and think that they can encourage people to view more of their content, and thereby make them more money, by offering their content toll free, then this could work. This is definitely one of those instances where I’d love to see some field tests before coming to a solid judgement.

Via FierceWireless.

The post Toll-Free Data Would Benefit Consumers, but Where’s the Money? appeared first on MobileMoo.

A little bit of serendipity hit my inbox yesterday. On Saturday, while looking for something to do, my wife suggested we play video games. Fine by me. She rummaged through our drawer of PS3 games and nonchalantly said, “We have You Don’t Know Jack, but I’d just wipe the floor with you anyway.” Game on. We played, and she beat me — she always does. It reminded me of just how much I love that kooky little quiz game.

Much to my joy, a press release showed up in my inbox this morning touting the availability of You Don’t Know Jack for Android. You might remember a YDNJ announcement from last year, when developer Jellyvision launched a Facebook version. That took home some awards, and is now also available on iOS. The Android version plugs into these networks, creating an even larger online community.

If you’ve never played YDNJ, there’s not much I can do for you at this point. The game is definitely a little wacky, which helps it stand out from your run of the mill quiz games. There are many different types of questions, so you’re not just answering multiple choice queries all day. And yes, you’ll get insulted if you answer incorrectly.

(Or you’ll get the Wrong Answer of the Day and turn a $2,000 loss into an $8,000 gain.)

Back in the day, YDNJ worked great on PC, because in those days you would gather your friends all in one place to play video games. Ah yes, the days when we played four-player Goldeneye on a 25-inch TV. Alas, these days video games are played online, which means you can play your friends no matter where your locale. It will certainly be nice to play YDNJ again with my old high school buddies.

As with most things Android, YDNJ is free. You can download it from Google Play.

The post You Don’t Know Jack Now Available for Android appeared first on MobileMoo.

In yesterday’s piece on the Google Galaxy S4, commenter TurboFool asked me an interesting question: “Are you completely unaware if [sic] the huge market of prepaid SIM-only carriers so many of us are switching to now?” As the guy who also runs Prepaid Reviews, I’m certainly aware that these services exist. At the same time, I’m not sure I’d spend $650 on a device like the S4 and bring it to one of these carriers.

(His point about stock Android stands, though. I know plenty of people who rooted their Galaxy S3 models just to get rid of the TouchWiz UI.)

The problem with the SIM-only deals is that they typically do not offer LTE speeds. A few T-Mobile MVNOs have said they will offer LTE when T-Mobile makes it available to them, but there’s no guarantee on that. There are, to be sure, a few MVNOs that offer HSPA speeds of 21 or 42 MBPS, and those can provide speeds that can at least compete in LTE’s ballpark (and depending on your region might be your best bet). So yes, there are options beyond the Big Four. I’m just not sure if I consider them ideal.

Yet SIM-only deals aren’y the only prepaid ones to be had these days. In recent years Straight Talk, a Tracfone brand, has taken off in a major way. That’ll happen when you offer unlimited everything for $45, and a reasonable plan for $30 per month. Make no mistake: unlimited data is absolutely not unlimited on Straight Talk. They throttle speeds for excessive users. But it’s still tough to ignore the price tag for monthly service.

Right now Straight Talk is running a promotion for free ground shipping on any phone order over $29.99. If you’re going for the $45 plan, you won’t find much worth buying under $30, so there’s your free shipping. They have an array of models, from the Galaxy S3 on down. They also have deals with the Big Four networks, so you might get a Verizon-network phone, rather than a T-Mobile one.

The post Deal: Free Shipping on any Straight Talk Phone appeared first on MobileMoo.

Anyone paying attention to the internet knows that Google announced a while bunch of goodies yesterday. On the mobile front, Google Play Music All Access looks stupendous. It’s like Spotify integrated into your Google Play Music library, rendering Spotify and other music apps redundant for Android users. While that announcement garnered plenty of attention, Google did announce another mobile development. They will sell the Galaxy S4, unlocked, for $649.

Reportedly the announcement drew boos from the Google I/O crowd due to the price tag. It defies our expectations for what a phone costs, by a significant sum, so the reaction isn’t surprising. Yet expectations aren’t the only issue at play here. The way the system works in the US, consumers have little incentive to use unlocked, unsubsidized phones.

(And another reason why we shouldn’t be restricted in unlocking our phones in the first place.)

A customer with an upgrade can walk into an AT&T store and purchase a Galaxy S4 for $199.99, and then pay $90 per month for cellular service. To bring an unlocked Google Galaxy S4 to AT&T would incur the same $90 per month charge, but would cost the consumer an additional $450. Therefore, it only really benefits consumers who want the S4 but do not have an upgrade — although they could simply pay the full price at AT&T. At $640, a consumer would save $10 that way.

The only advantage of owning a locked phone in the US is the ability to eventually take the phone to T-Mobile. Previously you’d have encountered the same issue there, paying the same price as someone who is repaying a subsidy. The way T-Mobile works now you can pay $70 per month for unlimited everything. If you were to buy a Google unlocked Galaxy S4, it could work if you activated it with T-Mobile.

Of course, T-Mobile itself sells the Galaxy S4. You can walk out of a store with it for $150, and then $20 per month for 24 months. That brings the total device cost to $630, not only $20 cheaper than Google but also spread over two years. Since the value of money diminishes with time, you make out much better paying the $150 up front and the $20 per month. If you just want it outright, you can pay the $630 up front if you wish and still save that $20.

