Kristofer Brozio: testfreaks.com: AT&T HTC One Not Quite Compatible with HTC Media Link HD (Yet)

Marti Meyers: Ugh.

Jim Szymanski: I’ll say it again, and again, and again if need be. HTC makes some great hardware, but every one of their software engineers should get booted today. They are destroying the reputation of a good company. And when a software problem is detected, it takes a new HTC model to get it fixed. HTC could take some pointers from Nokia in the software development area. Make sure it works before you release it. And if despite that, there is still a problem, drop everything and focus all your attention on the current issue, for your current customers. Not for those who may buy your next One.

Murani Lewis: I seriously don’t understand how some people come to secure such positions and miss such obvious things. These are the types of things that simply require common sense to be caught and fixed.

Ramon Trotman: Sense…. Muahahahaaaa…. I see what you did just there.

Marti Meyers: Haha that was totally unintentional. But now funny

Comment now if you got the HTC One from AT&T!

I have always wondered why CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) phones exist. I do not see any benefits to a CDMA phone. Maybe one of our readers can really tell me why they would get a CDMA phone.  One of the biggest reasons I will NEVER buy a CDMA phone is because it is not really a world phone. I tend to travel a lot to different countries and when I have a fancy smartphone I intend to be able to use it easily wherever I am. This is not really possible with CDMA phones, however, with GSM (Golbal System for Mobiles) I can easily use my phone any where in the world. Just pop the sim out put a sim in from that country and I am good to go in a matter of minutes. With a CDMA phone good luck trying to find a CDMA carrier in other parts of the world and then go good luck getting service on your phone within minutes.

In the US there are three major CDMA carriers Verizon, Sprint and Metro and two GSM carriers T-mobile and ATT. So, CDMA phones do make up the majority of the phones in the United States I think and this just bothers me. Every other place in the world has a majority of GSM phones where as the USA which always wants to be different from everyone else still has CDMA phones as the majority! Is this just the US ego of saying we will be different because we want to be different? Like still using inches and feet and lbs and ounces while majority of the world uses the metric system which is hell of a lot simpler when converting to different units and trying to describe a measurement. For example WTF is 3 and 5/16ths of an inch? why not just use a decimal system like 84.15 millimeters. Anyways, this topic is for another day, back to CDMA phones.

As I am writing this article, I did some “CDMA vs. GSM” google searching and did not really come across any information that could explain to me why CDMA phones are better than GSM. Maybe our readers can knock some sense into my brain and enlighten me. Whenever I am considering of switching carriers I never even think about Verizon, Sprint, or Metropcs my only two options are ATT and Tmobile because I need the GSM capability to switch out sim cards when traveling.

While I patiently wait for AT&T to roll out the WP7.8 Part Deux update (to fix the the Part Un update) to fix the (or as Yogi would day, déjà vu all over again) Live Tile debacle one more time, I noticed that my Start screen is slowly turning into a display of static, dormant icons. You know, like the ever popular iPhone.

Let’s review, shall we.

Here is my Weather tile. Notice all the exciting detail it’s displaying. I have been using The Weather Channel since 2010, but the first day the tile stopped updating, I noticed it was doing that little chatter thing when it tried (but failed) to flip. And my research indicated that would cause a serious battery drain issue (a bonus problem to go along with the broken tile updates. So, TWC has been temporarily uninstalled, just to be safe. I hoped that AccuWeather would update when I installed it, but that was not to be. Now I have to open the app and wait for the first page to load before I can see the temperature. Nearly 5 seconds to find out if it’s going to rain today. So 2005ish.  

Here is my equally exciting CNN Tile. This space used to be reserved for my USA Today tile. But when that tile stopped updating, I uninstalled the app and went to the Marketplace to reinstall, only to find that the official USA Today app had been pulled. Dirty rat bastards they are indeed.

