Tag Archives | Smartphones

Zer01: Unlimited Calls and Data for One Low Price

Posted by Afzal Bajwa on April 2, 2009 at 7:08 am

Zer01 Logo Announced at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas yesterday, a new wireless company called Zer01 Communications offers the entire connectivity package–unlimited calls and data–in one package, starting at only $69.95 a month. The solution could attract lots of interest if the ongoing economic recession forces people to re-examine how much they’re paying for utilities such as phone service.

PCMag.com broke the story last month after talking with ZER01 CEO Ben Piilani. According to Zer01, “using proprietary technology and infrastructure as never before, it can provide affordable, unlimited mobile service.” But Zer01 isn’t really a wireless carrier. It’s really a VoIP company that piggybacks on top of traditional networks such as AT&T, as PCMag.com reported.

Unlike most U.S. carriers, Zer01 doesn’t do contracts–service is pay-as-you-go. But unlike other pre-paid plans, which typically charge you by the minute or kilobyte, Zer0 says that its domestic plan includes ‘unlimited minutes, any time from anywhere in the continental U.S.A and Canada,’ for $69.95 per month, while its international offer, for $10 more, includes the domestic service. For its international connectivity, the company claims partners, in South America, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. But it has kept the names of its domestic and international partners secret so far.

Despite Zer01’s claim of “no other fees and taxes,” there is also a one-time, $30 activation fee, and parental controls are available for an extra $4.99 a month. So the subscriber’s first payment is at least $99.95.

It remains to be seen just how reliable Zer01’s VoIP is. If there are problems, customers might regret having chosen to pre-pay for Zer01’s service.

If a subscriber doesn’t already have an unlocked GSM phone to use with Zer01, he or she can buy one from Zer01: Options include HTC’s TyTN II (also sold by AT&T as the Tilt), Touch 3G, and Diamond, and Pharos’s Traveler 117 and Traveler 127. It hasn’t yet set prices for any of these models. It also sells various other optional services and accessories, such as a two-year protection plan for the HTC TyTN II for $69, a battery charger for $29.99, and a Bluethooth headset for $79.99.

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Palm Pre, Meet Palm OS

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 1, 2009 at 6:26 pm

Palm Classic I’m in Las Vegas at the CTIA Wireless show, but one of the day’s more intriguing tidbits of phone-related news was announced back in San Francisco at Web 2.0 Expo: Palm will be working with MotionApps, a third-party developer, to make Classic, a Palm OS emulator available for its upcoming Palm Pre phone. The move makes sense given that Palm surely wants to devote all its mental bandwidth to its new webOS, but there are surely a fair number of long-time Palm users out there for whom the idea of running existing apps on the Pre is an appealing security blanket. (The whole scenario is roughly similar to what Apple did with the early versions of OS X, which had the capability to run old Mac OS apps in emulation mode.)

I confess to a basic innate skepticism when it comes to emulators in general: None of them run everything perfectly, and most of the power of the Pre, like that of the iPhone, will come from its integration of new hardware, software, and services. And many of my favorite old Palm apps don’t even run that well (or at all) on modern Treos–they were too tied to the guts of earlier versions of the Palm OS. But MobileApps says it’ll publish a list of compatible Palm OS apps, and I’ll be on the lookout to see how comprehensive it is.

Palm’s news today also involved details relating to the rollout of Mojo, the webOS SDK, to developers. Ultimately, getting that right will be ten thousand times more important to the Pre’s fate than a Palm OS emulator could ever be.

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1Word for April 1st, 2009

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 1, 2009 at 8:28 am

Technololgizer's 1Word [NOTE: Response to Technologizer’s 5Words has been terrific, but many readers have told us that they think even five-word descriptions of stories are too wordy and wasteful. So as of today, we’re relaunching the feature as 1Word. Terse enough for ya? If not, we’d be happy to go to monosyllabic words. 0Words would be doable, too. Just let us know.]

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Apple May Add Biometrics to iPhone, Laptops

Posted by David Worthington on March 27, 2009 at 8:30 pm

Apple is attempting to patent a method to conceal a biometric sensor inside of its products to allow users to lock down their systems without having to type in passwords.

This is something that I have been waiting for. I do not have a password for my iPhone, because the very thought of having to input it every time my phone goes into sleep mode is mind-numbing. If I could confirm my identity simply by touching the screen, I’d be a happy camper. And it would be more secure than a password–no one else has my fingerprints.

Rather than adding an unwieldy biometric reader to its products, Apple’s designers have dreamed up a way to hide it. The company could go in another direction: The patent includes some unorthodox alternatives for authenticating users using its existing technology, including the device being tilted in certain directions, voice recognition, and having the user touch symbols in a specific sequence.

If Apple can make it password-free authentication work in practice, it would be a valuable feature for its products. I’m not certain what the costs involved would be, but it would be a feature that I bet enterprise customers would pay more for.

