After kicking off the launch of its new Bing experience on desktop last week to early adopters, Microsoft has released the new Bing and Edge iOS apps with its AI ChatGPT integration in preview. Along with that, the AI-powered Bing is available in the latest iOS Skype release.
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In what was a notable change this summer, Apple opted to not remove the dedicated Apple Events channel on Apple TV after WWDC 2015 as it has done several weeks after media events in the past. Instead the Apple Events channel has become a permanent app on the Apple TV, serving as a central spot for viewing prior major product announcements without relying on searching the YouTube channel (which has since been removed from Apple TV 2 boxes).
Ahead of prior events, though, the reappearance of the Apple Events channel has been a bit of a ritual that drums up excitement and signals that Apple is indeed livestreaming its upcoming event. Apple has recently moved to livestreaming every event (in the past it was not guaranteed) and we already knew tomorrow’s iPhone 6S and Apple TV 4 event would be broadcasted live, but there’s still a pre-event change on the Apple Events channel awaiting Apple TV users.
Just hours before the iPhone 6S announcement kicks off in San Francisco, Apple has refreshed the Apple Events channel with a new icon matching the event teaser artwork and more.
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T-Mobile has today unveiled what it hopes will be the next-generation of network maps, breathing new life into the carrier coverage maps of old. T-Mobile says that its new “Next-Gen Network Map” is the industry’s first crowd-sourced map, and reflects “near real-time customer experiences.”
Sprint is readying its own program that allows customers to roll in the cost of phone hardware in their monthly bill, according to CNET. Sprint’s program is reportedly called One Up, and it works in a similar fashion to the recently launched AT&T Next, T-Mobile Jump, and Verizon Edge initiatives.
All of the carrier programs principally work the same, with a few nuanced differences. Sprint’s One Up lets customers pick up a phone with no money down and pay for the device in 24 monthly installments. A phone that costs $649.99, for instance, will cost $27 a month (with the difference tacked on to the 24th payment). If a customer leaves the service early, that person is on the hook for the balance of the device cost, due the following month.
Unlike with a typical U.S. carrier contract, Sprint’s new program (like those from the other U.S. carriers) will allow customers to upgrade to a new device every year. The (subsidized) cost of the phone will be divided up into 24 installments and added to the customer’s monthly bill. A customer can trade-in that current hardware towards the new phone that they would like to upgrade to.
Notably, the new Sprint One Up program is claimed to launch on September 20th, which just so happens to be the launch date of the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.
In a move that follow’s T-Mobile’s recently launched “un-carrier” initiatives, Verizon Wireless plans to debut a new “VZ Edge” program aimed at retaining its customer base, according to a leaked presentation slide posted by Droid-Life.
Specific details on the new approach are currently slim, but, based on the slide, it seems that the essence of Verizon’s plan is to merge T-Mobile’s new JUMP and pay-for-a-device-overtime programs. T-Mobile’s JUMP program, with a $10 monthly fee, allows users to upgrade to a new handset twice a year.
Marketed as a plan to “stay on the leaning edge of technology,” this new Edge program seems to be similar. T-Mobile also allows customers to put a down payment on a phone and then pay the cost overtime, and Edge seems to provide a similar solution.
Edge will also allow customers to upgrade to a new phone once the device if 50% paid off, and this seems to be similar to T-Mobile requiring users of the JUMP plan to have already paid 6 months of service for their current device.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijlPC2THVVI]
With the introduction of the new LTE iPad on Verizon and AT&T, many were wondering whether AT&T’s 3G network would work on a new Verizon iPad. According to a poster on the Mac Rumors forums, popping an AT&T SIM card into the Verizon iPad’s micro-SIM slot appears to work fine as long as you adjust the AT&T APN carrier settings. Of course, this does not mean you will be able to use AT&T’s LTE network on the Verizon iPad. However, if you already have an AT&T SIM for the iPhone, this is an alternative for data when LTE is not an option.
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