Paying a monthly fee — or any fee, for that matter — for turn-by-turn navigation on Android devices has felt pretty unpalatable ever since Google Maps Navigation happened, but Verizon’s still trying to make things interesting with the latest version of its VZ Navigator product. A quick feature rundown of its new “Version X” is up on YouTube right now, and we’ll admit, we’re a little intrigued by some of this stuff: realistic 3D buildings in major cities (unlike the nondescript boxes in Google Maps, we imagine), some form of dead reckoning capability for those times that you don’t have GPS reception, satellite maps, overhead street signs, social integration for letting folks know where you are, and a whole bunch of views for customizing the experience. We’re assuming service is the same $9.99 a month that Big Red charges currently, but there’ll also be a free version — VZ Navigator Maps — that dispenses of some of the crazier features. We’re hearing this might be officially announced in a few hours, so more details will presumably be in tow; in the meantime, follow the break for the teaser video.
Verizon’s LG VL600 LTE modem received a software update today, but there’s no need to wake your MacBook from its peaceful slumber — there still aren’t any drivers for Apple computers, over a month after we were promised a relatively imminent update. That said, Verizon told PhoneScoop today that the carrier’s LTE dongles will indeed support Apple at some point next month, which is itself only days away. Pantech UML290 owners can bide their time with a workaround, but we LG users will take what we can get, eh?
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.
Verizon‘s quarterly report is in, and profits are nearly twice what they were this time last year: $4.65 billion compared to $2.37 billion a year ago. Additionally, VZW added 872,000 customers, a fair bit more than the 646,000 it was expected to gain. Great news, right? Not if you’re a Wall Street analyst, who wanted to see earnings per share of 55 cents. The actual figure was 54 cents, and so down Verizon’s shares go, a 1.3 percent drop so far. Nothing particularly shocking there, but this is the last quarterly report the company will have before VZW adds the iPhone to its stable, so we’ll be very curious to see what these numbers look like three months from now.
If you’re in the great state (or Commonwealth, if you will) of Virginia, then you’re probably not reading this on a Verizon device or a computer tethered to a Verizon device right now — because the network’s down. Big Red doesn’t have an estimate on when it’ll be back up and running, but crews are said to be actively working on the issue, so with any luck, your nightmarish thrust into the deep, dark pre-industrial world of landline communication won’t be a very long one.
Well, that didn’t last very long at all: looks like Verizon is killing off its $15 150MB data plan for smartphones altogether, instead corralling folks into the $30 unlimited option. Of course, with the proliferation of data-hungry smartphone apps on Android (and soon, the iPhone), 250MB per month of usage is becoming less and less reasonable by the day, so we can’t say we’re terribly surprised. Meanwhile, the $9.99 25MB feature phone data option is getting a bump up to 75MB with $10 per 75MB overage, a slight drop from the 20 cent / MB overage that those customers deal with currently. Finally, you’ll notice that the $30 unlimited plan is now qualified as applying to “feature phones and 3G smartphones,” not merely “smartphones” as they were before — a nod to the fact that Verizon’s upcoming LTE handsets won’t be eligible for the same pricing. What, did you think you were going to be blazing on your ThunderBolt at 20 or 30Mbps without a care in the world?
If you’re in the magnificent boondocks of North America and you’re on Sprint, you’re going to have to start to be a little more careful with your voice and data usage — in fact, if you live in parts of North Dakota, Wyoming, or Montana, you might be forced to consider a carrier change on news that some swaths of on-network footprint are changing to roaming coverage on March 1st. The move is said to be a result of Verizon’s divestiture of certain ex-Alltel markets to AT&T, and it means that if you’re on Sprint and you use more than 800 voice minutes (or half your plan) in the new roaming areas in a month, the carrier’s liable to suspend you; similarly, you won’t be able to exceed 300MB of data. Certain device and plan features don’t work in roaming areas, either — Sprint details them on its FAQ page about the change — so if you live in those parts, you might need to look at moving to greener pastures.
“To our millions of customers, who never stopped believing this day would come…” Alright, we guess they earned just this one moment of visual hyperbole.
At CES, Verizon had mentioned that “some… but not all” of its first LTE handsets would support the simultaneous use of voice and data. That’s not news for 3G customers on T-Mobile and AT&T, nor WiMAX customers on Sprint — but for Verizon subscribers, this is a very novel concept, indeed. Well, we can chalk up the mighty ThunderBolt from HTC as one of the models that’ll support it, if leaked training materials for the phone over on Android Central are to be believed. On a related note, the very existence of these materials gives us hope that we’ll be seeing it on store shelves before too long; don’t get us wrong, the two USB modems Big Red’s launched for LTE service so far are all well and good, but we could really use some handsets on these airwaves.
