AT&T

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Love this LTE iPad screengrab from The Verge. It really just says it all.

Sure, there might be some latency issues with LTE over Wi-Fi, but —come on—throw us a bone. We had a fine time using FaceTime over 3G almost two years ago. Something tells us Apple is not to blame.

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We are all familiar with the intricacies of the Best Buy inventory system’s loose lips. Sure, sometimes it is just employees playing pranks, but other times it reveals honest to goodness new stuff.

On that note, Sprint 4G (“new”) iPads have appeared in this system, and they were screen-grabbed for all to see. This one makes some sense for a few reasons:

1. Sprint and Apple are now partners with the iPhone 4S, so the relationship is already in place.

2. Sprint is building a LTE network that will be compatible with the iPad, but it has not released even one device on that network yet, including the LTE Galaxy Nexus that it already announced. Apple likes to release on finished products.

3. Apple would not pre-announce something months away when people could buy something now on AT&T or Verizon (or in a few days).

4. We heard about Sprint testing iPads.

If you are a die-hard Sprint customer, you might have an iPad option in the near future.

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Yesterday, we told you the iPad 2 was discounted by $100, as announced by Apple during the new iPad unveiling, through a number of retailers including BestBuy and RadioShack. According to one tipster, Apple retail stores are also offering the discounted iPad 2. However, in the case of the West Farms Apple Store in Connecticut, Apple discounted at least one Wi-Fi + 3G 32GB iPad 2 (White, AT&T) by $200. As you can see from the receipt above, store employees mistakenly added an extra $100 discount to the already discounted iPad 2.

The 32GB iPad 2 presumably dropped from $729 to $629 following Apple’s announcement, but it sold for $529 (the new price of the entry level 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2) to at least one surprised customer. It was likely a mistake on Apple’s part due to an employee not noticing the discount had already been applied.

However, is it possible Apple is offering a special promotion on Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2 models (other than the 16GB model) leading up to the new iPad launch on March 16? Apple never mentioned the 32 or 64GB iPad 2 during its event.

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Following Wall Street Journal’s report last night that AT&T and Verizon will carry the LTE iPad 3, the publication is reporting that Apple is now testing an 8-inch iPad in its labs. While WSJis not exactly sure the version will launch, it does claim the iPad is being tested.

Officials at some of Apple’s suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has shown them screen designs for a new device with a screen size of around 8-inches, and said it is qualifying suppliers for it. Apple’s latest tablet, the iPad 2, comes with a 9.7-inch screen. It was launched last year.

WSJ’s sources said the 8-inch iPad’s screen would pack a 1,024-by- 768 display similar to the current iPad. The smaller version will apparently also pack a LTE chip inside, as WSJ said the iPad 3 would.

There is always the chance that the 8-inch iPad will not see the light of day, because Apple tests things and sometimes does not bring them to market. An 8-inch variant of the iPad would be a close competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which has seen great growth.

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Adding to earlier reports today, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Verizon and AT&T will carry the iPad 3 rocking LTE. Also backing up earlier claims, WSJ said Apple would hold its media event to unveil the iPad 3 during the first week of March.

Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. will sell a version of the coming iPad that runs on their newest fourth-generation wireless networks, according to people familiar with the matter, as the battle to cash in on big investments in mobile broadband heats up.

It is not certain if Sprint will carry the LTE version on its upcoming LTE network, according to the publication.

One of its sources is the infamous Captain Obvious:

When LTE isn’t available, the new iPad will default to a slower network technology, one of these people said.

The iPad 3 is rumored to feature Apple’s A6 quad-core processor, Retina display, LTE, upgraded camera, and more, according to multiple sources. iMore reported today that the iPad 3’s announcement will occur specifically on March 7 with a launch shortly after.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dvL8WBrNHEk]

Strangely, even though they are now carrying Apple’s iPhone, not much else of Apple’s simple marketing ethos has rubbed off on the carriers.