There might be some cases where buying the unlocked version does make sense. But for the average consumer, purchasing the phone through AT&T or T-Mobile still makes sense. Maybe if you could bring a phone to more than one other carrier, and if you weren’t paying a monthly fee that takes into account a subsidy, an unlocked Galaxy S4 would make sense. But the way the carriers currently run the business it doesn’t add much value.

The post Google’s Unlocked Galaxy S4 Shows Lacking Value in Unlocked Phones appeared first on MobileMoo.

If your target market is everyone, then you’ll target no one. I’m not sure who said that originally, but it might be the simplest, most helpful advice for any marketer. Apparently BlackBerry continues to feel it is the exception to the rule, despite past failures trying to be everything to everyone.

Let’s run down what BlackBerry announced yesterday at BlackBerry Live:

• The BlackBerry Q5, a QWERTY BlackBerry 10 handset that is slated for emerging markets.
• The BlackBerry 10.1 upgrade that will allow, among other things, BlackBerry Z10 users to run Skype.
• BBM Channels, which amounts to a BBM social network.
• Availability of BBM on iOS and Android, coming this summer.

The BlackBerry 10.1 upgrade is obviously all positive, if a little late. We’ve heard about this for a month or so now, so it’s good to hear BlackBerry finally planning to roll it out.

The Q5 continues BlackBerry’s strategy of creating mid- and low-tier devices for international markets. It’s not an awful one, to be sure. There are plenty of people around the globe who can’t afford top-tier smartphones, even including the best BlackBerry models (zing). At the same time, creating products for these markets takes away focus from the high-end US and EMEA markets.

Then we get to the BBM announcement. The new BBM Channels feature essentially turns BBM into a social network. You can now create, follow, and subscribe to channels, taking actions such as commenting and liking posts. The first examples BlackBerry touted were Merceds AMG Petronas Formula One Team. It’s pretty clear that they’re trying to work with brands here. As if we don’t get enough of that from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and basically every other social network.

We’ve been hearing about the possibility of BBM on iOS and Android for a while now, maybe two years. They could have attempted this in the past, when BBM was still popular despite BlackBerry’s decline. But they held off on that until they had the Channels tie-in. At this point, though, iOS and Android users have fewer reasons than ever to use BBM. With so many high-quality instant messaging products on the market, BBM has become just another.

I feel that Nathaniel Mott of PandoDaily best sums up BlackBerry’s position:

BlackBerry is playing catch-up with Apple, Samsung, and Google, and seems to be struggling to reconcile that fact with its former glory. The company’s products no longer have a monopoly on the business elite’s pockets, are no longer representative of true innovations, and are, for all their advances, rooted in the smartphone market of the past.

The company needs to get better at communicating — or even figuring out — what its products are and who they are for before it can cast the perception that it’s left its prime aside.

In other words, they’re trying to be everything to everyone. In the process they’re doing little but standing still. Loyal BlackBerry users will always stand by the brand and even defend them — you learn this after writing about BlackBerry, for BlackBerry fans, for five years. If BlackBerry had decided, six years ago, to continue focusing on that core of users, we might not be having this discussion now. But starting in 2008 they tried to become everything to everyone.

It didn’t work then. Chances are it won’t work now.

The post BlackBerry Continues Trying To Be Everything To Everyone appeared first on MobileMoo.

If you bought a locked cell phone after January 26th, you cannot unlock it by your own means. While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act didn’t change, the Library of Congress clarified a provision in it. The effect: only your carrier can unlock your phone. The LoC rule essentially says that since alternatives to carrier-locked phones exist on the marketplace, consumers shouldn’t have the ability to unlock carrier-locked phones. It really sounds like hogwash.

If you think it seems odd that phone unlocking falls under a copyright act, you’re not alone. For the most part, users don’t unlock their phones with the intent to infringe on copyright. They’re unlocking them for the purpose of using the phones on other networks. It appears at least one member of Congress has taken up that point.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) yesterday proposed the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013. While there are a few provisions in it, the main one involves amending the first paragraph of the DCMA to say:

“It shall not be a violation of this section to circumvent a technological measure in connection with a work protected under this title if the purpose of such circumvention is to engage in a use that is not an infringement of copyright under this title.”

It seems reasonable, but that means little when big telecom has such a powerful lobbying force in DC. Big carriers prefer that users purchase phones from them, not because the carriers make much money from new phone purchases (they don’t), but because new phone purchases lock customers into two-year contracts. Additionally, customers will tend to unlock phones from major carriers and bring them to smaller carriers, usually on a prepaid basis.

There is no timeline on when the House will vote on this bill, but I honestly wouldn’t expect much. It’s a noble effort that could crumble under pressure from DC insiders.

Via Phone Scoop.

The post Unlocking Phones Could Be Re-Legalized appeared first on MobileMoo.

The above chart should not surprise you. It’s the IDC’s quarterly report on tablet shipments — shipments, not sales, to be clear. As you can plainly see, in the first quarter of 2013 Apple continued its market dominance, shipping nearly 20 million units. No other manufacturer shipped more than 10 million units. All combined, non-Apple tablet manufacturers managed to top Apple by just 10 million units. That might sound a lot, but it’s really not when it’s an entire industry against a single company.

