AT&T discontinuing HTC First!?

The Facebook phone, otherwise known as the HTC First, is not doing so well, guys. First released just over a month ago on April 12th, the phone is the first Android device to have Facebook’s interface- Facebook Home- preloaded.

The phone, once in critic’s and customer’s hands, was given overall generally positive reviews, especially for a low-end phone. The downsides were also duly noted by all, in particular a less than stellar camera with limited functionality, and the fact that your phone and therefore life was now taken over by Facebook. The phone actually encourages 25% more time on Facebook. eek.

Now, the end seems just a little nigh for the HTC First. On May 13th AT&T started selling the phone at a discount. Instead of paying $99 for the phone on a two year contract- now it’s just $0.99. If you wanted to pay for the phone off contract, you’re looking at a $100 price cut from $450 to $350. Take that anyone who bought the phone on the 12th!

The price cut is apparently due to poor sales, with less than 15,000 phones being sold since the phone’s launch and less than 1 million people downloading the Facebook Home interface for their Android phones.

Although this has yet to be confirmed, according to the guys at website BGR.com (who have secret AT&T sources, d’uh), AT&T has made the decision to discontinue the phone altogether, selling off as many units as they can before sending any unsold inventory back to HTC.

I’m fighting back tears, here.

But, it’s ok guys, really it is. It’s not the end of the line for Facebook Home! The Android interface is still available to download, and both the App and the joint App + device marriage will, after a bit of tweaking, be back. And better, maybe. And available on iOS at… well… some point. If we want it.

Until then, you can just  click on that little blue F whenever you want to, and spend that 25% of your time like, dancing instead. Yay!

Image courtesy of BGR.com

Tuesday Deals

Here at iPhone Antidote, we care about you! Well, we mostly care about you in relation to iPhones and Apple stuff, but we care a lot about that.

So here are some deals for you guys to keep an eye out for right now. Whether it be your first time delving into the Apple iPhone world, or if you need to replace a stinky old/broken iPhone (and we all remember what to do with that stinky old iPhone once you get a shiny new one right? Am I right? Here’s a hint- it starts with…um, us. )

T-mobile currently offers shiny new iPhone 5s for a low low $99 with financing, Sprint is offering $100 off for new iPhone customers switching from another carrier, and there are very (very) strong rumors that Verizon are about to start a new promotion reducing the iPhone 5 by $100 around the end of the month.

If it’s not appropriate or even if it doesn’t feel right to be switching carriers right now, and you’re already on contract, we’ll soon be talking about the upsides of upgrading within contract, when, how and why you should do it.

Photo courtesy of The Security Auditor

Bidding War for Sprint

Sprint, America’s number three wireless carrier is in the middle of a bidding war for 70% of their corporation.

In October last year Japanese company SoftBank announced that it was lodging a 20.1 billion dollar bid to buy a 70% stake in Sprint Nextel, with the intention post-sale that Sprint would remain a separate entity within SoftBank.

Sprint agreed on the sale, and the deal was expected to be finalized in the second quarter of this year. Unexpectedly jumping in on the deal and essentially starting a bidding war is Dish Network Coorporation ( America’s second biggest satellite TV provider).

On April 15th, Dish offered a counter bid of 25.5 Billion Dollars. So… more money pretty much always wins, right?

Not always. In this particular situation, the choice is made more complicated by the future intentions of both SoftBank and Dish- what can they offer Sprint apart from the original bid price?

SoftBank, a Tokyo based company, has advised investors since the opposing Dish bid that they have the intention- and the ability – to ensure Sprint $3 billion in annual operating savings by 2017.  They have also advised that once merged, the companies will be able to cut Sprint’s capital spending by 32 percent to 36 percent.

Dish’s bid is attractive because of the size of it- a few extra billion dollars does go a long way. Dish posted their first quarter revenue results recently and it showed what seems to be a slowing market- which means that Dish is super keen to use Sprint to expand into the mobile phone industry.

Dish would also want the two companies to merge their marketing and other business teams in order to save money, purportedly around 11 billion dollars, but according to sources familiar with the proposed deal there are those at Sprint who are uncomfortable with this, and unsure of Dish’s ability to guarantee financing for the 9 billion dollars it needs to secure the bid.

Both Dish and SoftBank have come out fighting, with SoftBank going so far as to try to force investment banks not to finance Dish’s bid, threatening no role in the upcoming IPO of Alibaba, a company of which they have one third ownership.

Whoever they go with, Sprint is looking to return to profitability after it’s 2005, 36 Billion dollar purchase of Nextel communications which led to billions of dollars of debt. The extra bid from Dish has excited investors with a rise in Sprint’s share prices by 1.4 percent, and there are many who are expecting the bidding war to rage on way into the second quarter.

We’ll keep you up to date with whoever has the winning bid- and what that means for you if you are a sprint customer ( We’re cautiously predicting only good things btw).

