While it may look pretty, Apple’s decision to build the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S almost entirely out of glass means that the handset isn’t really cut out for the dings and drops that our smartphones often have to endure. But the new iPhone could be a whole lot different. Built from liquidmetal, it could be one of the strongest smartphones money can buy.
Verizon continues its onslaught of 4G LTE rollouts across the U.S. and after expanding a slew of California markets last week, they’re back at it again. This next bombardment of 4G LTE is a huge one and reaches across various markets from New York to Colorado. Hopefully by April 19th, your city/town will have been added to the coverage list and you’ll be able to ditch that 3G in favor of the fast lane speeds of 4G LTE. Rollouts and expansions are expected to start Thursday and will cover the following markets:
Verizon continues to blanket the US with 4G LTE while the rest of the carriers desperately play catch up. We’re quick to complain about Verizon’s high prices but at least they’re putting that money to work. Today, Verizon announced it will be expanding its 4G LTE reach in ten California markets as well as Reno, Nevada within the coming weeks. 3G will soon be a thing of the past for those living in the following California cities:
There are a number of fields and professions in which mobile professionals share a pool of mobile devices. For companies with field agents, sales people, and marketing professionals, the need for each user to have a dedicated device may not be the most economical option and a better approach can be to simply configure a number of iPads with similar specs that users or teams can check out when they go on the road.
This shared iPad model can be a way to implement the iPad while reducing overall expense. One challenge, however, is that a business typically needs to provide mobile Internet access for individuals or small teams – something that can be a pricey proposition.
AT&T customers living in St. Louis have just had their LTE jetpacks filled and should be able to start flying through downloads and web pages — not to mention battery life. Along with St. Louis, Staten Island, NY was added to the AT&T LTE club with 4G LTE being expanded to the 5 boroughs. AT&T is certainly playing LTE catch up and while the rollout may seem like it’s running at a turtle’s pace, AT&T has already pushed out LTE to five of the twelve promised markets. Those remaining include:
AT&T’s twelve market 4G LTE rollout is scheduled to begin on April 8th. Of the twelve markets we reported on last month, only three appear to be receiving 4G LTE on the 8th. The following markets will be the first ones to receive the upgrade:
Announced at CES 2012 in January, Verizon’s Jetpack MiFi 4620L is finally launching on April 12th, Verizon announced today. The Jetpack MiFi 4620L packs 4G LTE and 3G and will be available for $50 with a two-year contract, after a $50 mail-in-rebate. If you don’t yet have a Verizon LTE enable iPad, this will be a nice way to get Verizon’s blazing fast 4G speeds on all of your devices.
Following yesterday’s report that revealed Australian regulators are preparing to sue Apple over its “misleading” advertising for the new iPad down under, the Cupertino company has begun offering refunds to those customers who feel they’ve been misled.
Apple’s next-gen smartphone is widely expected to feature 4G LTE networking like the newly-released iPad. Rumors peg the product release for later this year, but no real evidence for the device has surfaced quite yet, including carrier partnerships. AT&T and Verizon are expected to be onboard as usual, but what about Sprint? The iPhone 4S debuted on all three carriers last October, but Sprint is relatively new to its Apple partnership.
According to comments from Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer today, Sprint will be able to sell the 4G iPhone when it’s debuted by Apple.
Well, it seemed like only a matter of time before Apple’s promises of 4G data on its new iPad got the company into trouble. Australia’s competition watchdog is now threatening to sue the Cupertino company over its ‘misleading’ advertising for the new device, which can actually only connect to 4G LTE networks in the U.S.
The likelihood of Apple significantly expanding the size of the next iPhone to make way for a bigger display is pretty laughable, but LTE seems like a lock for the next iPhone. That’s why we’ve got a good feeling about a new report that says that while the next iPhone will be truly 4G in every sense of the term, the biggest change to the overall form factor of the device will be a new micro dock connector.
Now that Apple’s brought LTE to the iPad, it seems a certainty it’ll come to the next iPhone in October as well. Lurking deep in the iOS 5.1 plist files, though, may be proof that Apple’s already building support for LTE into their mobile operating system. Or it might just be more confusion over what 4G actually means: LTE or HSPA+.
Some recent reports have suggested that the new iPad can use more data than its predecessor while on 4G LTE networks. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since faster download speeds on the new iPad will certainly lead to more online activity. It’s like saying an engine won’t get you somewhere faster after its been turbocharged.
One of the biggest features in the new iPad is its ability to use 4G data speeds on AT&T, Verizon, and select carriers in other countries. In most cases one can get faster speeds on the new iPad than a home DSL connection offers. It’s truly phenomenal.
Since you can’t get unlimited data on the iPad here in the states unless you’re grandfathered in, it’s important to be careful about how you use your iPad when you’re away from a WiFi network. It can be easy to blow through 1GB of data in a month if you don’t watch your activity. Here are some helpful tips and tricks for saving 4G data on your new iPad.
