It seems that T-Mobile always does this. They introduce something fairly interesting, and then follow it up with something also kind of interesting, but also a little confusing. It got bad a few years ago, when they had multiple tiers of plans and it was difficult to tell the differences between them in many cases. Their latest foray piggybacks their Uncarrier campaign. “Simple Choice with no credit check” will provide the credit-challenged with access to those same Uncarrier plans.

There are many catches, of course, and the confusion of the plan might turn off consumers before they get a chance to see how it can work for them. For starters, this is advertised as, and mostly effective as, a family plan. Individual users with bad credit are better off examining T-Mobile’s traditional prepaid plans, which are pretty close to the Simple Choice plans, but with no deposit.

Yes, a deposit is required for the no credit check plans. That starts at $60 for the first line, followed by a $40 deposit for the second line, and $20 each for the next two lines. A fifth line is also a $20 deposit, but that has to be a non-phone internet device (tablet, for example). The deposit is refundable, so presumably it covers you for potential non-payment.

The biggest loss here is the lack of automatic payments. Why T-Mobile would take that away I don’t understand. Companies absolutely love autobill features, and it’s pretty standard in prepaid. (Virgin Mobile offers a $5 per month discount if you sign up for automatic payments.) Maybe it will be available in the future, but for now it’s off the table.

Combine all that with the necessity of paying for a device in full, up front, and you have a not so attractive plan. There will be many customers, for sure, who will want an option like this. But given the ease of T-Mobile’s Simple Choice plans, it seems as though this appeals only to those who absolutely cannot pass a credit check. In which case, they’re stuck with what T-Mobile offers.

Via TmoNews.com.

The post T-Mobile To Announce “Simple Choice with no credit check” plans appeared first on MobileMoo.

Earbud headphones almost always suck. At least for me, and I know plenty of others who simply cannot stand them. I remember seeing everyone walking around with the signature white iPod earbuds as I walked around New York City in the mid-00s, wondering how they found them at all comfortable. For me they alway fell out, so I had to readjust them every 30 or so seconds while walking.

A recent trend in earbuds is including three different size buds with each pair. If the default buds are too big or too small, you can change it to one of the other included sizes. This is nice in many ways — I actually have a pair rigged up with two different sized buds on each ear — but I still can’t seem to find a pair that stays in my ear while walking.

Recently I connected with Troy Redington of FatWallet, who raved about the Monoprice 8320 earbuds. At first he went on about the sound quality, how they all but eliminated outside sound. Then he went on about the price, around $8, which just blows away the cheap earbud competition. When I asked about comfort he said he had dozens of earbuds lying around, but these fit far better. So sure, send me a pair for review.

I’m not going to say that these earbuds stayed in my ear like a dream. I’m not going to say that they’re superior to the Bose over-ear headphones I have. But I will say that in terms of earbuds, they are the most comfortable I’ve worn and they do deliver on sound quality. While they’re not great for spoken-word audio, such as podcasts, they do a real good job with all styles of music I tried.

As you can see in the picture atop this post, they’re not exactly normal looking earbuds. They have something of a hook on top, which is actually great. The hook helps the buds fit snugly in your ear. It takes a little twisting, but I got them to fit very well without moving too much. The cords also wrap around your ear, rather than hanging straight down. This probably makes the greatest difference. Since using these, I started wrapping all of my earbuds around my ear like that, and it honestly does make all of them more comfortable.

Yet what stood out to me about the Monoprice buds is that they’re made of nylon, rather than the cheap plasticky, rubbery substance you see with most headphones. It’s strange, because the buds are so cheap, yet the material feels anything but. They just feel more durable, which is nice. When I buy headphones under $10 I expect to replace them pretty quickly. These feel like they’re last for a while.

You can check out the FatWallet site to get these earbuds at an insanely cheap price. They do offer cash back if you register, which is nice. Again, it’s tough to do better for $8. It’s probably tough to do better for triple that.