Image courtesy of Forbes.

Progress on the campaign against the ban on unlocking phones

Some good news today-

The ‘We the People’ protest campaign against the banning of unlocking phones has been somewhat successful, in that it has garnered the amount of signatures required in order to receive an official response from the Whitehouse. The response, as with all official responses to ‘We The People’ campaigns will come in a ‘timely fashion’, so until then, we wait.

Or do we? Even better than the recognition  and hope that comes with an official response – the campaign has caught the attention of the Chairman of the FCC- the Federal Communications Commission.

Although the Chairman, Julius Genachowski, is not wholly aware of what authority he has in the matter, he is very concerned that the ban ‘ raises competition concerns, raises innovation concerns’ and will be looking into reversing the ban if possible.

This is an ongoing issue that we will keep you up to date on!!

iPhone going to Mainland China? Maybe soon

Apple Inc. is in talks with China Mobile to take the next iPhone to mainland China, thanks to a next-gen Qualcomm chip in the iPhones compatible with China Mobile’s innate 3G technology.

Telecom Giant China Mobile to go Apple way! At last

You may be thinking; what took China Mobile so long to bring in the iPhones? Well, the main problem for the World’s biggest telecom service provider is technical constraints of their indigenous 3G technology.

China Mobile which already boasts of the largest customer base in the world is in talks with Apple to bring in the iPhone to the Dragon country. According to latest news, Xi Guohua, Chairman China Mobile had confirmed to the shareholders that they are ‘actively cooperating’ with Apple Inc to make the collaboration possible. Though he declined to divulge further details, this can be looked upon as an effort to compete against the rivals—China Telecom and China Unicom who have already struck  deals with Apple earlier.

Reports further suggests that China Mobile is looking to venture to Hong Kong with 4G services—which could be the first instance China Mobile would be going outside mainland China.

China Mobile going International

Are we going to have another Chinese International Giant? Maybe , as China Mobile Chairman Xi made their intentions pretty clear in a recent interview. He confirmed that they have already for license to operate in United States and are hoping to have the clearances soon. The Chinese giant already having a customer base of 667 million is looking to try out with LTE mobile network with 850 BTS all over China by as early as June 2013.

Though only time can tell if iPhone gets into mainland; China Mobile is certainly having a great run at the Hang Seng Index—their stocks are already up by 13% compared to last year.

A Prepaid iPhone Coming Soon?

First came God, then Steve Jobs, then came the iPhone. We all know that the iPhone is an amazing and beautiful thing.

However.

Whilst every little rumor heard about the next upgrade or new iPhone release is leapt on with glee, there is one part of the market that Apple needs to, and indeed may be looking into entering.

A huge percentage of the world, and an estimated 70 million Americans use pre-paid phone plans, (otherwise known as pay-as-you go), rather than what is the main billing/buying method here in the states, and Apple’s only official method -post-paid, or simply put- chain yourselves to a carrier for a few years, then, good consumer, you get an iphone.

The advantage of the post pay contract is that, yeah, you get a ‘free’ iPhone.  But it’s not really free is it? No matter how much you use your phone, you pay the same rate every month, it involves credit checks,  early termination fees are applicable, there is no discourse if you happen to lose your job or can’t pay the monthly fee anymore. Prepaid, is easy, you pay for what you use, and if you can’t afford it one month, well, you find out where the closest payphone is.

There were rumors last year, and continuing this year that Apple is looking at releasing a very basic iPhone specifically for the pre-paid market, but until then- there are still options.

But… surely you can’t expect us to pay for an iPhone outright? Right?

Yeah, you’re right. Unless you’re lucky enough to be able to drop a few hunnids to do this, there is a huge phone market on eBay. You can buy cheap second hand/as new iPhones everyday, or if you’re really smart, wait until just after the new release- everyone wants to get rid of their stinky old iPhone so they can get the new one.

Stinky old iPhone? It’s fine! eBay is a buyers market, and if you don’t get what you paid for you’ll be looked after. But most of the time, you get a great, recycled, as-new iPhone. It’s even environmentally friendly! Kind of.

Now to the tricky part. Most iPhone’s on eBay are going to be locked.  This means that you may not be able to use your previous carrier.

Insurmountable Problems? Nah.

Yes, most of the iPhones from the US on eBay are locked, but you always have the option of looking further afield-  find an international seller as they tend to have unlocked ones- think Hong-Kong, Australia, Greece.

Walmart now sells pre-paid Sim cards by StraightTalk. $45 a month unlimited voice and Data and No contract. If you have  picked up a locked iPhone, they also apparently even show you how to unlock it.

Verizon, T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile also offer pre-paid sim packages for unlocked phones.

