Saturday, May 7, 2011

MobileCrunch

MobileCrunch

Link to MobileCrunch

T-Mobile Lost Nearly Half A Million Subscribers Last Quarter

Posted: 06 May 2011 03:16 PM PDT

Trouble looms on the horizon for T-Mobile as carrier hemorrhages subscribers. The first three months of 2011 saw 471,000 contract customers walk out the door, and even including off-contract customers, they’re still a hundred thousand in the red. Meanwhile the competition is seeing healthy boosts: AT&T is looking at a net positive of two million subscribers, and the newly available iPhone is giving Verizon’s financials a boost as well. Poor T-Mo isn’t doing so hot.

What does this mean for the proposed buyout by AT&T? Arguably it works in AT&T’s favor, as they could be seen as doing the struggling carrier a favor by picking it up and spreading the risk out. That’s for regulators to decide, however, and who knows what may happen in the next year?

My question is, do they have enough to keep buying the T-Mobile girl new dresses? I sincerely hope so.

Rdio To Launch Mobile API For Third-Party Developers This Weekend

Posted: 06 May 2011 11:38 AM PDT

Like Rdio, but think they could be doing a better job with their mobile app? Now you can prove it. Want to make a music app that plays nothing Eddie Murphy’s “Boogie In Your Butt” on repeat? Sure, why not!

On Monday, Rdio will be announcing the launch of their Mobile API, allowing iOS and Android developers to tap into Rdio’s rather massive music catalog within their own apps. The API will handle all of the heavy lifting for things like search and playback, with tricks like the Top Charts and New Releases lists thrown in for good measure. Look for the full API documentation to go live sometime this weekend right over here.

Hallelujah! The AT&T Infuse 4G Can Install Non-Market Apps!

Posted: 06 May 2011 10:55 AM PDT

Hey, whatdy’a know: Mr. FedEx-Guy (or “Tom”, as we’ve come to know him) just dropped by with a shiny new Samsung Infuse 4G in tow. As we do with any Android-powered AT&T device, the very first thing we did was check to see if AT&T screwed up again. Surprise! They’ve finally done Android right!

You see, most Android phones have this fancy “Unknown Sources” toggle. Once checked, you can install Android Applications from just about anywhere — otherwise, your phone won’t install anything that doesn’t come from the Android Market. Without that little checkbox checked, you’re unable to install things like beta applications, anything that Google doesn’t want on the Android Market, or even Amazon’s growingly popular alternative Android store.

The problem: beginning with their very first Android phone, AT&T completely blocked this option. We railed them for it. Their next one? Same thing — so we railed them again. We brought it up every time we met with them, and nagged about it in posts every chance we could.

Be it because of our nagging (and the collective nagging of Internet denizens everywhere) or because someone at AT&T simply realized it was a stupid idea (they chalked it up to being worried about “bad apps” taking down the network), the policy has been reversed. Beginning with the Samsung Infuse 4G, AT&T Android devices can install third party apps from non-Android Market sources.

Now, lets just hope all the AT&T Android devices already floating around out there are updated accordingly.

US Cellular To Launch 4G LTE Network By The Holidays

Posted: 06 May 2011 09:57 AM PDT

Man, it’s been a good week for U.S. Cellular customers. First you guys go and nab the LG enV Pro (albeit renamed as the “LG Genesis”) out from under Verizon’s nose, and now it looks like you’re getting an LTE network to call your own. You’re getting it this year, even!

U.S. Cellular outlined their LTE plans earlier today, announcing that the first LTE regions should light up sometime around the holiday season. It’ll be in “select cities” at first (the ones named thus far are Milwaukee, Madison and Racine, Wis.; Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Davenport, Iowa; Portland and Bangor, Maine; and Greenville, N.C.), and should cover around 25% of U.S. Cellular’s overall network by the end of the year.

Of course, in order to actually utilize that LTE network you’ll need an LTE-friendly device — of which, U.S. Cellular currently has none. Fortunately, they say they’ve got a “portfolio” of 4G devices (none of which they’ll name right now, of course) lined up for around the launch.

PSA: The Dev Team’s redsn0w Untethered Jailbreak Still Works With iOS 4.3.3

Posted: 06 May 2011 08:40 AM PDT

If you’re sittin’ there in iTunes with your finger hovering over the “Update” button, anxiously awaiting word of an untethered jailbreak for the just-released iOS 4.3.3: it’s go time.

In fact, it was go time almost immediately after the update went out; turns out, the exploit that the iPhone Dev Team has been using for the last two builds of iOS is still wide open here, so they just had to tweak some checksums to give the redsn0w jailbreaking tool the go ahead to patch iOS 4.3.3 files. You’ll need to download the latest copy, but it should all be smooth sailing past that.
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