While Samsung holds the top individual spot for Android tablet manufacturers, it clearly doesn’t hold the same name value as it does with smartphones. Maybe people value Samsung over ASUS; they apparently value it more than the Kindle Fire series. But when it comes down to Samsung or some random tablet manufacturer, they’re apparently going with the no-name manufacturer.

You see these kinds of tablets all around Walmart and Costco and Best Buy, from manufacturers like Vizio and Colby. The real attractive point on these tablets is the $100 price tag. Unfortunately, too many of them still run Anddroid 2.3 and are therefore basically unusable. There’s a good reason that Android tablets didn’t catch on at all until 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The “Others” category also took the biggest market share leap year-over-year. While Samsung realized impressive growth, shipping 8.8 million units over 2.3 million in Q1 2012, going from 11.3 percent to 17.9 percent market share, those smaller tablet companies shipped far more. Last year it was 4.9 million units for 24.1 percent market share. This year it was 15.5 million units for 31.5 percent market share.

When it comes to Android tablets, it appears that consumers buy along price lines. Samsung does carry some brand value, but no-name tablet manufacturers have a huge edge. No, they’re not a single entity, but on their own they have little or no brand recognition. That suggests that overall, people are looking for a cheap tablet. If they’re going expensive, they’re going with the iPad. I can’t blame them; to this day I still prefer the iPad 2 over any Android tablet on the market.

We’ll check in with this as the year progresses, but it shouldn’t change too much. When Apple releases updates to the Mini and the standard iPad, I expect these numbers will skew even further towards them.

Via PandoDaily.

The post For Tablets, it’s the iPad and Then Everyone Else appeared first on MobileMoo.

How many inactive smartphones do you have sitting around? Chances are the number continues to grow with each new phone you buy. At first having the extra smartphone makes sense. It acts as an insurance plan in case your new one breaks. But when you have three, four, five old smartphones lying around? You should probably start getting rid of them.

Consumers won’t find many easy options for recycling their old phones, which exacerbates the problem. You could find a gadget bin, where you can dump old electronics, but that old smartphone has to hold some value, right? And so we hold onto them, hoping, but not searching, for a solution.

Even more problematically, semi-well-known gadget trade-in companies, such as Gazelle.com, are taking in a smaller and smaller array of products. Have a Samsung Galaxy S II on Verizon? It’s the second best-selling Android smartphone of all time, and it’s on the nation’s most popular carrier. Yet you won’t get a dime for it from Gazelle. And so it’s even more likely to sit in a drawer.

Clearly, the best way to handle gadget recycling is for carriers themselves to offer trade-in programs. You walk into the store with your old phone, you pick out a new one, and you get a trade-in credit applied to the sale. Sounds simple, but few carriers do this. Verizon has in the past, but the values have been absolutely horrible. I tried to trade in a 2010 model BlackBerry when I bought an iPhone in 2011, and they offered me $20 for it.

In another consumer-friendly move, AT&T has started a smartphone trade-in program that offers customers a real incentive: $100 towards the purchase of a new smartphone, service, or accessories. So not only do customers realize actual value for their old phones, but they can apply it right away to the purchase of something new.

Trading in a newer smartphone that might be of greater value than $100? AT&T will take that into account. So if you want to trade in your Galaxy S3 for something new, you’ll get more than that $100 credit. (Gazelle offered me $165 for my S3, so I imagine AT&T would be willing to offer more as a trade-in.)

There are conditions to this offer, of course — the press release contains more asterisks than perhaps any other I’ve ever read. It does cover phones up to three years old, so you can certainly trade in a phone from your last contract. That’s actually huge; with Verizon’s trade-in program you rarely get even close to $100 for a two-year-old phone, never mind a three-year-old one. Other than that, you’re pretty much free to trade in what’s eligible and get that credit towards your new phone.

Current AT&T customers can go to the trade-in website to see if their devices are worth more than $100. AT&T will accept non-AT&T phones, but you’ll have to go to a company owned retailer to make the trade.

Via Phone Scoop.

The post Trade In Your Old Smartphone for $100 in AT&T Credit appeared first on MobileMoo.

Verizon has learned that it can’t compete in some verticals. Years ago it tried to be a full-service carrier, providing games, music, and even apps for its subscribers. They tried to push these services to the point where they pre-loaded them onto every new handset. That all ended recently. Not only do they not pre-load those services onto new smartphones, but they’ve removed them from existing smartphones. With Google and Apple, among other specialty companies, handling apps, games, and music well enough, there’s not much room for a carrier like Verizon.

There is perhaps one vertical that could make sense for a carrier: cloud backup. While there are services like Dropbox and Google Drive that can handle cloud storage needs, and while those services do have smartphone and tablet apps, they’re not as directly connected to these devices as a carrier. Even Google Drive doesn’t fully support Android backups, at least natively and easily for the non-hardcore user. Apparently Verizon has realized this.

Today they announced a cloud storage app of their own, titled simply Verizon Cloud. It combines a basic type of backup with a service more akin to Dropbox, making a great, and free, solution for Verizon customers. Every Verizon smartphone account gets 500MB of storage for free. This allows you to backup contacts, call logs, text messages, call logs, and all basic information.

This can be greatly useful when switching phones. When I switched from an iPhone to an Android last fall, I was told that the in-store contact moving process could take hours. No way I was waiting that long. That meant manually moving over my contacts — at least those not already stored in my Google Contacts list. Using Verizon Cloud would make that process just a little easier to manage, without having to wait a few hours for a swap.