Via PhoneScoop
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Update: We’ve been told by a source at AT&T that those micro-SIMS are for the forthcoming Pantech Burst and Element which are also on the way to AT&T this week.

A regular AT&T SIM card (left) and a 4G LTE Micro-SIM (right). Click for larger.

A new batch of Micro-SIMs arrived at AT&T stores. We would normally pass on the news—if those were normal non-miniaturized 4G LTE Micro-SIMs. Based on an anonymous tip, Phone Arena noted AT&T now getting LTE Micro-SIM cards “could be an indication that the next iPhone will finally support 4G LTE connectivity.” If you ask us, those are likely for the Nokia Lumia 900 that is hitting the AT&T network on March 18.

Granted, it is not entirely out of question that AT&T LTE Micro-SIMs are in anticipation of a sixth-generation iPhone that is presumably scheduled for an announcement this summer. Apple was the first major handset maker to switch to tiny 3G SIM cards with iPhone 4, which was a move born out of necessity due to space constraints in the 9.3mm device. The iPhone 4/4S are the only Apple products compatible with the Micro-SIM standard.

What about the iPad 3, you ask….

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Apple’s rumored HDTV might be called the iTV, according to a new report from Bloomberg citing Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek. In a note to clients this morning, Misek also claimed Apple might buy licenses for programming through possible partnerships with Verizon and AT&T and could “leverage content into a YouTube-like model” by taking advantage of user created video from iPhone and iPad users. He also noted “Lower margins and higher risks” will most likely keep Apple away from creating original programming. Misek did not comment on a possible timeframe for the product’s launch.

Misek’s scenario of Apple partnering with carriers for content follows a report from Reuters today that confirmed Verizon and Coinstar’s Redbox division have partnered with plans to create a video streaming service to rival Netflix and Hulu Plus. Verizon and Redbox plan to offer its first product resulting from the partnership in second half of the year. As for the possibility of Apple calling its HDTV product the “iTV.” Apple will of course have to work out rights to the name from the major United Kingdom TV network of the same name.

Just last week, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster weighed in claiming Apple was talking with a “major TV component supplier” about “various capabilities of their television display components.” He also offered three possible scenarios for how Apple will approach content on its HDTV product suggesting a simple integration of third-party live TV services, to a live TV/web content combination, to an iTunes monthly subscription.

In related news, you might have come across a BestBuy survey recently that aims to gauge interest in an Apple HDTV concept. If you are interested in seeing what BestBuy dreamed up for the survey, a copy sent to us by a reader is available below (Thanks Alan!):

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3H8v5XEkVAk]

Update: Apple had these videos taken offline.  We will make an effort to see if they exist somewhere else. Help us out in the comments if you find them.

Former Apple marketing executive Bob Borchers, who was part of the original iPhone team and helped lead the Nike+iPod partnership and third-party iPod integration with car manufacturers, recently gave a talk at a school in California to discuss his experiences at Apple (part 2 below). In case you are unfamiliar, you might remember Borchers from several “guided tour” videos for iPhone and other Apple products a few years back. He has also been a source for many of the interesting stories coming from Adam Lashinsky’s new book “Inside Apple.”

At the starting of his talk to students, Borchers surveys the crowd to find out the ratio of Android users to iPhone users, leading him to joke: “Alright that’s good. I’ll keep my Apple stock.” As a former marketing executive, Borchers showed and talked about a few ads, but also discussed the AT&T partnership, as he noted, “We broke rules in terms of how we worked with folks like AT&T”:

“AT&T as a company… they buy the cellphones and then they sell them to you and I… we said, ‘no we don’t want to do that’. We want to be able to sell the iPhone. We want to be able to talk directly to the customer. That was a big, big change for the industry.” 