The post Monoprice 8320 Earbuds Deliver at a Low Price appeared first on MobileMoo.

When T-Mobile overhauled its plans a few months ago, I felt a little excitement. At a time when the big players are getting more and more restrictive with contract terms and upgrades, T-Mobile made a turn in the completely opposite direction. Their plans don’t reflect contract subsidies, and you pay extra per month only when you’re actively paying off your phone. If I weren’t stuck in a contract myself I’d probably consider switching.

Apparently T-Mobile was onto something, because one of their major competitors, AT&T, has created a similar plan. It is under the prepaid GoPhone umbrella, but it offers far more features than AT&T has made available in the past. The biggest change: the addition of LTE. That puts GoPhone on similar ground to T-Mobile’s service, though T-Mobile still primarily uses HSPA+.

With T-Mobile you get unlimited talk and text, plus 2.5GB of data, for $60 per month. With AT&T GoPhone you get 2GB of data with that same unlimited talk and text for the same $60 per month. True, T-Mobile gives you 500MB more data, but AT&T gives you a wider network. With both services you can bring your own phone, putting them on even leveler ground.

The difference comes if you want more data. AT&T has a very reasonable rate of $10 per GB extra per month — reasonable for prepaid, at least. T-Mobile, on the other hand, bumps you to unlimited smartphone data for that $10 per month. It’s unlikely AT&T ever goes in this direction; they actually did offer unlimited prepaid data for $20 per month, but put an end to that plan more than four years ago.

So while T-Mobile has better options, AT&T did just create a competitor with its prepaid brand. It’ll be interesting to see which customers feel the AT&T offering is better.

The post Is AT&T’s New GoPhone Plan Better than T-Mobile? appeared first on MobileMoo.

The government can access your phone records. We all pretty much knew that all along, but last week’s revelation of the NSA’s PRISM program confirmed everything we knew, and some that we didn’t. The conversation about privacy has taken center stage on a national level. Yet despite the outrage, a recent poll from Pew Research Center suggests that most Americans are okay with the government seeking call records — though “to investigate terrorism” seems like a key clause.

Another issue of cell phone privacy arose yesterday, but not on a national level. In the State of New Jersey, where I happen to reside, a local legislator has proposed a bill that would grant police officers the ability to search cell phone records in the case of car accidents. Operating a cell phone without a hands-free unit is illegal in New Jersey, and the bill’s sponsor says that granting officers this ability to search will make it easier for them to do their jobs.

In a way this makes sense. People text messaging while driving pose a hazard. The level of that hazard is up for debate, but it is a hazard in any case. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine, for the sake of the accident repot and ensuing investigation, whether a driver was distracted by a cell phone. The bill would allow officers to find out on the spot.

Before we even get to the privacy issue, there is certainly one of effectiveness. If there is a passenger in the car, there’s essentially no way to prove wrongdoing on the part of the driver. Both parties can agree that it was the passenger who was operating the phone, and there’s little anyone can do to disprove that. Similarly, even if the driver were talking without a hands-free device, as long as he or she had such a device it would become a mitigating factor.

In terms of privacy, it’s understandable why people would be uncomfortable handing over their phones. If the officer doesn’t understand the smartphone operating system it can take many clicks to find the relevant information. In the process they can discover information they have no right seeing, and can then use that information against the phone’s owner. And how many abuse of power cases do we see from cops? Too many to make people comfortable with this kind of bill, I think.

Perhaps if I could watch over the office while he or she looked for the relevant information, I’d be more amenable to the bill. Then again, police don’t like it when citizens monitor them. More than likely this would turn into another unchecked privilege for law enforcement, which they would use to further solidify their power base. The more unchecked power we give law enforcement, the more they’re going to abuse that power at our expense.

The gist of the article is that this bill will likely make it all the way to the state, and perhaps federal, Supreme Court. As it should. This is the kind of issue we need to debate out in the open.

