gilraen wrote:Outside of a limited-scope service like Project Fi, what does your phone have to do with your plan?
T-Mobile has 2 lines for $100, all unlimited. If you use less than 2GB in a month, they give you a $10 credit per line (so you can knock it down to $80 if you watch your data). You can use them with any GSM-compatible phone, including iPhone.
Phone doesn't really have anything to do with plan.
I'm just looking to get a new phone and was considering an iPhone.
I forgot I get 22% off with AT&T employee discount pricing.
Check with your hospital HR or ask when you go to one of the carriers. My wife gets a 22% discount on data through work. My discount through the college is 15%. Saves us about 20 per month. We got the same discount with ATT, US Cellular, sprint, and TMobile. They all applied it differently (some to the whole bill, some to data, some to everything but data).
Pretty much any carrier works with iPHone now. They're still expensive to buy new. I bought mine through swappa.com (along with my apple watch).
That sound of the spoon scraping over the can ribbing as you corral the last ravioli or two is the signal that a great treat is coming. It's the washboard solo in God's own
bluegrass band of comfort food. - LawBeefaroni
EvilHomer3k wrote:Check with your hospital HR or ask when you go to one of the carriers. My wife gets a 22% discount on data through work. My discount through the college is 15%. Saves us about 20 per month. We got the same discount with ATT, US Cellular, sprint, and TMobile. They all applied it differently (some to the whole bill, some to data, some to everything but data).
Pretty much any carrier works with iPHone now. They're still expensive to buy new. I bought mine through swappa.com (along with my apple watch).
I've done swappa a couple times. More than likely will buy from there.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has a message for Apple CEO Tim Cook: "Flip the switch" and turn on FM radios embedded in iPhones.
In the wake of three major hurricanes that have wiped out communications for millions of people over the past month, Pai issued a statement Thursday urging Apple, one of the largest makers of cellphones in the US, to "reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria." FM radios that are already included in every phone could be used to access "life-saving information" during disasters, he said.
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In recent years, phone manufacturers have begun to turn on the feature. Today, several makers like Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG have FM capability working, including on some of their most popular devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Moto G5 Plus. But Apple continues to hold out.
"Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so," Pai said.
Apparently the new Chinese phones are blowing our wimpy American phones out of the water, if you compare specs alone.
There was a sale earlier about the Le eco Pro 3 (specs: aluminum case, Gorilla glass 5.5 FHD, 4 GB ram, Snapdragon 821 quad core, 16MP back 8MP front cam, 4070 mAh battery, quickcharge 3, fingerprint sensor, NFC, CDLA audio through USB-C port, Dolby Atmos certified speakers) GSM unlocked phone for... $200.
My game FAQs | Playing: She Will Punish Them, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, The Outer Worlds
Kasey Chang wrote:Apparently the new Chinese phones are blowing our wimpy American phones out of the water, if you compare specs alone.
There was a sale earlier about the Le eco Pro 3 (specs: aluminum case, Gorilla glass 5.5 FHD, 4 GB ram, Snapdragon 821 quad core, 16MP back 8MP front cam, 4070 mAh battery, quickcharge 3, fingerprint sensor, NFC, CDLA audio through USB-C port, Dolby Atmos certified speakers) GSM unlocked phone for... $200.
I'm pretty sure the only American phones are from apple.
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Kasey Chang wrote:Apparently the new Chinese phones are blowing our wimpy American phones out of the water, if you compare specs alone.
There was a sale earlier about the Le eco Pro 3 (specs: aluminum case, Gorilla glass 5.5 FHD, 4 GB ram, Snapdragon 821 quad core, 16MP back 8MP front cam, 4070 mAh battery, quickcharge 3, fingerprint sensor, NFC, CDLA audio through USB-C port, Dolby Atmos certified speakers) GSM unlocked phone for... $200.
I'm pretty sure the only American phones are from apple.
In what way is an iPhone American? Its assembled by Foxconn and the backlight makers and screens are all made in Asia as well.