Verizon takes cloud storage a step further by offering storage service for a monthly fee. With it you can upload photos, video, music, and other files, just as you would to other cloud backup services. While the free tier isn’t competitive — 500MB hardly gets you anything — the paid tiers are actually competitive with Dropbox:

• $2.99 for 25GB
• $5.99 for 75GB
• $9.99 for 125GB

In addition to backing up your smartphone, Verizon Cloud makes your files available across various platforms, such as your tablet and laptop. You can access your files there and even stream music and video from them.

You can get started by downloading Verizon Cloud from Google Play (and you’ll see that it used to be VCast Media Manager). It is also available as a desktop and web app (in the link below). An iOS app is apparently coming soon.

Via Verizon Cloud via Phone Scoop.

The post Backup Your Smartphone or Tablet with Verizon Cloud appeared first on MobileMoo.

Have you freed your phone? By free I don’t mean unlocked. I mean free as in free from the confines of a case. Yes, smartphones are quite expensive, so protecting them is pretty important. You might have insurance, but if you break your phone and have to file a claim you still have to pay, as one of my friends calls it, the dumbass tax (i.e., your deductible). By keeping a decent case on your phone you can save yourself the inconvenience and cost of an insurance replacement.

At the same time, removing the case makes a phone seem so much freer. A few weekends ago I removed the case from my Galaxy S3, and it was like a whole new phone. Best of all, it didn’t even feel like a 4.8-inch behemoth. It felt just as small as my old iPhone 4. Why did I ever use a case in the first place?

Alas, the reason became clear soon enough. All it took was a juggling act. After that near-miss, I slapped the case right back on the phone, resigned to keeping it there so I wouldn’t be out the $150 deductible. Much as I enjoy every aesthetic aspect of a case-less phone, I just can’t recommend it. There’s too much at stake.

Need a case for your smartphone? CellPhoneShop is running quite a sale on customized skins and case: 40 percent off.

So what are you waiting for? Get 40% off customized skins and cases. Use promo code CSKIN13 at checkout. Also check out the other deals they have running on the site, such as free shipping for orders over $20.

The post Save on Skins and Cases from CellPhoneShop appeared first on MobileMoo.

For T-Mobile, it is a move necessary to gain traction. For the past three-plus years, the No. 4 carrier in America has made many attempts to bridge the gap. They’ve introduced new plans a number of times — it feels like dozens. They’ve run aggressive marketing campaigns touting the speed of their network. If it’s in the wireless marketing playbook, they’ve tried it. They even ran an end-around play, but still haven’t gained their desired traction.

Yes, they’re the No. 4 carrier in America, but they’re a distant fourth. At 33.9 million subscribers they trail No. 3 Sprint by more than 20 million. At this point in the game, attracting that many subscribers is a nearly impossible task. The bulk would have to come from not only Sprint, but also Verizon and AT&T — both of which boast over 100 million subscribers. But why would more than 20 million subscribers leave these larger, more reliable, and more convenient networks? Such is T-Mobile’s dilemma.

Last year they proposed a solution: a merger with MetroPCS. In the past this might not have worked as well. Before LTE started to cover America, MetroPCS and T-Mobile used different technologies to power their networks. But with converging technologies, the merger is a bit more feasible. Still, it leaves the combined company with a deficit. MetroPCS will add around 9 million subscribers, meaning Sprint will still have a more than 10 million subscriber advantage.

At the same time, Sprint will likely make a move of its own soon enough. After a lucrative buyout offer from Japanese carrier Softbank, Sprint received a competing offer from Dish Network. The latter makes the situation even more interesting, given Dish’s existing wireless holdings and a long-held desire to get into the consumer cellular market. The combined company won’t gain many subscribers over Sprint, but it could breathe new life into a company that hasn’t made much progress in the past few years.

The culture of mergers and acquisitions will likely continue. Spectrum is rare, and even with a spectrum auction in the offing, many carriers will find it more efficient to simply acquire another company’s spectrum and subscribers. We saw this with the spectrum auction in early 2008. Verizon and AT&T were expected to compete for the attractive C block, but Verizon ended up having the run of it because AT&T decided to pursue acquisitions.

There are still a number of smaller and regional carriers that could be acquisition targets in the next year or so:

• Cricket — which was previously an oft-discussed merger partner with MetroPCS
• US Cellular
• Cincinnati Bell
• C Spire (Cellular South)
• SouthernLINC
• Various Cellular One holdings

Not all of these entities are publicly held, so mergers can become a bit more complicated. But given the need to pick up new spectrum and subscribers, the larger carriers could find it worth their while.

In other words, T-Mobile and MetroPCS could be just the start. Sprint is likely to go next. Will any other carriers combine and consolidate in order to keep up with the wireless giants?

The post MetroPCS Board Approves T-Mobile Merger, Further Consolidating US Wireless Landscape appeared first on MobileMoo.

The last three times I walked into a Verizon store, I left feeling at least a little frustrated. While my issue was resolved in each instance, it was not resolved in what I would call a timely manner. The process of handling in-store customers just seemed so inefficient.

The first time, a number of years ago, I stood around looking like a schlub, because I didn’t know you had to check in with a representative and get on a list. On a busy Saturday evening that elongated my wait considerably. It was in a way my fault. In another way, why wasn’t there an employee directing me to the counter to get on the list?