Here is the front and back of my Weave tile. It’s still flipping (without any chatter) but that same kid has been doing whatever he is doing for about a week now. Getting a bit tired.

And this is my Pro Sports Scores tile. It should be noted that Pro Sports Scores does not use the new method of updating tiles every 30 minutes. They use a dedicated Push server, which can update the app every 30 seconds and uses those Registry Endpoint things. So this problem is bigger than a little glitch. This tile died on about the same day as the tiles noted above. So it’s a similar problem affecting multiple methods of updating. Oh, and that Devils-Jets game. It was played on Sunday, March 10th. At least I get to see see the Devils winning a game. That has not happened much lately.

And finally my SportsScores tile. It flips, but hasn’t updated since, let me check, since Thursday, March 7th. Yeah, that’s a Yankee exhibition game there. Oh, and this is another Push Live Tile app.

All of my local updatable tiles, meaning tiles that don’t rely on a connection to update, are still working fine; Clever-To-Do, Lists & Things, Network Dashboard. Mehdoh, Folders and Battery Meter. I am also still getting notifications on apps like Sports Calendar & Package Tracker. Interestingly though, Urban Dictionary and Fox News still appear to be updating fine. And yes, all my Background Tasks for the associated tiles are turned on and active.

Once again, I am sure developers are going to catch some crap for their tiles not updating. And just like last time, this is totally out of their control.

After reading today’s staff notify thread about Lumia 920 users having connection problems after the latest Nokia/AT&T update, I am not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about whatever it is AT&T is doing to “test” the WP7.8 Update/Fix. Non-branded Lumia devices have been enjoying their Live Tiles (again) for a couple weeks now. When will it be my (our) turn.

I didn’t buy an iPhone. And I don’t want my Lumia turning into one.

HTC had forecasted that their 2013 flagship Android device would arrive on US carriers towards the end of April. Well they have certainly seemed to hit that target with today’s announcement from the carriers. You can pick up the 32GB option for $199 on both carriers. The 64GB option is exclusive at launch to AT&T and can be purchased for $299. That price seems to suggest that not only will the HTC One beat the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the market but it will be considerably cheaper. I’ve actually giving a lot of thought to picking this phone up. I’ve held and played with the iPhone 5 and the BlackBerry Z10 and this looks to make the Z10 feel cheap and dull by comparison. Anyone else picking this phone up?

Don’t forget that HTC is offering a $100 Cash Back offer if you pre-register for the device. You can get even more if your trade-in value of your old phone is greater than $100. Stay tuned as I will be updating this post as T-Mobile and Verizon finalize and announce their launch plans.

The Galaxy S4 will be making its debut on the AT&T network soon. Pre-orders will go live on April 16th with the cost to pre-order running a cool $249.99 with a two-year commitment. For additional info you can visit http://www.att.com/galaxys4

Source: Engadget via AT&T Consumer Blog

Yesterday there were quite a few articles on how poorly the BlackBerry Z10 had been selling on Amazon. At that time the Z10 had failed to even crack the top 100 list of best sellers. As of right now the Z10 is listed as the 20th best selling phone on Amazon Wireless from AT&T. That is quite the leap for one day.

Source: Amazon Wireless

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or living your life, you might have missed the news that the BlackBerry Z10 launches on carriers AT&T (tomorrow 3/22) and T-Mobile (3/26?) and Verizon (3/28) by the end of March. AT&T pre-orders started on March 12, and Verizon 2 days later. T-Mobile opened up pre-orders for business customers but not regular consumers. With recent reports of how well BlackBerry sales had been exceeding expectation in previous launch markets the hope was that BlackBerry would continue to build on momentum and positive reports to take back marketshare in the U.S.

The latest round of reports paint a more sobering picture. Instead of long lines of consumers camping out it appears if you are in the market for a BlackBerry Z10 you will have a good chance to walk into your local carrier store and pick up a device. Checks indicate U.S. consumer pre-orders for the BlackBerry Z10 “have been light and well below expectations,” says Detwiler Fenton’s Jeff Johnston.