I've always wondered why this android brick in my pocket was called a "smart" phone. I've been messing around with all the virtual personal assistants like Google Home, Alexa, Robin, Cortana, and Lyra. I've found that Lyra actually does make my phone "smart" without trying to sell me anything or jump thru their exact hoops. Now I can get my phone to do almost anything I want it to do just by talking to it. No more endless button crunching and pecking out numbers and letters on that little image of a keyboard. Place calls, send texts, set alarms, reminders, notes, most of the things I use it for are covered. Even some I've never used the phone for, like emails, are easy to do also. Phones should come with Lyra installed IMO.
After I got Robin talking with that Indian accent sounding just like Priya from TBBT I had to remove her for fear of harassment allegations. She was pretty dumb compared to Lyra anyway, but there was that accent.
When you're sexually harassing your digital assistant, something is either profoundly wrong or hilarious.
"Alexa, what is a [insert strange sexual act here]?"
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
European antitrust officials hammered Qualcomm with a $1.2 billion fine on Wednesday, saying the American chip maker, whose technology underpins much of the world’s mobile phone industry, had abused its dominant market position to squeeze out competitors.
The penalty of 997 million euros follows a two-year investigation and is the latest move by regional regulators against a United States tech giant. Officials in Brussels say that Qualcomm offered financial incentives to Apple so that it would buy equipment solely from the chip maker. Qualcomm immediately said it would appeal the ruling, which would probably extend the case, originally announced in the summer of 2015, for years to come.
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The ruling also serves to compound Qualcomm’s troubles. The company has been locked in a legal battle with Apple over pricing issues, and it is trying to fend off a hostile takeover by a rival chip maker.
In the latest decision, European regulators found that Qualcomm, the world’s largest maker of smartphone chips, abused its market dominance by preventing rivals from competing in the smartphone chip market thanks to an agreement in which it paid Apple to exclusively use its chips in iPhones and iPads between 2011 and 2016.
“Qualcomm illegally shut out rivals from the market” for a particular kind of microchip, Ms. Vestager said in a news release, “thereby cementing its market dominance.”
“Qualcomm paid billions of U.S. dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not buy from rivals,” she added. “These payments were not just reductions in price — they were made on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads.”
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She said that internal documents reviewed as part of the inquiry showed that Apple had seriously considered using chips made by a rival manufacturer, Intel, during the period of its agreement with Qualcomm, but did not do so until the deal with Qualcomm had concluded.
If Apple had introduced a smartphone using products from a different chip maker, she said, Apple not only would have lost future payments from Qualcomm, but also would have been forced to pay back some of the money it had already received.
European regulators on Wednesday fined Google a record $5 billion for the way it bundles apps on Android, the most widely adopted mobile operating system in the world.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition chief, ordered the tech giant to cease pushing its own search and web-browsing tools on smartphones and tablets running its Android mobile operating system. She faulted Google for using Android as a means to solidify its strong foothold in search, while making it harder for rivals to offer competing apps and services.
Google must “bring its illegal conduct to an end” within 90 days, Vestager said, or face additional fines from the E.U. Ultimately, though, it is up to Google to decide how to restructure its relationships with device-makers and submit that to European regulators for approval. That raises questions about how many of Google’s more than 2 billion Android users will be affected by the changes.
Google long has given device makers such as Huawei, LG and Samsung an ultimatum: They must set Google’s search engine as the default on Android smartphones and tablets and pre-install Google’s Chrome web browser, or they risk losing access Google’s app store, called Google Play. Without that portal, owners of Android devices can’t easily download games and other tools from third-party developers.
From Google’s perspective, bundling those apps offers the tech giant a way to derive data from smartphone users while serving them lucrative ads. The company also has maintained that it never stopped Android users from downloading rival services if they preferred.
But Vestager maintained that Google’s activity instead has turned Android into a “vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine,” she said in a statement. “These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits. They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.”
In response, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Wednesday that the company would appeal the E.U.’s decision.