Other than telling some recent stories that have debuted in “Inside Apple,” Borchers also talked about Steve Jobs’ initial mission to create the iPhone, describing the late CEO as wanting to create “the first phone people would fall in love with.” He also discussed how important the multitouch display and having the full “Internet in your pocket” was to the original concept. Before wrapping up his speech, Borchers talked about how the iPhone was developed from his point of view on the product marketing/product management team and the importance of Apple packaging:

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Update: Like others before it, Apple is now pulling QuasiDisk from its global iTunes stores. But we’ve added another below the fold

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNx6X4ZZFRA]

It appears another tethering app snuck into the App Store.  QuasiDisk ($1.99) purports to be a file manager for the iPhone, but it appears that in the most recent update over the weekend, it stealthily got the ability to tether via proxy.  Apple is usually pretty quick to pull these, so you might want to jump on this app if you want some tethering without a carrier plan.

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AT&T has a grudge with the Federal Communications Commission, and during the mobile carrier’s quarterly earnings call today, CEO Randall Stephenson criticized the FCC over spectrum availability and the bombed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, with him further claiming that AT&T’s spectrum crux could cause jacked prices against its highest data users.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, founded in 1876, once held a monopoly on wired phone service in the United States, but the U.S. Department of Justice broke up Alexander Graham Bell’s company into seven “Baby Bells” with an antitrust lawsuit that turned into a settlement in 1982.

Since then, the company has slowly reassembled. Six of those seven “Baby Bells” merged into two single companies: AT&T, Inc., (Ameritech, BellSouth, Pacific Telesis, and Southwestern Bell) and Verizon Communications, Inc., (NYNEX and Bell Atlantic). The acquisition of the fourth largest wireless service provider in the U.S., Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA, would have poised AT&T to gain a monopoly once again, but this time through its 3G GSM service in the U.S., while garnering the No. 1 spot in the U.S. wireless market. However, the FCC stepped in this time and dashed the company’s monopolizing hopes.

The FCC requested a formal administrative hearing into AT&T’s proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA last fall, subsequently causing the U.S. carrier to withdraw the pending approval applications in November 2011. The decision rolled into a killed bid and garnered a $4 billion pretax charge on AT&T’s Q4 2011 accountancy sheet that includes a $3 billion default payment due to Deutsche Telekom over the deal’s non-completion and an additional $1 billion in spectrum value that AT&T would have to forgo.

AT&T CEO Stephenson released his frustrations concerning the debacle at the company’s Q4 2011 financial conference call today. He set his sights on the FCC and lambasted the agency while decrying it of choosing “winners” and “losers” in regards to approving and regulating deals…

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United States carrier AT&T said this morning it activated 7.6 million iPhones during the holiday quarter, besting Verizon’s 4.2 million iPhone activations. It was the best-ever quarter for sales of Apple’s handset for AT&T as iPhone accounted for a whopping 80.8 percent of the 9.4 million smartphones the carrier sold in Q4 2011 (56 percent in Q3 2011).

From the earnings release:

Both iPhone and Android device sales set records. During the quarter, more than 7.6 million iPhones were activated, the majority of which were iPhone 4S, which went on sale Oct. 14, and more than twice as many Android smartphones were sold versus the fourth quarter a year ago. iPhone sales were helped by a superior customer experience, with AT&T delivering download speeds up to three-times faster than on other U.S. carriers’ networks.

Strong iPhone 4S and Android performance helped the carrier weather the storm to some extent as the numbers also reveal a big net loss $6.7 billion, or $1.12 a share, despite a 2 percent increase in sales in 2011. Much of this is contributed to a $4 billion break-up fee for the failed merger with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA unit and a change in its pension accounting. If we exclude the breakup fee, pension costs and the impairment of its directory asset, AT&T earned 42 cents per share. Additional data points after the break.

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AT&T announced it would introduce new data plans for phones and tablets on Sunday, Jan. 22.  There will be three phone plans: $20 for 300MB, $30 for 3GB, and $50 for 5GB with tethering. While the two tablet plans will be: $30 for 3GB and $50 for 5GB.

In the past, AT&T made available $15 for 200MB, $25 for 2GB, or $45 for 4GB with tethering. Each plan earned more data and a $5 price hike. AT&T will charge $10 for each 1GB roll over. AT&T explained the sudden change:

“Customers are using more data than ever before,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Our new plans are driven by this increasing demand in a highly competitive environment, and continue to deliver a great value to customers, especially as we continue our 4G LTE deployment.”