The second time came this past October. I walked into the store with the express intent to purchase a new smartphone. Not a single salesperson came to help me. A few crowded by the door, looking at a laptop computer, content to neglect a customer with money to burn.

When someone did finally come to help, they ended up — you guessed it — putting me on a list. There I had to wait while other customers checked out and explained their problems to reps. Sigh.

That last time I went in for a very simple technical issue — one that I could have dealt with myself if not for fear of voiding my warranty. And yes, I was put on a list, despite seeing five employees standing around doing nothing and just two employees working the service counter. I walked out with a perfectly functioning phone, but a bitter taste in my mouth. Couldn’t someone else have helped?

Why tell these stories now? Because AT&T seems to understand this frustration. Today on their consumer blog they announced a new scheduling tool that enables customers to book their service appointments ahead of time. Just go to their website and book an appointment time. When you walk in the store at that time, they’ll be ready to help you.

The only question here is, why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?

No one wants to wait, especially when purchasing something. With AT&T’s appointment program, you can set up a time to purchase a new phone, add new services, or get service on your phone. There is no getting on a list when you walk into the store — you’re already on the list.

Just head to att.com/storeappointment and you can set one up for whenever they’re available. That way you won’t waste your time waiting on line, while employees bandy about the store with nothing better to do.

ATTN: Verizon. Get on this.

Via Phone Scoop.

The post AT&T Improves In-Store Experience with Retail Appointments appeared first on MobileMoo.

BlackBerry 10 might not have one killer feature, other than its flagship BBM service, but it does have plenty of new and inventive features that can change the way we use smartphones. Instead of being just another smartphone, BlackBerry’s new OS offers users a brand new experience. Here are five factors that stand out in BlackBerry 10.

1. Hub and Peek

What task do you perform most frequently on your smartphone? Chances are it involves checking email and other messages. While there are plenty of apps and other useful features on every smartphone, messaging remains the core functionality. The problem with the current crop of smartphones is that you have to check many different apps to find all of your messages. Even your email might live in multiple locations.

BlackBerry’s messaging feature, BlackBerry Hub, consolidates all of your messages into a single place. When you open it up you’ll see email from all addresses, instant messages, BBM, social media updates, and more. You can remove any number of these from Hub, and you can separate them into groups. When you check your messages, you have everything right there in front of you.

The Peek option only adds to Hub. No matter what app you’re viewing, you can swipe from the left side of the screen to peek into Hub. Again, this reinforces messaging at the core of the smartphone experience. The gesture-based Peek stands about above Android and iPhone for quick messages checking and task switching.

2. BlackBerry Balance

For a while now BlackBerry has tried to separate business from personal, since they serve primarily business customers. They released BlackBerry Balance in the past, but with their declining sales it didn’t go over as well as it otherwise might have. Now that they’ve unveiled BlackBerry 10, though, BlackBerry balance comes back into play — in a big way.

The nature of Balance is simple. On a work phone you have all of your work applications and messages, and chances are you also have personal information there. Given the power of modern smartphones, most people don’t need to carry around two. Companies have realized this and have started letting employees use their work phones for personal purposes. But functionality can get muddled.

Balance keeps the two entities separate. Your personal apps don’t access information from your enterprise apps, and vice versa. It does all this while maintaining the highest level of security, so companies need not fret. It also makes employees happy, since they can get the benefit of both personal and work phones in a single device.

3. BBM and screen sharing

When people think of BlackBerry, they typically associate it with BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, the company’s killer messaging app. Plenty of people stuck with BlackBerry through everything, because they couldn’t conceive of leaving BBM. Knowing that their customers love it so much, BlackBerry has greatly upgraded BBM for BlackBerry 10.

With faster cellular networks — the BlackBerry Z10 runs on 4G LTE — users can perform more functions with their phones. Video calling has been a big feature, with Apple’s Facetime, Skype, and Google Talk leading the way. BlackBerry added a killer video chat feature to BBM, along with voice chat. This supplements the already excellent instant messaging service, which includes features such as file transfer.

One interesting part the built onto BBM is the ability to share your screen with other BBM users. This can be used for any number of purposes, including troubleshooting. Other platforms offer this in a roundabout way, but BlackBerry 10 makes it easier than everyone else.

4. Active Frames

The Active Frames feature of BlackBerry 10 helps it stand out from the crowd. The icon-based navigation system has been around for over a decade — a navigation system that BlackBerry itself helped pioneer. But it’s time to move on. BlackBerry takes a step in the right direction with its Active Frames home screen.

When you go to your home screen, you’ll see the last eight applications you’ve had open. This isn’t just the app tile, though, but a live preview of what’s running in the app. Most native BB10 apps, such as calendar and App World, have Active Frames already running. As more and more third parties create Active Frames for their apps, it will only get better.

5. The keyboard

In the past six years people have grown used to typing on a virtual touchscreen keyboard. It proved difficult at first, and in that regard BlackBerry maintained a competitive advantage. Not only did its devices continue employing physical keyboards, but they were also the best in the business. Later BlackBerry made attempts, with the Storm and Torch models, to create a virtual keyboard, but it wasn’t much better than the competition.

BlackBerry 10 changes that completely. The first thing you notice when using BB10, in fact, is the responsiveness and accuracy of the virtual keyboard. It’s almost as though you have the traditional BlackBerry keyboard overlaid on the touchscreen. The default keyboard on the BlackBerry Z10 shines. It shows that BlackBerry continues to understand the importance of the keyboard on a smartphone.

