Tag Archive: AT&T

Microsoft announces availability of Windows phones

Posted Oct.07, 2009 under Microsoft

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Today can be marked as the last day of the “Windows Mobile” device brand as Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows Phones worldwide at an exclusive event in NYC hosted by Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division. The devices announced today ship with Windows Mobile 6.5, which has been a long time coming.

So what is a “Windows Phone” one might ask? “Our lives increasingly have become this complex mash-up of our professional and personal worlds, so we need a better way to connect to the people we care about and an easier way to connect to the information that matters to us,” Bach said during his welcome at the Open House.

A Windows phone offers a variety of software and applications including: Mobile versions of Windows Live, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and much more. A redefined e-mail experience which the ability to manage multiple accounts using Outlook Mobile and Exchange Server synchronization.

One of the applications that was announced today at the event was My Phone, which was announced earlier this year at Mobile World Congress Our first impressions. My phone is a free service that helps people manage, backup, restore, synchronize data between PC’s, and share information from their Windows phone directly to Microsoft’s secure My Phone servers.

Additional features of the My Phone service is a set of “lost phone” features that are currently free of charge until November 30th, and for $4.99 after. This package allows users to immediately locate the phone’s current location on a map (U.S. only), remotely lock a phone, post an “if found” message to its screen, loudly ring the phone even if it’s set to vibrate or silent mode, or to remotely completely erase the phone’s content.

Here’s a list of Windows phone available today or in the coming weeks (country and carrier):

In North America:

  • HTC Pure from AT&T
  • HTC Imagio from Verizon Wireless
  • Samsung Intrepid from Sprint, available Oct. 11, 2009
  • HTC Tilt 2 from AT&T, available in the coming weeks

In Latin America:

  • Samsung Omnia II available in the coming weeks from TIM Brasil

In Europe:

  • MDA Vario V, MDA Compact V and HTC Touch2 and the Samsung Omnia II from Deutsche Telekom in select European markets
  • HTC HD2 from Orange, available in the coming weeks in France
  • HTC Touch2 from Orange, available in the coming weeks in France, Spain, Switzerland and Romania
  • A software update for the HTC Touch Pro2 from Orange, available in the coming weeks in France, U.K. and Romania
  • Samsung Omnia II from Orange, available in the coming weeks in Poland, Switzerland and Slovakia and from early December in France
  • Samsung Omnia LITE from Orange, available in the coming weeks in France and Spain
  • Samsung Omnia PRO B7320 from Orange, available in the coming weeks in France and the U.K.
  • Toshiba TG01 W from Orange, available as an update to the TG01 in the coming weeks in France, the U.K., Switzerland and Romania
  • LG GM750 and Samsung Omnia II from SFR in France
  • TMN Bluebelt 2 and TMN Silverbelt, made by ZTE Corp., from TMN in Portugal
  • Samsung Omnia II and Omnia LITE from TMN in Portugal
  • HTC Touch Diamond2 from Vodafone in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, South Africa and Central Europe
  • HTC Touch Pro2 from Vodafone in the U.K. and Switzerland
  • LG GM750 from Vodafone in Germany, the U.K., Spain and the Netherlands

The following phones are available on the open market in Europe:

  • Samsung Omnia II, Omnia LITE, Omnia PRO B7320, Omnia PRO B7330 and Omnia PRO B7610 available in October

In Asia:

  • ZTE X60 from China Unicom
  • HTC Touch Diamond2 from Telstra

The following phones are available on the open market in Asia:

  • Acer beTouch E100, beTouch E101, beTouch E200 and Acer neoTouch
  • Garmin-Asus nüvifone M20
  • HTC Snap, HTC Touch Pro2, HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch2
  • LG GM730 and LG GM550
  • Samsung Omnia II and Samsung Omnia PRO B7320, Omnia PRO B7330

Update: Attendees at today’s event in NYC also got a sneak peak and hands-on experience with the Bing for Mobile application coming this fall. First impressions: Elegant UI, very quick search results, and relevant search results. Check it out:

More on the Bing for Mobile application is expected to be announced later this year at the Web2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Important links:
Link: Microsoft Press Release: NYC Open House
Link: Microsoft Press Release: Redmond Headquarters
Link: Microsoft My Phone Service Homepage
Link: Windows phone homepage

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Apple releases 3.1 iPhone & iPod touch firmware

Posted Sep.09, 2009 under Apple/Mac, Windows

Apple has announced the release of iPhone and iPod Touch firmware 3.1, available for download later today. The free download, for both iPhone and iPod Touch 3.0 users, is said to improve battery life.