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW5aEQzTcW0]

UPDATE [Tuesday, January 17. 2012 at 2:29pm ET]: An AT&T spokesperson chimed in with a comment noting that “throttling only applies to top users with grandfathered unlimited plans”. The full quote is included at the article bottom.

AT&T and other major carriers in the United States recently instituted data throttling and began limiting network speeds for the top 5 percent of data-hungry users. Carriers around the world tend to hide data throttling in fine print, so users are in for a surprise when they find out that their unlimited plan entails data throttling once a carrier-imposed ceiling is reached (usually 1GB per month). Throttling is not something worth losing sleep over until it hits you. For starters, throttling reduces your downlink speed by a factor of 10 or more. Depending on your carrier’s network, this means your throttled downlink will drop all the way down to a paltry 0.1MBps. What you might not have known is how badly throttling affects the user experience on your device…

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Update: Reports that T-Mobile knows Apple’s chipset roadmap are false I’ve confirmed with T-Mobile’s PR department.  Ray only said that Apple could choose to use Chips that are AWS compatible, which is obvious.

I had a few minutes this evening between Colbie Cailat songs at T-Mobile’s CES 2012 party to talk to CTO Neville Ray on what the future holds for T-Mobile since the AT&T merger is off. T-Mobile walked away with not only $3 billion but also some AWS spectrum from AT&T.

First, Ray is excited.  He talked like someone who has been imprisoned by the merger over the past year, unable to make any long term moves. T-Mobile is still evaluating its long-term options (like LTE) but there is a buzz in the air now.  While the parent company Deutsch Telekom gets the $3 billion payoff from AT&T, it seems that there will be big investment over the next few years in the T-Mobile USA subsidy.

On Dec. 19, T-Mobile’s official AT&T breakup release stated what —besides the $3 billion— T-Mobile would get:

As part of the break-up fee, T-Mobile USA will receive a large package of AWS mobile spectrum in 128 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs), including 12 of the top 20 markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Baltimore and Seattle).

The UMTS roaming agreement for the U.S. in T-Mobile USA’s favor has a term of over seven years and will allow the company to improve its footprint significantly among the U.S. population and offer its customers better broadband coverage for mobile communications services in the future. Population coverage will increase from 230 million potential customers at present to 280 million. As a result of the agreement with AT&T, coverage will be extended to many regions of the U.S. in which T-Mobile USA previously had neither its own high-speed mobile communications network nor the associated roaming agreements.

That spectrum will allow T-Mobile to light up HSPA+ radio frequency used by the iPhone’s 3G.

I asked Ray about the reports that claimed T-Mobile networks in the Northwest were already broadcasting 1900 MHz HSPA+.

Nevada, parts of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest are also seeing some pockets of 1900MHz spectrum refarming for HSPA+. There are other parts of the country T-Mobile can refarm the 1900MHz spectrum but, the focus is on the Pacific Northwest, Nevada, Utah and California for right now from what we’re told. We should emphasize and emphasize greatly that this post does not mean that all of the aforementioned areas are seeing this refarmed spectrum, just pockets inside those areas.

Ray said those networks were not officially lit up (perhaps some tower testing or AT&T roaming confusion happened).

Nevertheless, there is good news for those who want to use an iPhone on T-Mobile’s 3G network…

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Image via The Verge

Carrier AT&T is holding its sixth annual Developer Summit at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, and President and CEO Ralph De La Vega addressed some 2,500 attendees from 33 different countries. “What’s good for developers is good for customers,” said La Vega while explaining why AT&T runs this developer summit.

Shortly, Chief Marketing Officer David Christopher took the stage to announce AT&T’s new API platform for HTML5 web applications meant to run across multiple devices and mobile operating systems, reminding that the web really is the ultimate app store. Interesting enough, Visual Voicemail for the iPhone (which turned 5-years-old today) was AT&T’s very first network API, so you could say Apple also helped revolutionize how carriers interoperate.