Here at Cult of Mac, we’re interested in building a data set which we can use to determine which networks offer the fastest and most reliable 3G & LTE coverage to new iPad owners. We’ll then use this data to report on which new iPad carrier is the best in each country or territory where it’s available.
Will LTE networks be crushed by demand, or will the upgrade to true 4G be as dramatic as the likes of AT&T and Verizon would like us to be. Finally, will most people who buy an iPad Wi-Fi + 4G even live within an LTE coverage area?
If you’ve got a new iPad Wi-Fi + 4G, could you take a couple minutes out of playing with your new, shiny tablet and help us out?
Earlier this week, NetZero launched a new freemium mobile broadband service using Clearwire’s WiMax 4G network. Although NetZero is the first U.S. company to launch a “free” 4G service, it isn’t going to be the last. Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom has begun work on a similar service called FreedomPop that will launch this summer.
FreedomPop plans to offer more monthly data for free than NetZero’s paltry 200MB. It will also target iPhone owners as a major part of its user base.
NetZero made a name for itself in the late nineties by offering free ad-supported dialup Internet access before turning to a low-cost model (still available for dialup and and basic DSL). NetZero is returning to its free/freemium roots with today’s announcement of a contract-free 4G service. The service offers several tiers of data use with the first one being free beyond purchasing a 4G device.
While intriguing, the free service tier definitely illustrates the “you get what you pay for” addage. Some of the other tiers are attractive, but there are some downsides and, quite frankly, a Verizon 4G iPad may be a much smarter investment in the long run.
When your pickup your new iPad today, you need to be sure you choose the right carrier if you’re purchasing a 4G model. That’s because AT&T and Verizon use different cellular bands for their 4G networks, so an AT&T iPad won’t connect to Verizon’s LTE network, and vice-versa.
They will share 3G connections, however. Buy a Verizon iPad and stick an AT&T micro SIM in it and you’ll have no problem connecting to AT&T’s 3G network.
When Apple introduced FaceTime on the iPhone 4 nearly two years ago, many users were disappointed to find out that they could only place video calls while connected to Wi-Fi. That was a disappointing fact, but not entirely surprising given the bandwidth that it takes to pull off a high quality video call and Apple’s penchant for making the user experience perfect at all costs.
Guaranteeing a solid experience might have made a good deal of sense when it comes to the iPhone 4, iPad 2, and iPhone 4S – all of them are 3G devices and 3G data performance often falls short of terrestrial broadband and Wi-Fi. But the Wi-Fi only restriction remains in place on the new iPad models with LTE even though LTE performance can approach that of many home broadband options – begging the question: Why is Apple limiting FaceTime on its new LTE devices?
As with many Apple product launches, today’s release of the new iPad is mostly a consumer event. But that doesn’t mean that the launch won’t have an impact on businesses. In fact, on Monday morning a number of new iPads may be walking into workplaces around the world. And users may be lobbying their employers to purchase the new iPad – if they haven’t stared doing so already.
So, what questions should businesses or IT professionals be asking about the new iPad? More importantly, what are the answers to those questions?
The new iPad uses blazing fast LTE 4G networking to let you stream YouTube faster than you can say “Tim Cook’s your uncle,” but you still can’t use the tablet to make FaceTime calls over 4G or 3G. Calls fail to connect when the third-gen iPad isn’t connected to a WiFi network, just like they do on the iPhone.
iPhone users have been hammering for FaceTime over 3G since the video calling technology was introduced by Steve Jobs and Jony Ive back in 2010, but Apple has yet to flip the switch. Due to the data-heavy nature of video calls, the carriers are likely to blame.
There’s no denying the fact that Verizon leads the charge in 4G LTE expansion. In fact, come this time tomorrow, over 200 markets will be blanketed in the lightning fast speeds of Verizon LTE. To put things in perspective, AT&T, who recently announced twelve new markets, covers a total of 28 markets. With the majority of devices now being manufactured to take advantage of LTE (including the new iPad) this huge gap in market coverage could very well push a large number of users over to Big Red’s network.
The new iPad doesn’t go on sale until this Friday, March 16, but some lucky so and sos already have their hands on the device. This video, which is believed to be its first unboxing, was published by Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn.
AT&T has announced a dozen new markets set to receive 4G LTE in the coming months. While they didn’t give any specific rollout dates, the following cities are next on the list for an upgrade and should see LTE soon:
Apple’s new iPad is the first of its iOS devices to offer super speedy 4G LTE connectivity, but it’s currently only available on AT&T and Verizon in the United States. According to Best Buy’s internal database, however, it could soon be available on Sprint, too.
Several reports that surfaced during the days preceding Apple’s latest iPad event suggested that while the U.S. would get LTE connectivity in the new device, it would be stripped out for those in Europe, where LTE networks are yet to launch.
To everyone’s surprise, Apple left the LTE chip in for us Europeans. But the problem is it won’t support European LTE networks.