The 3.1 firmware will improve video editing on the iPhone 3GS, that won’t overwrite the original clip when editing videos, preventing the loss of the original film. The new developer API’s allows third-party applications access to the videos and edit them, without having to use Apple’s editing tools for the iPhone 3GS. The update is said to increase the boot time of devices. The device will now vibrate when moving icons around to different locations.

Apple also included a “Fraud Protection” toggle switch for browsing, now available under the settings for Safari. The firmwave update allows Voice Control over Bluetooth now. Users can also organize their icons through iTunes without having to move them around on their device.

AT&T users will get an update to profile 4.2, but many users will still need to wait till September 25 before using their MMS feature. Apple also updated their modem firmware to 5.08.01. The update also has improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.

The 3.1 iPhone and iPod Touch firmware is available for download with iTunes 9.

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June 19 was AT&T’s “iLaunch Day 2009″, best ever sales

Posted Jul.02, 2009 under Apple/Mac, Hardware

When the iPhone 3GS was announced, analysts expected pretty good sales – nothing too extreme or mind blowing, but not poor either. Apparently they were wrong. The website Mac Daily News has been tipped off with an internal AT&T company memo, explaining that the 3GS launch was the best sales day the company had ever seen, and dubbed it “iLaunch Day 2009.” We’ve included the memo below.

1. Fact of the Week: On June 25, the day Michael Jackson died, text messages sent on our network spiked at 65,000 messages per second — the largest volume ever recorded — surpassing events like American Idol voting and New Year’s Eve, when millions of our customers wish their friends and family a happy new year via text.”

2. “iLaunch day 2009 was one for the record books, as AT&T customers scrambled to get their hands on the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet.

Here’s a look at some of the milestones we achieved:

  • Best-ever sales day in our retail stores
  • Second-largest traffic day in our retail stores
  • Most transactions processed via our IT systems in a single day
  • Most upgrade eligibility checks in a single day
  • Largest order day in att.com history
  • Largest features sales day in att.com history

On this year’s launch day, iPhone sales exceeded sales recorded on 2008′s iPhone launch day, Black Friday 2008 and Dec. 26, 2008 — all heavy-volume sales days. In fact, this year we surpassed 2008′s launch day sales at about noon Central time, and sustained our previous peak hour record, also set in 2008, for 11 straight hours.

The memo doesn’t exactly say how many sales were made, but after being contacted by Apple Insider, a spokesperson said, “We have no further comment beyond that,” after repeating the fact that they had hundreds of thousands of pre-orders. Apple itself was a bit more revealing in terms of numbers, and it have revealed that there was over one million iPhones sold in three days. No doubt next year we’ll see even higher figures, although only time will tell.

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AT&T already sold out of launch day iPhone 3G S pre-orders

Posted Jun.13, 2009 under Apple/Mac, Hardware

Now that the iPhone 3G S has been announced, pre-orders have caused the device to be sold out according to a report by Apple Insider.

Any pre-orders that were made starting today, June 13 will not ship on the June 19 launch, and consumers will have to wait for up to two weeks to receive their order. If you do pre-order a 3G S, you’ll receive an email once it’s back in stock, saving you from having to stand in line.

Apple stores will open at 8 AM, and AT&T stores will open at 7 AM for the launch of the iPhone 3G S. Best Buy and Walmart will also have the iPhone 3G S for sale on June 19. Unfortunately, iPhone 3G users will have to shell out an additional $200 if they want a 3G S right away, but that still hasn’t detered consumers from pre-ordering the new iPhone.

Back when the iPhone 3G launched, it was sold out in 21 states. When the original iPhone launched, it too sold out in Apple Stores in 10 states in 4 days.

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