AT&T

Dear AT&T, I’m Going To Purchase One of Your New Microcells, but Let’s Not Act As If You’re Doing Me Any Favors, Okay?

AT&T’s Microcell. You get great reception. AT&T gets to double dip. As you may have read elsewhere on the web AT&T is rolling out Microcells that will solve many of the reception issues people have at home. That is, assuming they already have a highspeed Internet connection. You see, the Microcell will allow you to connect to your high-speed Internet service and then have your iPhone or any other AT&T cell phone jump on the data connection from your cable company and route calls through it. This will, in turn, improve your cell reception because you won’t be using AT&T’s…


Flip AT&T’s Control over the Backflip

If you bought a Moto Backflip, you probably noticed the odd use of Yahoo Search over Google, and the incredible amount of AT&T bloatware included on the device. Unfortunately, short of rooting it there’s not much you can do about either of those, but AT&T did something far worse to the Backflip that you WILL want to change. Every other Android phone offers an option to install apps from outside the marketplace. Sometimes it is a beta (like the Swype keyboard beta), other times it is things like PDANet, a tethering utility, that isn’t sold through the marketplace. If you…


AT&T Wants to Know about Your Network Problems

AT&T has released a new program for the iPhone called “AT&T Mark the Spot”. The purpose of the program is to help you, as an AT&T customer, report network outages, issues, and dead spots. In this release AT&T makes it really simple to report problems. It will capture your GPS location or you can submit about a location not specifically where you are at. The app has some basic things it wants to know: Is it a dropped call, failed call, no coverage, data failure, or poor voice quality problem? Does it happen once, seldom, often, or always? You can…


Impressions on Windows Mobile 6.5 and the AT&T Pure Windows Phone

This is a joint review between Wayne and me. Wayne is primarily a Blackberry and iPhone user, and he has also dabbled in Android, Palm, Windows Mobile and WebOS. I am primarily an iPhone and Nokia / Vertu user, with an extensive background in Palm and Windows Mobile. We were recently sent the new HTC Pure Windows Phone to review, because it is one of the first of several new Windows Phones to use the new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. Wayne’s comments will be the ones in black; mine will be in blue italics. Microsoft unleashed an upgrade to…


iPhone/AT&T Feature Checklist… MMS- CHECK! VOiP Over 3G – CHECK! Tethering – NOPE!

I am still a bit surprised by AT&T’s sudden decision to allow VOiP over 3G. Happy but surprised. Sure the decision might just be an attempt to deflect some of the mounting criticism over lousy service (30% of calls in NYC are dropped!!) and numerous conflicts over apps like Google Voice and Slingbox. But no matter what the reason, I’ll take. AT&T has had a good couple of week. First they finally got MMS pushed out to iPhones. Now 3G VOiP. What’s next?? Perhaps tethering? NOPE! Don’t expect it any time soon. Here’s why… According to a Wall Street journal…


Samsung Epix Review

I’ve been a Blackjack user (on and off) since May of 2007.  I absolutely love the form factor, 320×240 screen, QWERTY keyboard, and (nearly) one handed operation. I liked it so much, that I used it for well over 9 months, which for me, is an eternity. I change devices about every 7 months on average.  So how does the AT&T/Samsung Epix (sometimes called the Blackjack 3) stand up?  Let’s take a quick look and see… The Epix and the BJ 1 – The Epix has a bigger screen and slightly more compact keys


E-TEN V900 WM6.1 Device Review

I’ve been very fortunate to have a wonderful working relationship with the folks over at E-TEN, now part of the Acer family.  The folks associated with the Glofiish mobile devices have been wonderful to work with, and have been very generous. Over the years, they have been kind enough to send me a number of devices to review. Recently, we reviewed the Glofiish X800, Glofiish X650, and we gave away the X800. It was all very exciting.  Recently, Acer sent us the Glofiish V900.  I’ve been using it for a while and its been an interesting go.  How interesting..?  Let’s…


The iPhone 3G as a Business Tool – Part 3

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been looking at the iPhone 3G as a business tool. It’s been an interesting time. I’ve gotten quite a large number of comments on the iPhone OS and its advantages and challenges in the Enterprise and in a business environment. Last week’s comments on Calendaring, also in the Enterprise and in a business environment, created quite the off line discussion among the Gear Diary Team. Some of those comments have required me to go back and readdress some issues in this week’s commentary. If you remember, I said that I was going to tackle…