Most entry-level phones in AT&T’s handset lineup have been able to send multimedia messages for years. Soon the most advanced will as well. The carrier on Thursday confirmed that it will offer MMS on Apple’s iPhone starting Sept. 25–about two months after the handset first began supporting the feature.
“Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it.” So begins Apple’s response to the FCC’s inquiry into its rejection of the app and of its App Store approval process. Seems Google Voice was withheld from the App Store not because of any ill feeling toward Google or a nefarious request from AT&T, but because it too closely mimics the iPhone OS.
According to a new survey from ChangeWave, owners of Apple’s new iPhone 3GS are quite happy with the device. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the AT&T service that accompanies it. Asked what they dislike most about the iPhone, 41 percent of respondents said the device’s short battery life. Nearly a third, 32 percent, said AT&T.
The U.S. government broadband stimulus program couldn’t have come along at a better time. Leichtman Research Group said Monday that the country’s 19 largest cable and telephone providers added a net 634,000 broadband subscribers during the second quarter of 2009. That’s 29 percent fewer than were added in the same period a year ago and the lowest number of net additions of any quarter in the last eight years.
The 3G wireless network infrastructure here in the United States may be subpar, but it keeps attracting new users. Indeed, research outfit TeleGeography reports that the number of 3G phone users in the U.S. will overtake Japan by 2011.
The consolidation of the prepaid cellphone market has begun in earnest. This morning, Sprint Nextel said it will acquire Virgin Mobile USA in a $483 million stock deal that will give the company a clear lead in the prepaid arena, where low prices are becoming ever more popular with consumers beaten into submission by the continuing recession.
Reporting better-than-expected second-quarter earnings this morning, AT&T said it activated 2.4 million iPhone accounts–35 percent of them for new customers.
There’s no question that AT&T’s iPhone-exclusivity deal has been a strategic coup for the carrier. Since its debut in 2007, the device has drawn millions of new customers to the company and done much to revitalize its brand. But the carrier’s deal with Apple won’t last forever, and as soon as it expires, the telecommunications giant will face slowing growth and worse, defections.
Sued by Visto in 2006 for allegedly infringing its patents, Research in Motion denied having done so. It countersued, claiming the disputed patents, which relate to accessing and synchronization of information over a network, should not have been granted because they contain new inventions. RIM petitioned to have them invalidated. But in the end, the BlackBerry maker ended up licensing them anyway.
Sprint has found a novel way to improve its network operations: Turn them over to Ericsson. On Thursday, the wireless carrier announced a long-rumored plan to outsource its network to Ericsson.
The consumer electronics wizards at Dell who brought us the now defunct DJ Ditty MP3 player and the Axim handheld are hard at work on another gadget, a mobile Internet device.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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