Legendary PDA pioneer Palm is back as a zombie brand, and it's launching a tiny smartphone.
If you recall, Palm, creator of the Palm Pilot and WebOS, bombed out of the smartphone market and was purchased by HP. Palm died at HP after a short run of tablets and smartphones, and eventually Chinese smartphone company TCL snatched up the rights to the Palm brand in 2014, and things have been quiet since then. You might know TCL from running that other smartphone zombie brand, Blackberry.
Today, TCL's Palm presents itself as actual new company with new co-founders, a new logo, and an office in San Francisco. The company is launching the, uh, "Palm" phone (Do we call it the Palm Palm?) and it's taking the "Palm" name literally, with a device small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The Palm Palm has a practically microscopic 3.3-inch display, and it measures just 96.6mm tall by 50.6mm wide, which is close to the size of a credit card. Palm is pitching the Palm as a "companion" device to your main smartphone, allowing you to leave your big phone behind and bring the Palm in a wallet, on a lanyard, or in any tiny pocket.
This tiny phone also comes with a really tiny spec sheet. You're getting a 3.3-inch 1280×720 display with a respectable 445ppi. This is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 SoC (that's eight Cortex A53 cores, usually at 1.4GHz) 3GB of RAM, and an 800mAh battery. There's 32GB of storage, a 12MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, IP68 dust and water resistance, USB-C, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and LTE.
Uh oh, maybe 5G isn't the miracle we've been promised:
AT&T's Netgear Nighthawk 5G hotspot, the first consumer mobile 5G device, has been on the market for about a week now, but it's hard to find any evidence that anyone's using it. One post on Reddit shows a Speedtest result of 194.88Mbps down - impressive, until you see that the Redditor got 187.44Mbps on AT&T's 4G network in the same location.
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Unfortunately for everyone, AT&T still plans to muddy the waters by putting a fake "5G" indicator onto its 4G phones. As Fierce Wireless reported, AT&T will soon start changing the "4G LTE" indicator to "5G E" in situations where AT&T offers gigabit LTE. While people who read tech blogs won't be fooled, millions of less technical consumers will almost certainly think their phones just got a magic upgrade to 5G without improved performance.
Welcome to AT&T's 5G plan, where perception and marketing is all that matters. AT&T is just going to start calling 4G LTE "5G E." The company started rolling out a software update to several Android phones over the weekend, and what was called "4G" yesterday is now called "5G" today. Through the power of marketing, AT&T now has "5G" in over 400 markets!
AT&T's side of the story is that "5G E"—the "E" is for "Evolution"—is now going to be applied to areas of its network that have LTE-Advanced technologies like carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO, 256 QAM. Real 5G—that is, mmWave technology—will get the branding "5G+," and so far, AT&T doesn't have any hardware that supports mmWave.
Calling these LTE technologies "5G" is ridiculous and seems designed only to mislead consumers into thinking AT&T's network is somehow better than the competition's. It's not.
Qualcomm and Apple today announced an agreement to dismiss all litigation between the two companies worldwide. The settlement includes a payment from Apple to Qualcomm. The companies also have reached a six-year license agreement, effective as of April 1, 2019, including a two-year option to extend, and a multiyear chipset supply agreement.
A federal judge has ruled that Qualcomm engaged in anticompetitive behavior and ordered the chipmaker to renegotiate its licensing deals with device makers. Qualcomm vowed to appeal the ruling.
The big picture: Qualcomm defends its "no license, no chips" business model — under which it only sells processors to companies that also take a license to its patents. But critics say the policy is unfair and that the company doesn't offer its standards-essential technology on a fair and reasonable basis.
Qualcomm's practices have "strangled competition," Judge Lucy Koh wrote in a 233-page ruling that was posted late Tuesday.
Why it matters: Qualcomm gets a large chunk of its revenue — and an even greater share of its profits — from licensing its broad patent portfolio of wireless technology. Forcing it to renegotiate deals could put a significant dent in that business.