Via NJ.com.

The post Is Your Cell Phone Private When Others are Involved? appeared first on MobileMoo.

It might not sound like a big deal, but for Android users who find themselves frustrated with the available keyboard options it’s a boon. When I first got the Nexus One three-plus years ago, I absolutely loved the stock keyboard. I tried out SwiftKey and some alternatives, but stock ruled the day. The stock keyboard has gotten even better since then. That’s bittersweet news to Galaxy S3 users, because the Samsung keyboard is, well, not that great.

Earlier this year I raved about how SwiftKey is the best Android keyboard. What I meant was it was the best Android keyboard available for everyone (and for people who don’t like Swype, because people who like Swype love Swype). At the time the stock keyboard was left to those who had Nexus units or rooted their phones and used the stock version available through ROMs like CyanogenMod.

Yesterday Google mercifully released the stock keyboard in the Google Play Store, allowing anyone to download it in all its glory. Truth told, it’s not all that much better than Swiftkey, and it might not be any better at all. It will depend largely on user feel. But after typing away a few messages, I have a few notes.

• On SwiftKey I routinely misfire when trying to type A, hitting the caps lock button instead. That is not an issue with the stock Android keyboard.
• Almost everyone misfires occasionally when going for the space bar, hitting B or N instead. A good autocorrect, as you’ll find on Swype, will find two words with a B or N in between and insert the space there. So far the Android default keyboard has not done that yet.
• Two settings I suggest changing: flip autocorrect to “aggressive” if you type very quickly (yet even this did not fix the space bar misfire issue) and uncheck the filter for obscene words. I’m sure you use them, and am equally sure you hate getting the f-word (hey, this is a family site) autocorrected to duck for no good reason.

You can get the Android stock keyboard at Google Play.

The post Android Stock Keyboard Now Available in Google Play appeared first on MobileMoo.

The image you see above might look like a regular old Samsung Galaxy S4, but it’s actually a superior model. Dubbed the Galaxy S4 Active, it adds durability features that can satisfy the rugged lifestyle. Or at least that’s what the marketing material suggests. Really, it’s a phone that can can withstand abuse from clumsy users like me. And that’s why it could be a a decent winner, if the price is right.

The Active carries essentially every technical spec of the normal S4, but adds protection from dust and water. Ever notice that dust — or worse, sand — sometimes gets under the screen of your phone? The Active is sealed to keep those particles out. It also protects against water damage, including submersion of one meter for up to 30 minutes. So you could drop your phone in a pot of water, go play a video game for 20 minutes, and come back and notice no difference.

The only real technical change is the downgrading of the camera to 8 megapixels. But it’s not like they reduced it for the sake of reducing it. No, you can take pictures under water in what they call Aqua Mode. It might not be totally practical, and I’ll be damned if I’ll ever put my smartphone underwater, no matter the advertised water resistance. Still, it’s a neat little feature, much like many of the neat little features that Samsung offered with the original S4.

Honestly, my thought on this is that Samsung should have just released this as the normal S4. SmartPause and SmartScroll aren’t features that really wow me. A design that can withstand my clumsy abuse? Now that’s worth the upgrade cost. I’m not sure how much carriers will charge for the Active — specs indicate a release on AT&T or T-Mobile — but it’s probably going to be more than the $200 subsidized price on the S4. Which is a shame, but that’s how business works.

Via Samsung via Phone Scoop.

The post Samsung Announces Galaxy S4 Active, for Release This Summer appeared first on MobileMoo.

The technology world lends itself to reviews. When we hear a new gadget announced, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of blogs and publications are readying their reviews — some of them before they even touch the product. Save for those latter, the proliferation of gadget reviews helps the consumer immensely. By reading multiple opinions, written from varying viewpoints, consumers can make more informed decisions on these expensive products.