That not enough? The Q10 is due out later this spring, and it will have the traditional QWERTY keyboard. We don’t see many of those devices these days.

The post Top 5 Features of BlackBerry 10 that Stand Out appeared first on MobileMoo.

Remember that graphic? It’s from a campaign that Virgin Mobile launched earlier this month in an effort to combat T-Mobile’s new prepaid-style plans. Since Virgin is firmly entrenched in the prepaid sector, and has been since its establishment in the US, it has every reason to show consumers why its deals can be superior to T-Mobile.

We’ve already seen the Samsung Galaxy S II, one of Virgin’s best phones, discounted to $300, down 10 percent from its original price. Virgin is quick to point that out, since the same phone on T-Mobile will cost you over $400 (even if you can pay it off in installments). Add in that $100 credit for switching from T-Mobile and it’s hard to deny the deal that Virgin offers.

Not switching from T-Mobile? Then you still have a chance to save. It won’t be $100, but they are offering a free shipping promotion. Shipping costs can be a pain to everyone, of course. They’re one reason why many people choose to shop in stores — no one wants to wait, and no one wants to pay shipping. But if you could avoid shipping and just wait a couple of days, you’d probably take that trade-off, right?

If you’re thinking about taking the plunge, or if you’re a VM customer looking to upgrade, you can head to their site and check out the free standard shipping deals. It’ll be worth your wait.

The post Get a New Phone With Free Shipping from Virgin Mobile appeared first on MobileMoo.

Mobile users chomping at the bit for the new-new thing won’t have to wait much longer. Seven different US carriers will carry the Galaxy S4 by May. That means you can get it an array of not only traditional, but also prepaid carriers. Chances are Samsung will sell millions upon millions of units and make the S4 the best-selling Android handset to date. Yet the smartphone giant could already be falling behind.

As noted in March, the S4 launch wasn’t revolutionary. Samsung upped the stakes with a larger screen, though it already had that with the Galaxy Note and Note 2. It also added more face-recognition features. With the S3 you can keep your screen lit up just by continuing to look at it — a wonderful and useful feature. With the S4 you can pause video just by looking away, which seems like more of an annoyance than anything, and scroll down web pages when your eyes reach the bottom of the screen (which seems like a recipe for bugs). To that I say:

So what?

The more I think about it, the more the S4 just seems to be riding the coattails of the S3 and the S2, both of which were enormous successes. There’s nothing really new feeling about the S4, and in fact it makes me glad I got the S3 rather than wait for the new-new thing. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Apple released a phone this fall that represents a much bigger upgrade over the iPhone 5 than the S4 is over the S3.

Perhaps one reason I remain unimpressed is because one unexpected company released a wonderful, potentially revolutionary software feature. Facebook has been focusing on mobile for years now, but the output has mostly come in the form of bland apps. The Android app in particular looks kind of shoddy. Apparently, a mobile app is not at all Facebook’s end game. Instead they created an Android overlay that is comparable to a manufacturer skin such as TouchWiz. Yet they added one feature that we will likely see copied in many messaging apps.

Chat Heads is awesome. This is coming from someone who rarely uses Facebook chat and the Facebook Messenger app. Instead of requiring you to be in a single app to conduct an instant message chat with someone, you will see a notification right on your screen. And this isn’t your standard notification bar ping. It’s right at the top of your screen, awaiting your attention.

Sure, ChatHeads has the potential to annoy users. But I honestly believe that is an effect that will diminish with time. Eventually people will realize that messaging is an enormous part of mobile, and that instant notification — right in front of your face — of new messages can be hugely useful. Expect many developers, including Google itself with Google Talk, to create a similar messaging feature. Surely they want their messages passing through to all apps.

It is the first implementation, so Chat Heads is far from perfect. One feature I’d like to see is the ability to control who gets to interrupt you. I don’t want random high school person to have the ability to interrupt anything I’m doing. When they message me, it can go to the normal notification bar. In other words, we need a whitelist for Chat Heads.

That concept can extend to all other messaging apps, including email. Imagine if the Gmail app adopted this. You set a whitelist of people whose email you want to see as an interruption. You’re checking your fantasy baseball team, and all the sudden Ed’s face appears at the top of your screen. He just replied to your email, which you’ve been awaiting for hours. Previously you’d have to drag down the notification bar to see if the message is from Ed, and if you have multiple new messages you have to click through to the Gmail app.

Overall, the concept of Chat Heads is far more powerful than anything Samsung announced last March. Even though it costs between $150 and $200 up front, more people will likely buy the S4 than download Facebook Home. But almost everyone will download Facebook Messenger, which is where Chat Heads live. And that could have a bigger impact than the eye-based features that Samsung introduced.

The lesson: your technology might be neat and novel, but unless it creates solutions, it’s not going to be as big a hit with consumers.

The post Samsung’s Big Phone is Coming, but Facebook’s Big Feature Means More appeared first on MobileMoo.

Late last week BlackBerry was the subject of a peculiar analyst report. The company is no stranger to negative analysis; from mid-2010 through mid-2012 (and even later) analysts routinely trashed the company’s present and future. But this report took the cake. It suggested not only that BlackBerry Z10 return rates were abnormally high, but that, “in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before.”

(Perhaps the last line should have served as an indicator that the analysis might be faulty.)