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A BlackBerry Bold at an Attractive Price: $0.00

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 27, 2009 at 12:32 pm

Boy Genius Report found a bargain on the BlackBerry Bold over at AT&T’s site: If you’re willing to buy a refurbished phone (not a big deal to my mind, especially in these times) and ready to sign up for a two-year contract, you can get the Bold for free. And–the saints be praised–it looks like there’s no rebate paperwork involved. The BlackBerry Bold may not have the buzz of certain other phones that also reference a piece of fruit in their names, but it’s a great phone. And AT&T charges $550 without a contract, $299 (after a $100 rebate) for a new one on contract, so free represents a steep discount. The offer, which BGR says appears to be good only today and only online, is here.

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I'm Dying to Get My Hands on an iPhone Keyboard! I Think!

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 24, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Last week, right before Apple’s iPhone 3.0 unveiling, I compiled a wish list of things I hoped the company would make possible in the new software. One of my items was the ability to connect external hardware accessories to the iPhone–and, specifically, to enable the use of Think Outside-style folding keyboards.

When I attended the event, I got all excited: One of the first new features Apple disclosed was the ability for software to interface with external devices via the phone’s dock connector or Bluetooth. But none of the examples it gave involved keyboards. And then, during the Q&A session at the end, somebody asked about keyboards and whether iPhone 3.0 would support the Human Interface Design standard that would let keyboards talk to iPhone apps that involve alphanumeric input. The answer: No, no plans for that. I slumped in my seat a little bit.

And today, I perked up: Some clever hackers have modded an infrared keyboard to work with the iPhone. They’re really clever hackers–their mod works with the current version of the iPhone software, and doesn’t require it to be jailbroken. Here’s a demo:

For a number of reasons, I have to temper my excitement. Their mod is a technology demo, not a product you can buy. And if it did become a product you could buy, it would only work with applications designed to support it, if I understand correctly. You couldn’t use it in Apple’s own browser, e-mail, calendar, note-taker, and other apps. In a way, external keyboards are like cut and paste: It may be possible to get them working, kind of, without Apple’s support. But Apple is the only company with the power to make them work the way you really want them to work.

Guessing Apple’s priorities is always a bit risky, but I suspect that external keyboards are way, way down on its to-do list, if they’re not officially banned from it. It surely wouldn’t build an external keyboard itself–it must see the market as limited, and the idea as clunky. And it might see enabling external keyboards as an admission that the iPhone’s keyboardless design has its downsides.

Thinking about external keyboards again has me questioning my hankering for them. If I had one that worked with the iPhone, would I really use it? I’ve owned several in the past, and used them with various PDAs and phones, and while I got good use out of them in some situations (meetings, long plane trips), they didn’t change my life. And the iPhone’s synching capabilities are good enough to eliminate the need for some types of data entry that would otherwise make an external keyboard appealing: There’s no need to enter dozens of contacts into the phone itself when you can wirelessly sync them over from a PC or Mac.

Here’s the thing that leaves me still thinking external keyboards make sense: long weekends. And other short trips. I still don’t want to do anything on an iPhone that involves typing more than about fifteen words at a time, so it’s not a true notebook replacement. But if I had a folding keyboard that worked in every iPhone app, I could leave home for brief, low-pressure excursions and do everything I needed to on my phone. (Um, assuming that wherever I was going had decent 3G coverage, that is–but that’s another blog post.)

Part of me wants to see an iPhone keyboard simply as a matter of principle: As remarkable as the iPhone is, I don’t want it to be limited by Apple’s take on what’s important. External keyboards are kind of ungainly, aren’t as useful as they once were, and probably won’t sell in the millions? Fine–there are still some folks who really, really want them. As today’s keyboard mod shows.

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With Phones, Simplicity is the Best Innovation of All

Posted by Afzal Bajwa on March 24, 2009 at 12:53 pm

[A NOTE FROM HARRY: I’m pleased to say that Technologizer is participating in Stanford University’s Innovation Journalism program, which brings journalists from other countries to the U.S. to report on innovation. Afzal Bajwa of Pakistan’s The Nation will be contributing articles to Technologizer on mobile phones and other wireless topics during his U.S. visit; please join me in welcoming him.]

Beyond jet lag, what worried me most when I embarked on a U.S.- bound plane at Islamabad International Airport was the possibility of technology lag. As chief reporter for The Nation, Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper, I covered technology and communications in a third-world nation–one with both real problems and image problems, especially in what’s traditionally been known as the new world.

Despite the ongoing global recession, the U.S. is still the world leader in innovation and technological advancement. But that is hardly true in mobile phones. It appeared, to me at least, to be the other way round when I finally arrived after covering more than 11,000 miles in over 25 hours of air travel.

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iPhone Rumors: Vague, Very Vague!