Are you getting a Z10 on day one? Are you even going to give it a try? I’ll be checking out the device and putting it through it’s paces tomorrow and will also gauge consumer reaction. I’m looking forward to see if the device really is as intuitive as people claim and how the RSPs present the Z10 as an option when a customer hasn’t made their mind up before walking into the store.

The daily rumor mill now points to the AT&T BlackBerry Z10 release to happen on March 22nd. That is a full week later than I reported just yesterday. In my Thursday Tech Thoughts post I wrote posed the question whether the BlackBerry Z10 & HTC One were in trouble because the phones won’t be released until after the Galaxy S4 announcement is made. The major point to my position is that Samsung’s Galaxy S brand has grown to rival Apple’s iPhone. The same rules apply that if you’re going to release a phone in a competing time period you’d best do it before the announcement of the bigger brand is made. I believe that both the Z10 and the HTC One will suffer from not getting on shelves before Samsung’s announcement.

Well now I’m hearing that not only will the BlackBerry Z10 not be released pre-Galaxy S4 announcement they will miss the window by a full week. Will that hurt sales? Definitely yes. It is no longer a question of if but by how much. BlackBerry has done a terrific job getting the Z10 outfitted with the latest technology so any mainstream feature that is brought to the market in the next year the Z10 will be able to handle it. The issue here is that the Z10 is a new beast. Don’t get caught up in stories that paint the picture a significant portion of users who have bought the Z10 are iPhone and Android converts. The same held true with Windows Phone. When your sales are only a couple hundred thousand to a couple million percentages fluctuate more easily. Also of note is that several reporters have posed the question of how many of these supposed converts were previous BlackBerry owners who returned to the platform. Even granting that the percentage of converts is true (I have no reason to doubt it) there are a few caveats to these sales notes going forward.

There is a reason why BlackBerry released the Z10 first in the U.K. and Canada. These are the two areas that the BlackBerry brand hasn’t gone to hell. When you add in the fact BlackBerry is a Canadian company with strong and deep nationalist support you’d expect for them to do well there. It is the same for Samsung in Korea and Nokia in Finland. Heck, Apple does far better in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. This leads me to my second caveat and is really the more important and damaging to BlackBerry’s prospects by missing the pre-Galaxy S4 launch window. The U.S. is a me-too nation. People love to be part of the populist and are less willing to stand out from the crowd. In the U.S. it is the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and everything else.

The BlackBerry Z10 will be caught up in the massive marketing campaign for the Galaxy S4. Carrier sales reps will be well versed in the best that Android has to offer and people know the brand. Samsung has recognized what Apple had years ago. If you want something done right do it yourself. Depending on the carrier to properly market your device is asking for poor sales. Ask Nokia. They released an awesome phone in the Lumia 920 but in the U.S. you don’t see any Nokia created marketing at all. Yes they do tons of internet and social marketing but where is the TV ads that keeps the phone in front of the majority of Americans sitting in front of their tv screen. I see more HTC 8X commercials from carriers than Lumia 920. I am sure BlackBerry is prepared to market the device significantly. I just hope that a major part of that plan is to rely on carriers but sadly I believe it will be.

Samsung will spend at least 500 million on the marketing of the Galaxy S4 throughout 2013. I need no other basis than to cite the massive and consistent marketing the company did for the Galaxy S3 and the success the device had. Samsung has made it clear that 2013 they will be even bolder about marketing their products. BlackBerry, like HTC, can’t compete with that because they simply don’t have the financial resources. BlackBerry would need to change people’s minds and that is incredibly expensive to do. You have to spend something like 10x the amount of money on switching somebody to your product. People don’t like to switch once they make a choice. Tens (Maybe 100s of millions) have made the choice that the Galaxy S flagship device line is what they like and want in a phone. BlackBerry launching March 22nd puts it squarely in the path of the avalanche of Samsung Galaxy S4 marketing and that is not an enviable position to be in.