Shares of Qualcomm fell more than 10% in the wake of the decision.
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What's next: Qualcomm said it will seek a stay of the order from Judge Lucy Koh as well as an expedited appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
“We strongly disagree with the judge’s conclusions, her interpretation of the facts and her application of the law,” general counsel Don Rosenberg said in a statement.
AT&T has cancelled early orders for the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
Tom’s Guide first reported the cancellation, noting that AT&T said the Galaxy Fold would be available again to order as soon as Samsung announces a new launch date. AT&T is also offer $100 in credit to those whose orders it has cancelled.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold was originally scheduled to launch on April 26. However, early reviews indicated that there were issues with the phone, which Samsung initially said was the fault of reviewers. The company eventually decided to postpone the launch and get back to the drawing board.
Earlier this week, a Samsung rep told Cnet that it would announce timing on the nearly $2,000 phone “in the coming weeks.”
Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:04 am
Apparently the new Chinese phones are blowing our wimpy American phones out of the water, if you compare specs alone.
There was a sale earlier about the Le eco Pro 3 (specs: aluminum case, Gorilla glass 5.5 FHD, 4 GB ram, Snapdragon 821 quad core, 16MP back 8MP front cam, 4070 mAh battery, quickcharge 3, fingerprint sensor, NFC, CDLA audio through USB-C port, Dolby Atmos certified speakers) GSM unlocked phone for... $200.
Comes with a free communist party minder!... Only half joking.
Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:04 am
Apparently the new Chinese phones are blowing our wimpy American phones out of the water, if you compare specs alone.
Comes with a free communist party minder!... Only half joking.
Implemented for them by Google!... Only half joking.
Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:04 am
Apparently the new Chinese phones are blowing our wimpy American phones out of the water, if you compare specs alone.
Comes with a free communist party minder!... Only half joking.
Implemented for them by Google!... Only half joking.
I figured out what I hate about cell phones. Every time I try to do something I touch a button that does something else. Brought to you by old man yelling at the iCloud.
Legendary PDA pioneer Palm is back as a zombie brand, and it's launching a tiny smartphone.
...
Today, TCL's Palm presents itself as actual new company with new co-founders, a new logo, and an office in San Francisco. The company is launching the, uh, "Palm" phone (Do we call it the Palm Palm?) and it's taking the "Palm" name literally, with a device small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The Palm Palm has a practically microscopic 3.3-inch display, and it measures just 96.6mm tall by 50.6mm wide, which is close to the size of a credit card. Palm is pitching the Palm as a "companion" device to your main smartphone, allowing you to leave your big phone behind and bring the Palm in a wallet, on a lanyard, or in any tiny pocket.
The diminutive Palm phone is now getting an unlocked version sold directly through the resurrected Palm, making it available to everyone — not just Verizon customers.
The move marks the latest expansion for the shrunken down Android device, which launched first as a companion device meant to be used alongside your regular smartphone. Verizon would then go on to sell it as a standalone, $350 smartphone a few months later, and now, with an unlocked model, customers on AT&T, T-Mobile, and other carriers will be able to use it too simply by swapping their SIM.
Unfortunately, as The Verge’s Dieter Bohn noted in his review the Palm phone isn’t a particularly good phone, either as a companion device or a full-fledged phone — and especially now when that $349.99 price tag could be put towards any number of better options, like a Pixel 3a or Moto G7.
Sixty-nine days after it was supposed to go on sale, Samsung announced a new release window for the Galaxy Fold, its first-ever foldable phone. Or rather, a release month: September. And only in select countries, as initially planned. Samsung said it would share specific sale dates as the month nears -- we'd guess as early as August. With this announcement, the world's largest phone-maker has at long last broken its silence about the nearly $2,000 device, which has been delayed since April 22 after reviewers reported screen breakages, flickering and bulging.
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In addition to a new launch window, Samsung also said it fixed the problems that caused some reviewers' phones to break in the first place. The fixes include:
A protective top layer that extends beyond the bezel, "making it apparent that it is an integral part of the display structure," not a dust guard you'd want to remove.
