That pinch-to-zoom update for the Xperia X10 that Japanese customers got an early lead on is now rolling out around the globe according to a new blog post from the boys and girls at Sony Ericsson. That may not be the most interesting part, though: they’re also chatting up a future firmware update that’ll enable ANT+ support on the Xperia X8, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro, a capability baked into the chipsets on those devices that Sony Ericsson hadn’t previously exploited. Theoretically, that means that heart rate monitors and other wearable fitness gear — a market where ANT+ has really blossomed — could connect directly to your phone rather than passing through a computer with an ANT+ dongle first, perfect for analyzing jogs on the go. Of course, workout technology is always more appealing than the workout itself… but if you can solve that problem, Sony Ericsson, let us know. You can find us on the couch over there.
Seriously, Continuum owners, you couldn’t have possibly thought you dodged this bullet, right? Big Red’s pushing an update today that’s kind of a double-edged sword; on the one hand, you get a boatload of bug fixes to visual voicemail, messaging, WeatherBug, and more. But on the other hand, the update will automatically install V CAST Apps, Verizon’s app store, whether you like it or not. We’d like the option of choosing an update either with or without additional software on carrier-branded phones these days — but we suppose we can understand the complexities of forking updates like that. At any rate, this one’s over the air, so expect a notification from Verizon on your phone shortly.
RIM and its partner carriers have been promising BlackBerry 6 updates for a number of recent models, and Verizon’s getting a couple of the heavyweights out of the way today with the introduction of official upgrade packages for the Bold 9650 and Curve 3G 9330. In addition to universal search and an overall streamlined UI, one of the most important improvements here is the addition of RIM’s WebKit-based browser that makes hitting your favorite pages moderately less painful than before. Look for the update to become available at 8:00PM Eastern this evening, both online (see the Source links for instructions) and over-the-air.
Not exactly a huge surprise here, but it looks like Verizon will be doing everything it can to pair folks with a new iPhone 4 when it launches on the carrier next month, even if they’ve just purchased a new phone on Verizon or another carrier. During an investor meeting this week, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo revealed that the carrier will be using its existing trade-in program (which launched in October) to lure would-be customers, with a Verizon rep further detailing that it will be “more actively” promoting the plan in the lead up to the iPhone 4 launch — under that program, a 16GB iPhone 4 from AT&T will net you a $212 credit. In addition to that, Verizon is also rolling out a new “Special Upgrade Offer” that will let existing customers trade in a phone they’ve recently purchased for a Visa debit card ($200 for a smartphone trade-in, or $75 for a feature phone). Only those that have purchased a phone between November 26th, 2010 and January 10th, 2011 will be eligible, though, and you won’t exactly get that cash right away — you’ll first have to first buy and activate your iPhone 4 at the full retail price, send in your trade-in phone within 30 days of activation, and then wait four to six weeks to receive the debit card.
As promised, it seems that T-Mobile’s version of the Vibrant is getting Froyo today after a brutally long wait. The good news is that you won’t need to wait for a staggered rollout, apparently — but the bad news is that currently you’ll need to get it using Samsung’s Kies Mini PC app, not over-the-air. Tethered updates are always less convenient than their OTA equivalents (though Samsung continues to be particularly fond of them), and in the case of Kies Mini, there’s no Mac version, so you’ll need to be near a Windows machine to make it happen. This hasn’t been officially announced yet, though commenters over on TmoNews appear to be having luck — so if you give it a go, let us know how you fare.
Launched in early 2009, Sprint’s Premier loyalty program has been one of the more generous (and easy to understand) perks programs in the American wireless industry: just keep a certain minimum spend per month or stick around for ten years, and boom, you’re eligible. Most importantly, Premier customers are currently able to get new contract pricing after just a single year into their existing contracts, which makes gadget freaks on the network far, far less likely to go bankrupt. Well, mirroring some of the other early upgrade changes we’re seeing in the business lately, it looks like these guys are planning on dialing things back come April 1st (and no, the irony is not lost). Though some Premier customers will still get upgrades after a year, that privilege will be dialed back to members of the new Gold tier which will require ten years of service with Sprint. Yes, that’s right: you’ll have needed to have a line on these guys since before the Matrix Phone came out to get the biggest benefit of the program. If you don’t qualify, you still could get in on the Silver tier, which gives you miscellaneous perks like accessory discounts… but not the full upgrade discount after a year. Instead, you’ll need to wait 22 months, which — at the current rate — is about 47 major versions of Android.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: As before, you’ll be able to skirt the 10-year requirement with a minimum spend and at least six months of service; that minimum will be $89.99 a month for individual lines at $169.99 a month for family plans. Whew!
