T-Mobile is planning a big announcement at CES in Las Vegas later on today, but thanks to a leaked ad that’s been making its way around the web this morning, we already know what it has up its sleeve. As part of its Un-carrier 4.0 scheme, T-Mobile will pay your whole family’s early termination fees if they switch carriers and trade in their old smartphone.
Best Buy has knocked $75 off all iPhone 5s models for a limited time, making the 16GB model just $124.99 when bought with a two-year contract extension on AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. It’s one of the lowest prices we’ve seen for the device since it made its debut last September, but you’ll need to grab yours soon.
On our all-new CultCast: Apple has a new Christmas commercial and some are hailing it as their best ad yet; Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever; Beyonce’s iTunes-only album release breaks all the records; an alarming new study shows pervs can use your Mac’s camera to peep your naked bod; and we choose on our favorite Christmas movies of all time!
Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Download new and past episodes of The CultCast on iTunes or hit play below and let the audio enjoyment commence.
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Sprint is planning to buy T-Mobile, according to The Wall Street Journal. The $20+ billion deal would combine the nation’s third and fourth largest carriers. Sprint is reportedly “studying regulatory concerns and could launch a bid in the first half of next year.”
If Sprint and T-Mobile do merge, they would have a combined customer base of nearly 100 million, which is much closer than they are separately to Verizon’s 119 million and AT&T’s 108 million.
AT&T tried to buy T-Mobile two years ago, but the deal was eventually shut down by antitrust concerns from the Justice Department. The same thing could very well happen again this time around, but only time will tell. The last thing the U.S. carrier industry needs is less competition, so maybe going from the “big four” to the “big three” isn’t the best idea.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Today Sprint announced a limited time deal that gives students a full year of free cellular service with the purchase of a smartphone at any Best Buy location. The offer includes unlimited talk/text and 1GB of data per month, with the option to have unlimited data for $10 per month.
The typical two-year contract isn’t required, but Sprint is charing a “student activated price” that’s actually a little more than the full, unsubsidized cost of most phones.
Some lucky folks at Verizon were recently able to upgrade to a new phone without losing their unlimited data plan. Color us totally jealous.
This was the result of a glitch, said Verizon, and not a change in policy like some may have mistakenly hoped for.
Verizon told AllThingsD on Monday that it would, however, honor the unlimited plans of customers that were able to upgrade without the dreaded limited data plan of doom.
The iPhone 5s was hard to find this weekend but Apple certainly had no problem with the supply of the iPhone 5c. Early estimates showed the iPhone 5s outselling the 5c by a considerable margin on launch weekend and it’s still outselling its cheaper sibling nearly 3 to 1 a week later according to the newest data from Localytics.
Virgin Mobile USA has today announced that it will be offering Apple’s new iPhones beginning Tuesday, October 1. Both the iPhone 5s and the colorful iPhone 5c will be available on its prepaid “Beyond Talk” plans, which start at just $35 per month.
Now that the pre-order season is done, and purchase time is just around the corner on September 20, Sprint is one of the first carriers out of the gate with a new enticement for potential new customers.
Staring the same day the iPhone 5c will be available, Sprint will give you $100 off any new phone when you switch your current cell phone number over to Sprint. That includes the iPhone 5c and–when available–the iPhone 5s.
Considering that the basic 16 Gb iPhone 5c is set to retail for $99 with a qualifying two-year carrier plan, it looks like you’re going to be able to get one for what amounts to free, if you switch over to Sprint.
Taking their sweet time about it, Sprint will be following the likes of Verizon Edge, AT&T Next and T-Mobile Jump with an annual update plan all of their own. The plan is called One Up, and it will be available on Sprint the same day the iPhone 5S/5C go on sale: September 20th.
Over the past few years, Apple has always told people when they can start preording the next iPhone after it has been announced. This year, though, Apple is allowing preorders of only the iPhone 5c, and not allowing preorders of the iPhone 5s at all. And even on the iPhone 5c side of things, Apple is being a little obtuse, not actually clarifying when on Friday, September 13th preorders will begin. But now, thanks to the big mouths of Apple’s carrier partners, we know exactly when.
