iPhone 6 and 6 Plus preorders have already started selling out around the world and the shipping dates are slipping.
Spokes people for Apple say that they’re seeing an unprecedented demand for the new phones already, and carriers like AT&T are getting crushed by the unfathomable number of customers looking for an upgrade.
Apple’s new iPhones went up for pre-order this morning, and for those who stayed up late to get their order in, it turned out to be a very long night. The vast majority had to wait until past 12:30 a.m. before the had any joy loading the Apple Online Store, and when it finally went live, many iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus options were “currently unavailable.”
Verizon Wireless announced today that it is preparing to roll out Voice over LTE (VoLTE) support to its millions of subscribers over the next few weeks, just ahead of Apple’s planned release of iOS 8 which is rumored to bring VoLTE support to the iPhone for the first time.
The addition of VoLTE will allow Verizon customers to send and receive voice calls over the faster LTE network, rather than using old technologies like 3G, resulting in high-definition voice calls as well as video.
Apple is about to make the iPhone 5s and 5c obsolete, but if you’re in the market for a brand new iPhone and need an iPad to go with it, then AT&T is ready to lure you in with a $200 discount on any iPad you want, as long as it has 4G.
To score the deal you must be willing to venture into an AT&T retail store to buy your iPhone 5s or 5c, but like any carrier deal, there are a few strings attached.
Each second wasted during a 911 call could be the difference between life and death, making precise location data crucial to the whole lifesaving process, but according to the top U.S. cellphone carriers, getting that exact location to responders is just a little too expensive on 911 calls from a smartphone.
AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are fighting back on an FCC proposal that aims to save lives by making it easier to locate 911 callers. The government proposal calls on carriers to upgrade their networks so that tracking callers indoor is easier, but AT&T says the project would be a waste of scarce resources.
When the original iPhone launched in 2007, the only thing worse than its abysmal camera was the cellular data provided by AT&T’s sluggish, outage-prone network.
Even Steve Jobs thought AT&T’s data speeds sucked, and according to Re/Code’s Walt Mossberg, Jobs wanted to circumvent the need for cellular data altogether by creating an open WiFi consortium.
With another week full of news in the past, your host Joshua Smith is here to give you a wrap-up on some of the latest and biggest features. Facebook’s alleged Snapchat competitor, Microsoft’s latest attempt at an ‘iPad killer’ and iCloud’s hacking are among just some of the featured stories in today’s rundown.
Take a look at the video and be sure to return next week for another. Subscribe to CultOfMacTV on youtube.com to catch new episodes of the roundup and other great video reviews, how-to’s and more.
AT&T has confirmed that it is going to acquire satellite television operator DirecTV for $48.5 billion.
With a customer base of more than 35 million subscribers (as of December 2012), DirecTV is the second-largest pay TV provider in the United States. AT&T notes that the move will create “a unique new competitor with unprecedented capabilities in mobility, video, and broadband services.”
There are few companies you can trust with your private data ever since the revelations leaked by Edward Snowden shook the tech world last year, but according to the latest report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, our iPhone-making friends in Cupertino have gone from being a privacy chump to the people’s champ in just a year.
Like its predecessor, the new prototype Linkase Pro LTE iPhone case supposedly boosts your iPhone’s ability to connect to the Internet. But where the previous version was claimed to strengthen the iPhone’s wifi radio, this new LTE version is supposed to boost, you guessed it, your iPhone’s LTE data radio. Absolute Technology, the company behind the case, also claims it will add 20 percent to your battery life due to less power wasted while trying to send and receive data.
When he set out to create the iPhone, Steve Jobs deliberately picked engineers with no mobile phone industry experience because he didn’t want Apple’s smartphone to be “tainted” by old ideas about what could and could not be achieved, says a former software engineer who worked on the project.
“We had the opportunity to hire people from Palm, from Nokia, to help us build this thing. [But] Steve said, ‘No, no, we don’t need to do that,'” Andy Grignon told me during a recent onstage interview at the DENT conference on innovation in Sun Valley, Idaho.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved AT&T’s $1.3 billion purchase of Leap Wireless, as per a recent report.
As part of the deal — which works out at $15 per share — AT&T has confirmed that the Leap-owned, pre-paid carrier Cricket will offer iPhone 5 family devices.
In Germany, bank cards come with NFC chips that let you make small payments just by tapping your wallet onto the POS machine. You pre-load the chip with money from your bank account (only small amounts are allowed, because if you lose the card you lose the money) and spend it as cash.