An impressive 85 percent of all smartphones will have HTML5 browsers by 2016, Christopher explained. The new API Catalog sports 130 individual APIs divided into 14 different categories — it is essentially a revamped U-Verse API catalog. The APIs enable a range of features, such as completely automated sign ups to use APIs in minutes, wrappers for Ruby, PHP and Java and tons of sample code in Github.

A storefront for web apps called the “App Center” will be available later this year (developers can sign up for a beta here). In short, this new platform is conceived from the ground up with HTML5 developers in mind and targets most cellular networks, not just AT&T’s…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP2iU04tb6w]

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Verizon Wireless’ Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo told attendees at a conference today that Verizon sold a total 4.2 million iPhones during the holiday quarter, according to Bloomberg. Interestingly, the numbers reported by Shammo show that Verizon more than doubled iPhone sales from the previous quarter, where they sold 2 million. This sales hike was likely helped by pent up demand for the iPhone 4S, a cheaper iPhone 4, and the influx of shoppers during the holidays.  Verizon’s previous iPhone sales were said by some to be a disappointment.

Apple’s fiscal Q1 earnings call is coming up on Jan. 24, where we will hear the total number of iPhones sold during the holiday quarter. We will also hear specific numbers from Sprint and AT&T in the coming weeks. Last quarter’s total amount of iPhones sold should blow out any previous quarters with some experts putting estimates as high as 35 million.

From 9to5Toys.com:

RadioShack is offering a $30 discount on all of their AT&T high end smartphones which obviously includes the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, starting Sunday and running until December 17th. The sale will bring the iPhone 4S 16GB down to $170 0n contract and the iPhone 4 16GB to $70 on contract. Also, if you use Radioshack’s trade-in program you can get the phones for free and even have some extra credit left over. Head over to your local store to take advantage of this sale.

Update: Word on the street is that Target is going to give $25 back on an iPhone purchase. (Thanks commenter)

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Digitimes’ latest report puts some numbers on the low end iPhones coming out of China.  The 2.5 year old iPhone 3GS has continued to sell briskly with the volume likely to reach two million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 1.4-1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to “industry sources”.

Think about that for a second.  In a world where a new, free Android flagship phone comes out every week or so and dying out a few months later, Apple is selling 2 million/quarter of a device that was introduced two and a half years ago.  This is the phone the original Droid went up against — in fact.

Verizon and conceivably other CDMA carriers in the world have also continued to sell the iPhone 4 CDMA version at an impressive clip.

Meanwhile, the production of the CDMA version of iPhone 4 is expected to top 800,000 to one million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 500,000-600,000 units in the following quarter, estimated the sources.

Image via ARS

Big news today (surprisingly on a 4 day US weekend).  The AT&T and T-Mobile merger was withdrawn from the FCC today.

 On November 23, 2011, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG electronically withdrew without prejudice, as of that date, the pending applications listed in the Public Notice released by the Federal Communications Commission on April 28, 2011 in that proceeding. Associated manual notification of withdrawal filings also are being made.

The two companies look to be pursuing an alternative plan…
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If you’re still trying to get your hands on the Sprint iPhone 4S, you’ve now got another outlet. According to internal documents we’ve obtained, RadioShack will be adding Apple’s latest handset to their Sprint lineup this weekend. Some stores should have stock now and many more will be getting it over the coming days. Unfortunately, if you want the 32 or 64 GB models, you may be out of luck, at least for now. According the documents we’ve seen, there is no indication that those models will be available at this time at Radio Shack.

The 16 GB model will be available in both black and white, and will be available at all stores that currently carry the iPhone, and stores that don’t typically carry the iPhone should be able to order it in. RadioShack has carried the iPhone 4 on Sprint since they started selling the 4S on Verizon and AT&T last month with a note that the Sprint 4S would be available at a later date, due to inventory issues.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bkeXPZhxBk]

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