I've had AT&T's U-verse service since October 2009, the day we moved into our house. At it's heart, it's really a fantastic service offering... IPTV, whole home DVR, advanced DSL, all wrapped up into a nice package. But for the last 6 months I've been struggling with a lot of different issues ranging from broken DVRs, freezing TV signal to Internet connections that go away at random. While the issues have not been persistent enough to track down an exact cause, they've been frustrating. The other day, after watching Face Off on HBO (for the first time, I know) and getting right to the climax of the movie, the whole TV signal froze and wouldn't come back. It was 1AM and my wife was already sleeping, so I muted by frustration and went to be deciding to look into alternatives the next day. Monday, I called up the two traditional cable providers in the area looking for pricing. Then, I hit Twitter with my plan:

Read the rest of this post »

Another one of predictions for the next iPhone that seems to be coming true, was confirmed by Apple COO Tim Cook yesterday during their quarterly report conference call. The next generation iPhone will not have support for LTE wireless data technology. From Forbes:

“The first generation of LTE chip-sets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make.”

Adding LTE into the next generation iPhone would mean adding more complexity by needing both a 3G and a 4G chip, that would only work on one provider, and require more power. Currently only one LTE mobile phone is on the market right now, the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon, which has been the only US carrier so far to roll out any LTE service. In addition to lack of real LTE coverage in most of the country, even on Verizon's network, the Thunderbold has been plagued with horrendous battery life. The next iPhone will probably feature HSPA+, as the Qualcomm chip that is making its way into it, supports it already. It just needs to be enabled in the firmware.

During a conference call with investors and the press to discuss quarterly results, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo let loose what most of us already assumed... that the next version of the Apple iPhone will be a 'world phone' meaning one device that is capable of running on both GSM and CDMA networks. From Barron's:

... when a new device from Apple is launched, whenever that may be, and that we will be, on the first time, on equal footing with our competitors on a new phone hitting the market, which will also be a global device.

GSM is the network technology used by AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States and every other mobile provider on the planet that has the iPhone for sale. CDMA is used by Verizon and Sprint in the United States, Bell and Telus in Canada, and a handful of other major providers around the world. Currently, the iPhone 4 is sold in two different flavors, the GSM version and the Verizon specific version. Each version has different radios and internal layouts, and currently run different versions of iOS. A unified phone would allow Apple to engineer one device for every provider on the planet, allowing them to sell the iPhone in more markets on more providers. A unified GSM/CDMA phone was one of my five predictions for the next iPhone. image via iFixit, iPhone 4 teardown

Nexus One owners rejoice. Google has finally released Android Gingerbread (2.3.3) for your mass consumption. Officially, you can get the update over the air here in the next week or so, but if you're impatient (as most of you are) you can download the update directly from Google's server and manually update. While the manual update process uses the same signed code as the over the air, it requires a little more work and Google hasn't stuck their head out to tell you to do it this way, officially. While Nexus One owners will be the most excited, there is also an update for Nexus S owners, which fixes some bugs and adds some new features to the NFC chipset. With this release, both Nexus phones from Google are now the two most up to date devices running officially released and supported versions of Google Android.

• Download from Google for Nexus One
• Download from Google for Nexus S

Excellent step by step instructions on how to update the device manually can be found over at Android Central for the Nexus S, and the Nexus One. via xda-developers

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqFpq9WXbJo Just sit back and enjoy this one.

Late winter, early spring... it's that time of year where the entire technology world begins to wonder about what Apple has planned for the next version of the iPhone, which, come late June will be the device that sets the trend for mobile technology into the next year. Like it or hate it, the iPhone is the standard that all Android, WebOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phones must either match or surpass to be taken seriously. So what will this phone feature? It's impossible to tell until Steve Jobs takes the stage to tell us, and even then there will still be many unanswered questions until it gets into the hands of the consumer. Even though the release of the next generation iPhone happens like clock work, I'm still constantly asked questions like "when will the next iPhone be out" or "should I wait to buy it?" -- This article serves to help anwser those questions right now. By the way, if you thought I mistaken when I said Steve Jobs will take the stage, let me clarify:

Read the rest of this post »

I'll let the chart speak for itself. via Mobclix

Mobile World Congress announced the winners of the various yearly awards. Everything from phones, to apps, to networks, and a bunch of other things no one except the real mobile geeks cares about. Among the most interesting awards:

• Best Mobile App - Angry Birds
• Best Mobile Device - Apple iPhone 4
• Device Manufacture of the Year - HTC

What is a little bit telling about the ecosystems of each of the major smartphone platforms, is that Apple was the only platform where a third party developer won "App of the Year" in that category:

• iOS - Angry Birds (Rovio)
• Android - Google Maps
• Blackberry - BlackBerry Messenger (RIM)

While Google Maps on Android is quite possibly the best mapping program on any mobile platform, it's sad that that was the best Android could come up. with As far as BlackBerry goes, if the built in messenger is the most interesting thing about it... it's not even worth insulting. A complete list of awards is available at the GSMA website.

It's been somewhat disgusting to watch tech blogs and Twitter today discuss Steve Jobs' health based off rumors and unconfirmed photographs. Let the guy get better and give him some privacy. I'm not going to lend more space to this because aside from what the shareholders and consumers need to know about the absence in his role as CEO of Apple, what happens in his personal health is his business. Why give credence to grocery store check out stand trash? Can we all agree to leave the rumors to the release of the products, and the facts to the health of a human being?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiz_2c_QpOQ Yesterday Apple dropped a bombshell on the tech world when it announced it was going to be strong arming publishers and subscription based content providers by demanding 30% off the top of any transaction done in iOS. Google must have been listening to the backlash, and today announced their own payment platform for publishers called Google One Pass. However, until Apple, it will only take 10% off by handling the transaction and promises that the platform will be "open and flexible" ... something Apple isn't exactly known for. Also, unlike Apple, this payment system will not only work in regular apps, but on mobile or web based transactions. However if Apple's recent developer terms are not changed,  don't expect to see this platform on anything except Android. The platform is based on the already mature Google Checkout system.