If you’re hoping to pick up one of Apple’s new iPhones next Friday, but you need a little cash to put towards it, then it might be worth heading down to your local Walmart with your old smartphone. The retailer is set to launch its own smartphone trade-in program, which will give you between $50 and $300 when you hand over your old device and sign into a new plan.
Since the dawn of time, Verizon has dominated customer satisfaction rankings thanks to its network reliability and customer service. Sadly, the king has been overthrown as AT&T topped J.D. Power’s latest rankings for wireless care satisfaction for the first time ever.
Thanks to Samsung and the International Trade Commission, Apple will be banned from importing the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 into the United States from Sunday, August 4. The Cupertino company has been trying to fight the ban since it was confirmed last October, but it’s had little success.
Now it is seeing unlikely support from Microsoft, Intel, and Oracle, which all agree that the use of standards-essential patents to ban products should not be allowed.
Best Buy has today begun a new nine-day deal that gives you $150 when you trade-in any working iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S. That’s enough to cover the cost of a brand new 16GB iPhone 5 on a two-year contract with a $50 instant rebate, which means there couldn’t be a better time to upgrade.
The demand for 4G LTE connectivity has never been higher, and companies are pulling all the tricks out the bag to try to fulfil the high demand. Last night, Sprint announced that it has turned on high-speed 4G LTE data in 22 new locations. The announcement was made in a single press release on the U.S. carrier’s website.
A hacked carrier update that has the potential to deliver improved data speeds is now available to iPhone 5 users on Sprint. The modified update, which has previously been made available to devices on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, does not require a jailbroken device — just a Mac or PC with iTunes.
Best Buy is set to knock $50 off the iPhone for a four-week promotion that starts this Sunday, AllThingsD reports. The discount will apply to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, and the iPhone 5 when bought with a two-year contract on AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon.
Starting in May, AT&T is introducing a new “Mobility Administrative Fee” to the bill of all postpaid customers. The new fee will cost AT&T customers an extra $0.61 per line, per month.
While the total cost of the fee is unlikely to break the bank on your next bill, it does mean that you’re going to pay an extra $7.32 per phone line per year on your wireless bill, so if you have multiple lines on your account, you’ll pay much more than an extra 7 bucks a year.
The new fee is crummy deal for customers, but AT&T is super excited to take more of your pennies because with over 70 million postpaid customers the new fee will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in extra revenue every year.
Sprint has this morning reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2013, and they show yet another loss for America’s third-largest carrier. The company announced a $643 million net loss on $8.79 billion revenue, though it did manage to generate a positive operating revenue of $29 million.
Sprint sold 5 million smartphones during the period, 1.5 million of which were iPhones.
Satellite TV provider Dish Network is looking to derail Sprint’s deal with SoftBank and acquire the carrier with a $25.5 billion bid. Dish has offered $17.3bn in cash and $8.2bn in stock for 100% of Sprint shares, and the company argues that the deal represents a 13% premium over SoftBanks “complicated” bid to acquire 70% for $20.1 billion.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere kicked off the company’s press event in New York City today with an aggressive yet entertaining onslaught against rival carriers. He called for the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint to “stop the bullshit” with traditional subsidy models, which T-Mobile has now abandoned in favor of its new “Uncarrier” plans.
It’s only taken just under six years, but T-Mobile has finally reached a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone. The iPhone 5 will be one of the first devices available on T-Mobile’s new LTE network, launched today, and it’ll be available to purchase for a $99 up-front fee starting April 12.
T-Mobile has been relegated to being America’s #4 U.S. carrier, thanks to it’s failed acquisition deal with AT&T. Apparently, the company has some big plans to put it back in the spotlight though.
T-Mobile just sent out invites to an exclusive event on March 26th in New York, where it is expected to detail plans to change its wireless business.
Sprint has been racing to catch up with Verizon and AT&T with LTE coverage over the past couple of months, and while they don’t have nearly as much coverage as the two cellular giants, they’re starting to get LTE into some of the most important U.S. metropolitan markets now.
This morning Sprint activated their LTE coverage for San Francisco, however it’s not in full bloom just yet.