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 23, 2009 at 12:57 pm

att_header_logo Phone gossip/rumor/scuttlebutt/leak kingpin Boy Genius has a post at his site reporting on what an AT&T exec is supposedly saying about the next generation iPhone. BG says the tidbits he’s reporting are 100% confirmed. But they’re also, well, 100% obvious:

There will be a new iPhone announcement around mid-June (logical enough–Apple’s Phil Schiller openly told the New York Times’ David Pogue that Apple tries to follow a June release schedule for the iPhone);
“New iPhone will be faster and have a more seamless experience” (it would be startling if Apple didn’t put a speedier chip in the new phone, and with features such as cut and paste, the iPhone 3.0 OS qualifies as being a whole lot more seamless);
AT&T will release an iPhone client for its U-Verse broadband TV/DVR service (the company has said it’s working on one, and I’ve gotten a glimpse of it running on an iPhone myself);
It’s “becoming a tradition” to release iPhones on an annual schedule (you think?)
This Summer will be exciting!
AT&T is working with Apple to create a unified experience across its platforms (a good U-Verse client for the iPhone will certainly qualify as that);
iPhone 3.0 shows where the iPhone is going (pretty much by definition, surely);
People should pick their AT&T phone based on personal preferences, not features (Boy Genius then starts talking about an iPhone with a slide-out keyboard, but I think he’s riffing rather than predicting or speculating);
Higher-speed HSDPA Internet access is being “hinted” at.

Boy Genius himself–who isn’t always right, but who unquestionably has some great sources within big companies–says that some of this stuff is not news. Despite his promise of 100% confirmation, I’m not assuming it’s all going to come true, either–the new iPhone’s schedule could slip, or it could turn out to be no faster than today’s model. Here’s hoping that the next iPhone, whatever it is, is worthy of gossip that’s more scintillating than this–in other words, that it’s something more than an iPhone 3G that’s a little thinner, a little sexier, a little faster, a little cheaper, and preloaded with the 3.0 software…

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Would You Pay $699 For an iPhone?

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 18, 2009 at 5:59 pm

iPhone Good news, sort of: Boy Genius Report is reporting that AT&T is about to start selling iPhones 3Gs that don’t require signing a contract, an option which it said it was going to get around to offering all along. They won’t come cheap, though: Folks who are willing to sign two-year contracts can get an 8GB iPhone 3G for $199 or a 16GB one for $299, but the same phones sans contract will apparently be $599 and $699 respectively.

Of course, those prices have a tinge of deja vu to them–when the original iPhone was announced in January of 2007, an 8GB one went for…$599. (The 4GB model was $499, and 16GB iPhones didn’t yet exist.) But that $599 8GB iPhone required a two-year contract, and was a distinctly lesser handset–no 3G broadband, no GPS, and no third-party apps. Today’ $599 iPhone is a better device with fewer strings attached.

But it isn’t really commitment-free, since it’s still locked to AT&T, and apparently only existing AT&T customers will be able to get one–and only one per line. Unless you’re planning to unlock your phone without anyone’s approval, you’re still effectively agreeing to remain an AT&T customer–and therefore turn over $1400 for service over the next two years, in all likelihood–until such time as AT&T and Apple decide it’s okay to unlock iPhones.

(And I’m still unsure why they object to the practice, if consumers are willing to pay an unsubsidized price. I’ve bought several other models of phone from AT&T at full price because the company would cheerfully unlock them if I asked; just what makes the so that’s different?)

Of course, Apple does sell unlocked, truly commitmentless iPhones in countries where it’s required to do so. When I was in Spain last month, I saw an unlocked 16GB iPhone 3G for 799 Euros, or $1075 U.S, at an airport electronics shop. My buying advice is simple: YOU’D BE NUTS TO SPEND OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS ON AN IPHONE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN A NEW MODEL IS LIKELY JUST MONTHS AWAY!!! (Whew.)

Anyhow, I might consider a $599 iPhone 3G if I could unlock it without fear of technical glitches or reprisal from Apple–I just hate contracts, and travel overseas enough that the idea of being able to pop in a cheap local SIM is mighty appealing. But I’d wait until June or so to see what Apple has waiting in the wings. And I’m guessing it isn’t a given that any new iPhones will be immediately available at an unsubsidized price.

I feel a T-Poll coming on…

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iPhone vs. Palm Pre: It's Still War!

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 17, 2009 at 11:37 pm

Hulk Hogan Going into this morning’s Apple iPhone 3.0 unveiling, one of the biggest questions of the year in the world of tech was how Palm’s upcoming Pre phone would stack up against the iPhone. The Pre looks like it’ll be the most interesting and imaginative new smartphone to date that isn’t an iPhone, and the only one with a software platform that has a shot at out-innovating Apple. (I have high hopes for Google’s Android over the long haul, but if that OS changes everything, it’ll have to do it on a handset that’s more groundbreaking than T-Mobile’s G1.)

Now that we have a better sense of the iPhone software that the Pre will compete with when it shows up–I’m guessing that the Pre’s planned launch time frame of the first half of the year and iPhone 3.0’s summer release will result in both showing up around the same time–it still looks like the competition between the two phones will be fierce and fun.

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