I’ll be updating this article later today or tomorrow once I do my rounds at local (Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX) area of carrier stores and gauge their opinion of the upcoming Z10. Stay tuned.

For Sale Mint Condition HTC Titan and Accessories!!!  So I’ve decided to get away from Windows Phone. My contract expired a few months ago with AT&T and I’ve been trying to get a Nokia 920, I even went to the AT&T store earlier this morning ready to buy a 920 and they have no 920s in stock and they don’t know when or if they’ll be getting more. I want the 920, there are two stores within a few minutes driving from me and neither have the 920os in stock, and yes they are official AT&T stores. The one I was at this morning, the guy was actually honest with me about it and said he didn’t know when or if he’ll be getting more in. The other store just lied to me over and over again, they kept telling me early next week we’ll have them in, and nope they never got them in. I stopped several times when they told me their shipment would be in, and nope none came in.

I stopped over Amazon to see what they had in stock ready to ship, the 920s seems to be in stock, but I don’t want to wait. I also looked at prices on other things and see they’re much lower than the AT&T site is.

I’ve just decided to go back to Android. I’ve had two Windows Phones since the new OS came out and I liked them and one would think that the OS would have matured by now, but the stuff I want just isn’t available for it yet and I’m tired of waiting. The stuff I used on Android I want to be able to use on Windows Phone but the companies just don’t seem to care about supporting it, at least that’s how it seems to me. I can’t do on my Windows phone what I could do on my Android phone. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Windows Phone OS, but the support is just too lacking from what I can see. After using two Windows Phones I’ve found that I miss Android honestly. Apps that are available on iOS and Android cannot be found on Windows Phone. It’s been out for a while now so one would think the apps might catch but apparently not.

I went to the AT&T site and checked out my upgrade options, I was browsing around I was really thinking of the Galaxy S III, but I don’t want to pay $200 for a phone, never have, never will. (Amazon has the S3 for only $140 for me as an upgrade, so I may go that route) As I was browsing though there are ads on the sidebar for other phones and I saw the HTC One X for only 99 cents, and I thought what the hell, why not?! For that price, that sounds good to me. I was all ready to go, but apparently it just wasn’t meant to be…

So I clicked the ‘View Details’ and it says the phone isn’t available in my area. That’s the gray color, but if I look at the black color HTC One X it is available in my area but it’s $199.99. I don’t understand it, why advertise a phone to me and then tell me I can’t have it?! Why is the gray only 99 cents but the black is $200? There’s no difference, just the color.

So I give up, I guess I’ll get a new phone someday, but just not today apparently, it’s just not in the cards for me. I don’t think it will be a Windows phone really, I think I just have to go back to Android and maybe revisit Windows at a later date.

There is no doubt that smart phones have greatly aided us to be more efficient at our jobs. No one knows this more than me. I use my AT&T iPhone 5 daily to conference with my International clients and respond to emails in the evening hours because of the time difference. With my exchange email account I can reply back at all times of the night. It is part of the job. I use Skype for voice calls to save lots of money, the camera and a VERY handy little app called My Measures that allows me to take pictures of our products and add measurements to them to interact with our engineers. So we are all good with the idea of a smart phone being pretty handy right?

Of course smart phones can be a major distraction as well. Everyone knows this as well as a lot of employers that ban or prohibit personal cell phones during work hours. So why would AT&T promoting apathy at the workplace? Check out this ad I just saw on Facebook:

AT&T is suggesting that if you are in a long conference call on company time that you should take advantage of not being directly involved or noticed by colleagues on the other side of the call to screw off and play Words with Friends. I think AT&T has a lot bigger problems than promoting this sort of thing and should concentrate on their network issues for starters. Drop a comment and let us know what you think. Is this responsible for AT&T to promote?