The past few months have been quite crazy for T-Mobile. The company has simply been unable to keep up with its rivals. The fact that it does not offer iPhones yet has not been positive for the company’s fortunes. T-Mobile is soldiering on and is expected to launch a LTE network in 2012. That is part of the company’s new $1.4b network modernization investment plan for the next couple of years.

In 2012 and 2013, T-Mobile USA will invest to get the business back to growth, including an incremental $1.4 billion investment in its network modernization initiative, which will total a $4 billion investment over time

said Philipp Humm, CEO and President, T-Mobile USA. T-Mobile has been struggling a lot lately. It has experienced net customer losses of 526,000 in the 4th quarter of 2012. Other figures are not that pretty either. The company is blaming that partially on the fact that it does not have the iPhone 4S: Read the rest of this entry »

Samsung and Apple have been going back and forth in the smartphone business for quite some time now. When Apple decided to target Samsung‘s products across the globe, it certainly anticipated Samsung to retaliate.With iPhone 5 expected to be a huge hit, it is not surprising to see Samsung going after it. The company plans to stop iPhone 5 in its tracks in Korea by getting the latest iPhone blocked. A senior executive at Samsung told Korea Times that iPhone 5 will indeed have trouble in South Korea:

Just after the arrival of the iPhone 5 here, Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung’s wireless technology related patents…. For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights. Read the rest of this entry »

Before Verizon started offering iPhone, AT&T customers really did not know what they were missing. It is true that Verizon iPhone is not without its flaws. It does not run on a 4G network and has some limitations in comparison to AT&T iPhone. At the same time, it does seem Verizon iPhones offer less dropped calls. For years, many blamed “data greedy” iPhone owners for AT&T’s network issues. Apparently, Verizon has less issues handling the load iPhone puts on its network.

A recent survey by ChangeWave clearly demonstrates that AT&T is a king among wireless providers. It just happens to be king in the wrong category. Verizon seems to have the lowest dropped calls whereas AT&T has the highest. Both networks do drop calls. When it comes to Verizon iPhone, only 1.4% of those surveyed saw their calls dropped. AT&T’s rate was much higher at 4.8%.

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The recent news that Apple may be going after Kindle and other e-book reader apps available for iOS devices to force the companies behind them to direct their sales through its in-app purchasing system has generated a lot of controversy in the blogosphere. Many bloggers have argued that Apple seems to have changed its app content policy just recently. As Daring Fireball put it, Apple has been vague enough with its rules to have the ability to enforce such a move when it needed to:

Apple’s official stance seems to be that the rules haven’t changed, but they weren’t enforcing them until now. Sony’s iOS app may well act exactly like Amazon’s Kindle app, but apparently that behavior is no longer permitted… Amazon could switch to mobile web app clients for Kindle-reading on iOS, but I don’t think they could do so without taking a hit in terms of user experience. And users simply expect that apps come from the App Store. My guess is that Amazon will bite the bullet and adopt Apple’s in-app purchasing APIs.

Of course, not all changes in policies affect consumers negatively. According to a leaked document, Apple may be softening its stance when it comes to its water damage policy for iPod (image via Mac Generation). Read the rest of this entry »

It seems things are going to get nasty between Apple and some app developers. According to multiple sources, Apple has recently rejected Sony’s e-reader application which would have allowed idevice owners to purchase e-books from Sony E-book store. In a major shift in its policy towards third party applications, Apple is aiming to limit app developers from selling content or let customers access their content they have bought from outside the App Store.

As The New York Times puts it, this new approach could affect many popular applications, including the Kindle for iOS:

Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division. The move could affect companies like Amazon.com and others that sell e-book readers that compete with Apple’s iPad tablet and offer free mobile apps so customers can read their e-book purchases on other devices. An iPad owner, for instance, has not needed to own a Kindle to read Kindle books bought from Amazon. Read the rest of this entry »