BlackBerry quickly denied the claim, stating that return rates were actually favorable and “consistent with return rates for other premium smartphones in the market today.” Follow-up reports indicate that BlackBerry is indeed correct. They also claim sales are healthy, despite a separate, and less publicized, analyst report stating that Z10 sales “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed.”

Yet not all of the analyst reports are negative. Peter Misek of Jeffries’, who is no stranger to negative BlackBerry reports, has some positive news. On the returns, he believes that the Z10 is experiencing typical rates. In fact: “Of the few phones that were returned, the only main commonality we found is that buyers thought the Z10 had a keyboard. As it does not, they returned it and will buy the Q10 instead.” So that turns a disaster situation into something the company can hang its hat on. Just wait until the Q10 drops, BlackBerry can now say.

The Q10 probably won’t be the last BlackBerry model to reach consumers in 2013. We have known for a while that the company planned additional releases, but Misek’s report puts them into a bit more perspective. Value models are on the way, as expected. This will include both a keyboard and a touch device, giving the Z10 and Q10 something akin to the Curve. But that shouldn’t be BlackBerry’s only additional offering. They should have a 5-inch device ready for late in the year.

These large devices, sillily dubbed “phablets,” have grown in popularity over the last 18 months, ever since Samsung released the original Galaxy Note. It followed with a successful Galaxy Note 2 launch, while many other companies have gotten in line to create their own versions. In my experience the Note goes over best with business customers, who appreciate the large screen and stylus, and who don’t mind lugging around a larger device. With a large built-in enterprise audience, BlackBerry could so some serious damage in this niche.

We’ll have to wait a while for this to happen, but it appears a phablet is in the pipeline for BlackBerry. Honestly, while I think they’ve done well enough — as well as they can — with the Z10, a 5-inch device could prove to be right in their sweet spot.

The post Is BlackBerry Thinking Big With a 5-Inch Device? appeared first on MobileMoo.

Last year SoftBank sent waves through the wireless industry when it made a $20 billion offer for 70 percent Sprint. The name SoftBank might not have been familiar to many, because it’s a Japanese company. By buying Sprint they’re making a big move into the lucrative US market. The deal was expected to close at some point this quarter, but a US company has thrown a wrench in that: this morning we learned that Dish has submitted a bid for Sprint.

Dish has already set up a site, explains his company’s position and why the Dish offer is superior to that of Softbank. There is also a fact sheet, though many of them are phrased as opinions (e.g., “Offers superior shareholder value,” which is up for debate). The long and short: Dish is deadly serious about acquiring Sprint.

On one level, the move might look a bit odd. Sprint is a larger company than Dish, and we don’t often see the smaller company making a bid for the larger one. But on the other hand, Dish has $10 billion in cash, which, according to FierceWireless, is about the level of Exxon Mobil. That extra cash in hand allows Dish to make an offer that another similarly sized company cannot.

The idea is to create a total communications solution. Dish already has its cable TV service in millions of homes, and Sprint reaches many millions more through cellular connections. A combined company would have massive reach. With a single account a customer could potentially fulfill all media and entertainment needs. “There really is no one company on a national scale that puts it all together,” said Ergen. “The new Dish/Sprint company will do that.”

There are problems, of course. For instance, the combined Dish/Sprint entity would carry $36 billion in debt, plus the amount Dish borrows to complete the transaction. So while they’re offering shareholders a higher cash payout and a greater ownership in the combined company than SoftBank, they’re also taking on a lot more risk. But the rewards could be even higher, as Dish claims the combine company could earn $50 billion in revenues.

Like most merger and acquisition information, much of this is inside baseball. Dish has made it clear that wireless is a priority, and it does have spectrum holdings. By acquiring Sprint, and perhaps Clearwire along with them, they could not only make an enormous mobile play, but also improve upon the spectrum it acquires with these two resources.

The consumer takeaway: this could be just the thing needed to move Sprint into closer competition with AT&T and Verizon. The deal with SoftBank might give them more combined subscribers, but that counts subscribers from Japan, which isn’t a very relevant metric for US comparisons. With Dish, Sprint could make a serious marketing play and expose itself to a whole new brand of consumer, one who wants a whole package of services under one umbrella.

The next step: waiting to see if SoftBank makes a counterproposal. If they do, it could be the start of a long bidding war between SoftBank and Dish.

The post Dish Makes Its Wireless Gambit with Bid for Sprint appeared first on MobileMoo.

If you have tried to score an early upgrade from Verizon in the past year or two, you might have walked away disappointed. Ever since they picked up the iPhone in January, 2011, they essentially stopped allowing customers to upgrade before their eligibility date.

“If you’re a doctor and absolutely need it, that’s a situation where we can help,” a Verizon store manager told me last year when I attempted an early upgrade. “And even then, there are absolutely no early upgrades on iPhone.”

Instead of stonewalling customers, Verizon did make a concession. Previously they featured a 22-month upgrade cycle. That is, while your contract runs 24 months, you could upgrade your phone two months before your contract expired. In the last year or so, they reduced that to a 20-month upgrade cycle. That certainly compensates, at least a little, for the absolute rule of no early upgrades.

Today they changed that, and at the expense of the consumer. From their corporate newsroom comes a notice that customers are now on a 24-month upgrade cycle. That is, you can’t upgrade before your contract actually expires. This is sure to spark some anger among consumer advocacy groups.