"Reinforcements" to keep debris from working its way underneath the screen.
New "protection caps" to strengthen the top and bottom of the hinge area, which had revealed natural gaps where particles could get in.
Metal reinforcements beneath the screen (the Infinity Flex Display), presumably to make the plastic screen stiffer.
Reducing the air gap between the Fold's body and hinge.
We asked T-Mobile and AT&T, the US carriers that originally announced they’d carry the Fold in stores or online. AT&T isn’t saying anything definitive yet, but we got an unambiguous answer from a T-Mobile spokesperson:
T-Mobile will not carry the Galaxy Fold because we already offer customers a wide range of the latest smartphones. Please reach out to Samsung for any further inquiries.
Apple will acquire “the majority” of Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion, the two companies announced today. Around 2,200 Intel employees will join Apple, and Apple will acquire IP and equipment from Intel as well. The transaction is expected to close toward the end of the year.
Intel won’t be getting out of the modem business entirely. It’ll still be able to develop modems for PCs, Internet of Things devices, autonomous vehicles, and seemingly anything that’s not a smartphone. Intel CEO Bob Swan said the acquisition will allow the company to focus on developing other 5G technologies.
The acquisition means that Apple is now well on the way to producing its own 5G modems for its smartphones, rather than having to rely on Qualcomm for the hardware. Apple only recently resolved its long-running dispute with the chipmaker, and when it did, Intel lost no time in announcing that it would be exiting the 5G phone business as a direct result of the settlement. Analysts quoted by Bloomberg at the time suggested that Apple’s in-house modems could be ready in three years.
Jaymann wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:12 pm
I figured out what I hate about cell phones. Every time I try to do something I touch a button that does something else. Brought to you by old man yelling at the iCloud.
Somehow my phone got in "do not disturb" yesterday. This problem is a bit reduced for me since I've set having to draw a pattern to unlock the phone. I'd like a "normal" button somewhere to put my phone back in it's normal state after these random button incidents.
Starting August 5th, Verizon is rolling out a new batch of “Unlimited” plans. But after seeing the names of the company’s new offering and what they include, I feel like Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
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Start Unlimited is the cheapest plan and includes “unlimited” 4G LTE data, unlimited talk and texting allowances, 480p “DVD-Quality’ video streaming (which doesn’t qualify as HD), talk, text, and data in Mexico and Canada, Verizon Up rewards, and a 6-month subscription to Apple Music. Notably, this plan does not come with 4G LTE hotspot functionality.
Finally, you can also add on support for 5G service for $10 a month, which will upgrade the plan with unlimited 5G data and hotspot usage, assuming you’re in a location that 5G service.
Moving up to Verizon’s $80 per month tier you actually have two somewhat similar plans aimed at slightly different audiences. The highlight of Verizon’s Play More Unlimited plan is that it comes with 720p HD video streaming, while the Do More Unlimited plan offers more productivity-minded bonuses including 500GB of cloud storage, discounts on any additional connected tablets and standalone hotspots, and 50GB of “premium” data, but only 480p video streaming.
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Finally, there’s Verizon’s top tier plan which has been somewhat oxymoronically named Get More Unlimited. (How are you supposed to get more of something that’s supposedly infinite?) It comes with everything available in Verizon’s less expensive plans along with 75GB of “premium” 4G LTE data, 720p HD video streaming, 30GB of 4G LTE hotspot data, and Apple Music.
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Annoyingly, there are a few more small but potentially important details you should know. While all of Verizon’s new “unlimited” plans come with talk, text, and data in Mexico and Canada, you only get 512MB of international data before your data will be reduced to 2G speeds.
And if you select one of the plans with a 6-month trial of Apple Music, unless you live in New Mexico, you better remember to cancel your sub after the trial ends, or else you’ll be charged $10 a month per line.
She was pretty dumb compared to Lyra anyway, but there was that accent. 
Brought to you by old man yelling at the iCloud.