Another option is H2O Wireless’ iPhone unlimited plan. H2o offers 3 different plans ( $40/ month unlimited talk and text, $50/month unlimited talk, text and 250mb data or $60/month unlimited talk, text and 3G/4G.) and you don’t need to unlock your iPhone.

The great thing about this is that the technology becomes available to more people, and until Apple makes an iPhone that is cheap enough to become part of the pre-paid market- be smart, look at your options, and you can still have an iPhone, just on your own terms.

Cancel Your T-Mobile Contract With No Fee!

If you act soon you should be able to cancel your T-Mobile contract with no early termination fee (ETF).

As it turns out, T-Mobile recently introduced a limit on the amount of domestic off-network data (roaming data) whereas previously there was no limit.

What this means is that if you call into T-Mobile and cancel your service you should be able to actually cancel your service without paying an early termination fee.  Make sure you act fast however, as the service change happened at the end of February and there is only a limited time to call and cancel regarding the change in data plans.

Hope this helps out

Here is a link to a more in depth post on a forum

AT&T Will Unlock Your iPhone if You are Off Contract!

AT&T will now finally allow you to unlock your iPhone starting today.  This is a really great change for anyone that is currently using AT&T as their service provider and has had their iPhone long enough that they are off contract (essentially eligible for an upgrade).

Having an unlocked iPhone is great for several reasons.  One of the biggest being that the iPhone is actually worth more than a “locked” iPhone.  So if you were to sell your iPhone, you would likely be able to get more money for selling your iPhone.  Additionally, you will have the availability to switch carriers to another GSM carrier such as T-Mobile.  And another final benefit that is great is the availability to use your iPhone in different countries with local carriers (previously you would need to use AT&T as your sole service provider which would be much more expensive).

You can unlock your iPhone at an AT&T store, or even via online chat.  The only information that you need to unlock your iPhone is your IMEI number which is located in Settings -> General -> About  on your iPhone.

Once you have finished the process, Apple actually emails the unlock code for your iPhone to your email address.  Then simply unlock your iPhone using the code!

Should be really valuable for a lot of people!  Hope this helps!

How to Get Out of Your Sprint Contract without Paying an Early Termination Fee

Have you been itching to leave Sprint, but you are still on contract?  As it turns out, their terms and conditions have changed recently, and this may mean that you can get out of your Sprint cell phone contract without paying the dreaded early termination fee (or ETF).

This is applicable for people on family plans and have a discount applied on their account.  Basically what Sprint has done is that they have decided that only the first line of your family plan will be able to have a discount (not the additional plans), whereas previously, they did give this discount.  Since this discount will raise most people’s plans prices each month, there are opportunities to get out of your contract without paying the ETF.

Call the Sprint Consumerist Hotline (703-433-4401) and tell them that you would like to cancel your service because of the increase on your bill regarding your discount on your family plan lines.  Make sure to mention that since this is an increase of your bill on your contract, that you do not need to pay the early termination fee.  They should know about this, and if they do not, ask to speak to a manager.  This will be valid as long as they are made aware within 45 days of the change.  Make sure you have a new carrier to port your number to after you cancel your Sprint service.

Enjoy your savings and don’t worry about paying any of the dreaded ETF!

How to Pre-Date your Phone Bill and Avoid Overages

Uh oh.  It happened.  You sent too many texts, used too much data, or called too many people.  Don’t worry, as long as you haven’t actually been billed for the usage, you can actually predate your bill with AT&T.

This can come in particularly handy if you are trying to “get by” with the smallest cell phone service package, if you are traveling and didn’t upgrade to an international or roaming package, or if you just happened to use your phone a little bit more than normal this month.

The process is surprisingly easy, but many people still don’t know that it is an option, and end up paying hundreds, even thousands, in overage fees (international data is billed at a staggering $20,000/GB as opposed to the normal $12.5/GB for domestic data).

First go to https://www.att.com/wireless/ and login to your wireless account.  Then click “My AT&T” and then continue to “Wireless”.  At this point, if you are on a family plan, make sure that you are on the phone number that you want to change the rate plan for.  Click “Manage Features”.

Now you are able to select the features that you want to have on your account (or wished you had at the beginning of this billing period).  Choose the features which you want, and click continue at the bottom.

This brings you to a new page where you are asked to “Select an Effective/Expiration date”.  Now you have the option of three choices:

1) Backdate to the beginning of your billing period

            This is really great in case you are already over your limit for your bill.  This is the primary situation where you can save a considerable amount of money. Say goodbye to cell phone overages!

2) Make effective today

            If you know you are about to start using your phone more, or going traveling starting today, this is the option for you.

3) Future date to the next billing period

            This option is great for those who are well prepared, and don’t want to worry about going over in the future.  Unfortunately, you cannot choose a specific date for the features to be enacted, so you either need to future date it to the next billing period or wait until you actually need the features and choose “Make effective today”