In a way this makes sense. The staggered nature of upgrade and contract expiration dates can cause some confusion among consumers, even if it benefits them. It also probably benefits Verizon in terms of paperwork. But it’s also a big drawing point for retaining customers. When a customer has a contract expiring in November, and you can extend that for another two years by offering them an upgrade in July, you’re probably going to retain him or her.

The 20-month upgrade remains from now through essentially the end of August. Customers who have contracts expiring in January, 2014, are the first affected. Those customers would be eligible for a 20-month upgrade in September, but instead will be the first group to wait that extra four months. Those who have contracts expiring up to December 31, 2013, can still upgrade four months before contract expiration. But that means they’ll have to wait 28 months for their next upgrade.

Also part of the announcement: all New Every Two credits will disappear into the ether this Sunday, April 15th. We knew this was coming for a long time; Verizon killed the program in January, 2011 — coincidentally the same month they announced the iPhone for their network. Chances are eligible customers have used these credits by now, but there are surely some who have not.

In the end this represents a slight inconvenience for customers who have contracts expiring after January 2014. When Verizon did away with early upgrades, the switch to a 20-month upgrade cycle helped considerably. Now that they’re back to the standard 24-month cycle, and still don’t allow people to upgrade even a day early, they’re going to have a lot of frustrated customers.

Via Phone Scoop.

The post Want To Upgrade Your Verizon Phone? You’ll Have To Wait Four Months appeared first on MobileMoo.

T-Mobile’s new contract-free plans might have garnered most of the attention after the company’s big announcement last month, but there is another part that will start making an impact soon. On Friday, after nearly six years without, T-Mobile will finally offer the iPhone. And they aren’t taking it lightly.

Earlier this week we saw Virgin Mobile take a shot at T-Mobile with an intriguing comparison chart. Included with it was a $100 offer to switch from T-Mobile to Virgin Mobile. As I mentioned in the post, this is a tactic we typically see from smaller carriers seeking to steal business from larger ones. T-Mobile still sits firmly as the No. 4 carrier in the nation, so it has plenty of competition from above. Like Virgin, it plans to take on that competition with an incentive.

Plenty of people already own the iPhone, and T-Mobile knows that. Why, then, would they come to them for iPhone service? The pricing, only $100 up front and $20 per month, might be one attractive factor. Not satisfied with just this, T-Mobile is offering a $100 trade-in credit. Just bring an iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 when you purchase a new one and you eliminate that $100 up-front charge. It gets better than that, too. Those trading in the 4S and 5 will receive additional bonuses which can saved them even more.

The promotion not only highlights T-Mobile’s tough position in the current mobile market, but also its focus on being a value carrier. When it unveiled new plans, what stood out most was the value they provide over other plans. At $60 per month for unlimited minutes and messaging, plus 2.5GB of data, there’s not a large carrier in the country that can compete. Some prepaid carriers trump that offering, but they’re working off other carriers’ networks. Those with primary networks, such as Cricket and MetroPCS, don’t offer the level of coverage that T-Mobile does.

The offer runs between now and June 16, giving customers plenty of time to decide whether they’d like to trade in their old iPhone models for the new one. The only issue is that only the iPhone 4 has customers out of contract at this point. Since it was released in October of 2011, customers who upgraded still have a few months before they can exit their current plans. The trade-in credit, though, could virtually go towards an early termination fee, which can be in the double digits by this point in many contracts. The iPhone goes on sale this Friday at 9 a.m. local time.

In other T-Mobile news, their network could be getting stronger soon. For a few months now they’ve been going through the regulatory and shareholder approval processes for a merger with MetroPCS. While regulators have pushed the deal through, there has been a bit of turmoil on the shareholder side. News today suggests that T-Mobile will improve its offer for MetroPCS, perhaps allaying some concerns that MetroPCS’s top investors have expressed.

Apparently early shareholder voting hasn’t gone well, which has prompted the improved offer from T-Mobile. If some shareholders change their minds, the deal could go through quickly. The deal will be ratified or rejected at a shareholder meeting scheduled for this Friday.

The post T-Mobile Offering a Promotion of Its Own on iPhone Trade-Ins appeared first on MobileMoo.

For many Android users, the design of Google Play does not present a huge issue. It might not be the greatest interface, but if you know how to use the search bar you can find the specific apps you want. But when it comes to discovery there are a few things that Play could do a bit better. It appears Google understands this. Today they announced the roll-out of a redesigned Google Play, and it boasts many needed improvements.

The focus on this new interface is discovery. The old Play home screen was a bit cluttered and frankly a bit disorganized as well. There were ways to discover new content, but they were jumbled together. That made them difficult to differentiate from one another. The new Play interface puts the main buttons — apps, games, movies & tv, music, books, and amagazines — front and center, making it easier to navigate to what you’re seeking. After that there are plenty of goodies right on the home screen.

Another interesting feature that they advertise is auto-loading new content. Scrolling through pages and pages of apps can be a pain, especially if you seek discovery and not a specific app. Sometimes you just want to go back to a certain app. What page was it on? Where on the page was it? Auto-loading new apps lets you scroll to your heart’s content. It’s also nice if you have a general idea of what you’re looking for — now you don’t have to go through pages and pages of apps to find it.

Google started rolling out the new Play today, but you might not see it yet. As with most big releases, this one will come out in waves over the next few weeks. As you probably assume, it’s an auto-update, so you won’t need to do anything differently.

Via Official Android Blog.

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