While you can get dozens of reviews detailing every aspect of the Samsung Galaxy S4, chances are you won’t find too many reviews about perhaps the most important factor when choosing a smartphone: the service. You can have the most powerful smartphone on the planet, but if it runs on a 3G network chances are you won’t enjoy it as much as someone with a slightly less powerful phone on a 4G LTE network. Even then, 4G LTE network quality varies greatly by carrier and by area.

The last factor makes reviewing service especially difficult. In order to provide accurate information, reviewers have to note the specific area where they performed the testing. Few publications will spend the time and the money to write a detailed, aggregate review of wireless services, and even when they do they’re not necessarily illustrative. Because these are aggregate reviews they’re subject to variance. If you’re in one of the zones that brought down the average, in other words, the aggregate review does you little good.

When testing new networks, reviewers must take extra caution. Why? Because there are fewer people using those networks. Fewer people on a network means that the few people using the network get its full attention. They can use it to its greatest capacity, because there are no other users trying to pull data from the same towers. When a network starts to populate with users is when we can start to reliably test speeds — in a single area, of course.

That T-Mobile’s LTE network runs amazingly fast comes as no surprise. They only offer it in seven cities, and only launched it three or four months ago. That gives customers little chance to buy into the network; with so many customers locked into contracts, carriers have to wait for many to switch to 4G LTE. Once T-Mobile does expand its LTE offerings — it plans to cover 200 million people by year’s end — it will push harder for new customer acquisitions. And that’s when the true test of the network will come.

This reminds me of when Verizon launched its 4G LTE network. People raved about its blazing download and upload speeds as if they were using cable connections. As people started signing up for Verizon’s LTE service, though, the speeds predictably fell. It’s still amazingly fast compared to 3G, but it’s not at the same speeds that people raved about in the beginning

The good news is that the report cites wider network availability, which has always been a bugaboo for T-Mobile. Chances are their LTE will remain fairly fast — they do have far fewer subscribers than AT&T and Verizon and so might have more network capacity per user — but the bigger win will be a more robust network.

The post T-Mobile’s LTE Might Be Fast Now, But Wait for the People Before Judging appeared first on MobileMoo.

Once again I’d missed the big picture. In discussing Google’s unlocked Galaxy S4, I talked about all the issues except the one that the Android faithful hold dear. While the other issues are relevant for sure, the availability of high-end handsets with stock Android will continue to be the biggest issue for hardcore Android users.

Those users got another bit of good news yesterday when Google announced they’d sell the HTC One, unlocked and with stock Android, later on in June. It will cost $599 and will, as you might have guessed, be available for use on T-Mobile and AT&T, plus any MVNOs that support those networks. There are ups and downs to using these MVNO services, but given the desire for stock Android, many users will consider it a small price to pay.

The stock Android issue becomes even larger for the HTC One, which runs not just the Sense UI, but a new version of Sense. I haven’t spent significant time with the One, but with my limited first-hand experience plus the reviews of the device, I feel the new sense is worse than the old Sense — and the old Sense was pretty terrible. Samsung’s TouchWiz is no great shakes itself, but I’d far, far rather than than Sense in either form. Google’s offering of the One, then, can be seen as an even bigger boon than the S4.

The big point here is what this does to Android manufacturers. I don’t think they create their own custom UIs because they think they can provide a better user experience than stock Android. It’s pretty clear that they do this so that they can differentiate their devices. Imagine if Samsung, HTC, and LG all shipped their devices with stock Android. How would we differentiate among them? We’d be going on hardware, and hardware is expensive.

What Google is doing now probably won’t change the current system. As mentioned in the previous post, there are too many downsides to using an unlocked, unsubsidized phone. With AT&T you’re paying a monthly fee that assumes a subsidy (i.e., you’re overpaying). T-Mobile could work for many, but their coverage still has plenty of deficiencies. Few MVNOs compatible with the T-Mobile and AT&T networks offer LTE services, which also takes away from the devices’ effectiveness.