How on Earth have Verizon and AT&T both decided to kill off their upgrade discount programs within a few days of each other? Hard to say, but we’ve gotten a little peek at some new policies designed to “streamline” things that are apparently coming into effect next Sunday, January 23rd — and very few (if any) of them are going to bring a smile to your face. Here’s the gist:
There’ll be a new text package of 1,000 messages for $10 with overage at 10 cents apiece. This compares to 5 cents at the 1,500 / $15 level and 10 cents at the 200 / $5 level.
Speaking of those other text packages, they’re going away. Both the 200 and 1,500 text plans are goners. Obviously, if you’re already on them, you shouldn’t be affected — you just won’t be able to select them for new plans or changes anymore.
Early upgrade pricing on new iPhones — the standard subsidized price plus $200 — will only be available six months into an existing iPhone activation.
$50 and $100 discounts on top of subsidized pricing for upgrading customers — similar to Verizon’s recently-killed New Every Two program — are going away. If you’re currently eligible, you’ll still be eligible to take advantage through July 23rd of this year.
Family plan add-a-line activation is increasing $10 to $36.
International voice roaming prices are changing in 117 countries. That’s a lot of countries! We’re assuming most of those rates are going up, not down, though we don’t have details at this point.
Calling to Canada is going from 29 cents per minute to 39 cents.
The 3G MicroCell is increasing in price from $149.99 to $199.99, which seems like a really bizarre move to us — hard to say what the motivation is there. Certain “pre-selected” customers will still receive special discount offers for it in the mail, though.
Check out full details on the changes in the gallery below.
It’s not often that you see a Samsung device running stock Froyo through official channels, so feast your eyes on the update recently release for the Acclaim on US Cellular that takes your QWERTY slider from Android 2.1 up to 2.2. You can’t do this one over-the-air, which is a pretty big pain in the rear — but considering that you’re getting an entirely new version of Android here, we think you’ll probably want to cable up for the few minutes it takes to get this bad boy installed. Have fun and be safe!
It’s not often that a carrier and manufacturer team up to beat an estimated launch date, so color us stoked to see Verizon start to push the official Froyo update for LG’s Ally starting this week — a little earlier than the February guidance they’d given before. Of course, the phone had originally been promised an eventual update way back in August of last year… so yeah, we’ve got to credit Ally owners for their patience on this one. Looks like there are some updates to LG’s custom apps and widgets, too, along with bug fixes (instant data reconnection after long calls, for instance), so we’d say this is a build you’re going to want to grab as soon as you can.
There’s already been plenty of evidence over the past couple weeks to call this a lock, but let’s just go ahead and close the loop on this one: Verizon’s official FAQ list has been updated to indicate that its New Every Two upgrade discount program is toast. In short, that means that new lines of Verizon service won’t be eligible for an equipment discount — which used to run between $30 and $100 — after your two-year contract is up, and folks that are currently enrolled in an NE2-eligible plan will only be able to redeem the discount one more time before being taken out of it. The move kind of dovetails with Verizon’s decision a few months back to bump the smartphone ETF to a groan-inducing $350, and it seems to be part of a larger industry trend toward making phones wincingly expensive to replace. Don’t drop that Droid X, folks!
Note: To be clear, you’ll still be eligible for normal subsidized pricing once you pass into the upgrade period on your contract — you just won’t get an extra discount on top of that.
That pinch-to-zoom update for the Xperia X10 that Japanese customers got an early lead on is now rolling out around the globe according to a new blog post from the boys and girls at Sony Ericsson. That may not be the most interesting part, though: they’re also chatting up a future firmware update that’ll enable ANT+ support on the Xperia X8, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro, a capability baked into the chipsets on those devices that Sony Ericsson hadn’t previously exploited. Theoretically, that means that heart rate monitors and other wearable fitness gear — a market where ANT+ has really blossomed — could connect directly to your phone rather than passing through a computer with an ANT+ dongle first, perfect for analyzing jogs on the go. Of course, workout technology is always more appealing than the workout itself… but if you can solve that problem, Sony Ericsson, let us know. You can find us on the couch over there.