So I finally see the point of NFC in a phone. And now I can have NFC in my iPhone, thanks to Incipio’s Cashwrap case.
When AT&T announced it’s new Sponsored Data program on Monday, they raised the grim spectre of Net Neutraility by suggesting a plan that would let advertisers pay for data. What people worried about was that AT&T’s new plan would slow data connections to non-partner sites, a big no-no according to the FCC.
So what does the FCC think of all this? Asked about AT&T’s new plans at CES, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was surprisingly chill about the whole thing: let’s just wait and see before freaking out, shall we?
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.
Guzzling up websites on your iPhone is now quicker than ever thanks to 4G LTE. It also means that your monthly data allotment can disappear in a poof if you go on a YouTube binge, but at CES this morning AT&T announced it has a plan to help customers consume even more data by allowing advertisers to foot the bill on their content.
The New Year is finally upon us, and while your resolutions to eat less and run more are admirable, they’re certainly not a lot of fun. So to kick off the year we’ve teamed up with Aio Wireless to hook up one lucky reader with a brand new blue cyan iPhone 5c.
Entering the contest is certainly easier than your newfound commitment to stop munching your fingernails and to make the prize even better, Aio is tossing in a free month of unlimited talk, text, and data on its contract-free 4G LTE network.
Here’s how to win the iPhone 5c:
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.
Looking to swap your T-Mobile plan for an AT&T one? Maybe $450 per line will convince you. Starting today, that’s how much AT&T is offering T-Mobile customers to make the switch when they trade in an eligible smartphone.
Smartphones are deceptively affordable. If you buy an iPhone 5s unlocked, it will cost you $649 upfront for a 16GB model, yet if you bundle that same phone with an AT&T contract, it will cost you just $199 upfront. The rest of the balance is subsidized by your carrier upfront, and paid off over the next 24 months in monthly installments.
It’s a decent system that results in massive profits for carriers, but at the cost of an upfront payment to Apple. Go figure, though, AT&T would rather just rake in massive profits without that upfront payment… which is why CEO Randall Stephenson is now saying the are “unsustainable.”
Yesterday, AT&T announced new Mobile Share Value plans that were pitched as making subscriber’s monthly rates cheaper if you already own a smartphone.
It seemed like a pretty honest move. Most carriers bill you a set monthly that includes a fee designed to pay off your smartphone’s full prive over a two year period, which is common knowledge. What isn’t common knowledge is that on most carriers, even if you bring your own smartphone to your contract or fully pay off your device, the carrier will continue to bill you for that smartphone subsidy in perpetuity. It’s super sleazy, so AT&T’s move seemed like a refreshing dose of honesty.
That’s not how T-Mobile sees it, though.
AT&T’s new Mobile Share Value Plans are now official, and they’re not only going to save you cash on your data, but they’re going to make your monthly rates even cheaper if you already own a cellphone and you’re happy to hold onto it.
The plans are designed to help AT&T be more competitive against new offerings from T-Mobile and Verizon, and they’ll be available starting this Sunday.
Apple has today begun selling the iPhone 5s unlocked and SIM-free to customers in the United States. Customers can stick in any GSM SIM card (so that’s one from AT&T or T-Mobile) when they receive the device and begin using it immediately with their existing plan — but they’ll have to wait 1-2 weeks for it to ship.
Tim Cook admitted that the iPad mini with Retina display will be in short supply for the next few weeks, but while Wifi-only units seem to be in-stock at Apple Stores across the country, it looks like Apple is having a hard time keeping a steady supply of 3G/4G units rolling out to developers.
Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are all reporting shortages of iPad mini with Retina display stock with most orders being backed up for weeks, according to a report from CNET.
Smartphone crime is a huge problem. In fact, New York City’s crime rate went up for the first time in twenty years because people are mugged violently so often for their iPhones.
In response to iPhone crime, Apple has made some important improvements to iOS, including requiring users to enter their iCloud password to turn ‘Find my iPhone’ off, and the new ‘Activation Lock’ feature in iOS 7which allows users to disable stolen or lost iPhones remotely.
Apple’s got the right solution, but you know who hates it? The carriers. In fact, as other manufacturers have tried to insert similar cellphone kill switches in their smartphones to Apple’s, the carriers are standing defiant against them. Why? Because they are afraid that it will affect their bottom lines.