If unlocked phones worked on all four major networks, and therefore their MVNOs (many of which have a bring your own device program), the system might work better. If the big carriers offered their MVNOs LTE capability, it would work better yet. It seems like we’re not particularly close to either of those happening, though. When they do happen — because at this point it’s a matter of when, even if when is five years from now — we could see some changes.

The widespread availability of stock Android weakens each individual manufacturer. They couldn’t use software as a strong selling point, and so would have to compete on hardware. And if everything’s stock, what’s the difference between a 5-inch device from Samsung and a 5-inch device from HTC? The casing, the screen, the camera, and other hardware factors. And from my experience, HTC actually wins that battle.

Like most trends, this will take time to develop. But the widespread availability of stock Android devices could be a good thing for consumers. If we show we are willing to spend $500 on a new smartphone, provided we get service does that not assume subsidy pricing, it could make a big difference indeed.

Via Phone Scoop.

The post Will Google’s Stock Android Offerings Put Focus on Hardware? appeared first on MobileMoo.

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago Nokia sat atop the cell phone world. In the first quarter of 2011 they sold 108.5 million units worldwide, nearly 40 million more than Samsung, its next closest competitor. At the time only one other manufacturer, LG, had shipped more than 20 million units. Apple, three and a half years after the initial iPhone launch, sat at No. 4 with 18.7 million. Yet things changed almost immediately.

In the second quarter Nokia shipped 20 million fewer phones while the next three closest companies increased shipments. Nokia did recover in the second half of 2011, but by the first quarter of 2012 they had fallen behind Samsung. And with good reason. Samsung got a huge boost from the Galaxy SII release in 2011. Another jump in 2012 from the SIII has left them the undisputed kings, shipping 112.8 million units in Q1 2013, over 50 million more than Nokia, which still ranks No. 2.

LG, for its part, has stumbled. It has attempted to remain relevant with the Optimus series, especially the relatively recent Optimus G, but the sales number show that the company doesn’t hold a candle to Samsung. They were, on the other hand, the only non-Samsung company to show growth from Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, shipping 800,000 additional units. Everyone else saw something of a decline, which is odd, since the old logic was that sales are high in Q4 and Q1, with slumps in Q2 and Q3. Apple’s mid-year releases, combined with the Q4 holiday season, might have something to do with the change.

One final interesting tidbit from the table above comes from Apple. The sheer numbers show what happens when you are available on more than one carrier. When the iPhone 4 came out in July, 2010, Apple saw an increase from 8.4 million units shipped in Q2, 2010, to 14.1 million in Q3, 2010. That’s a nearly 70 percent increase, impressive for sure, but mere peanuts compared to the over-100-percent increase from Q3 2011 to Q4 2011. Here are Apple’s peak numbers, coming on the quarters of their three most recent releases:

iPhone 4: 14.1 million
iPhone 4S: 37 million
iPhone 5: 47.8 million

Apple’s peak of 47.8 million is even more impressive considering they sell only the iPhone line. Samsung’s peak, 112.8 million, achieved in Q1 2013, reflects both smartphone and feature phone sales. So while they’ve been impressive for sure, they do have a long line of cheap phones helping pump up the numbers. (And as you can see on the chart below, two massive spikes in smartphones sales coincide with the releases of the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5).

Speaking of feature phones, Q1 also marked what is likely the last quarter where feature phones out-ship smartphones. Of the 405 million total units shipped, 204 million were feature phones and 201 million were smartphones. It’s a near certainty that when the Q2 report surfaces this summer we’ll see feature phones dip below 200 million with smartphones moving up a bit.

Finally, the chart makes it clear that feature phones didn’t go quite out of style until 2012. There was actually an increase in feature phone shipments from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011. The first real dip didn’t come until Q1 2012, with another dip coming in Q1 2013.

Via FierceWireless.

The post Smartphone Shipments Nearly Equal Feature Phones, Samsung King of All appeared first on MobileMoo.

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.