iPhone Update: Carrier Wars And Two New Apps

Shailpik — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:32:03 +0000

As I said in my last post, the iPhone has been hotter than usual these past few days. With new carriers entering the foray globally (read the UK), the scene has gotten just that much more interesting. Since no one can claim that they have put stuff in the iPhone that the other guy cannot have, they can only win based on the strength of their own networks. And the apps just keep pouring in. We have two new apps to talk about in this post. Get to the other side for more.

Ding! First Round Of UK iPhone Battle

As you might know, Orange UK has recently started selling the iPhone and in response to this new competition Vodafone and O2 have gone in to defense mode. To keep more customers on its side, Vodafone sent out an email to all those who had registered with the carrier prior to the iPhone release, in which they claim that their’s is the network that is the fastest for the iPhone.

In a slightly surprising move, O2 has begun offering an unlocking service for the iPhones. No, they are not going to hack any iPhone you bring in but they will unlock their own iPhones at the end of a contract. They are going to charge a £15 fee for it and they are also warning that the process might take some time, as long as up to 14 days. Even though they are charging for it, it would seem like they are trying to ring up some customer good will by doing this. Once they have unlocked the iPhones, the customer can insert any SIM card in to their iPhone and start using it legitimately.

O2 has also asserted that they have seen tremendous growth in their data network. According to the company — data usage on their network has grown 20 times in the last 12 months, doubling every 4 months. They are also offering free home broadband to people who buy into the tethering option to use their iPhone as a wireless modem.

Analysts have also been quoted saying that the iPhone is the best way to make customers pay more, even in this recessive market. But Vodafone is surely on the right track because what iPhone users mainly want is network strength. They are paying an awful lot to get the connectivity and hence they expect a lot in return. [read]

Orange has only just started selling the phone, so it is too early to say anything about them. But as far as the response goes, it has been extremely positive. The company has tweeted saying that they have recorded more than 30,000 iPhones on the very first day. For a phone that has been launched months back, this is really good indeed. The Droid has sold 100,000 units through the first week and it is a newly launched phone that has gotten positive reviews. Orange’s free film-themed app has also received a lot of success, hitting the number on spot in the entertainment category and the number two spot on the free apps category.

Hilton iPhone Apps To Give You More Choices

Guests of the Hilton hotel might soon be able to check in remotely and have food waiting for them when they arrive through multiple apps being launched by Hilton. I say might because once they reveal the app, it will still have to go through the App Store’s approval process. These apps are going to give you many more options and will “help you manage your stay.” [read]

Taptu Goes Real Time

Taptu is already well loved for their friendly mobile-searching app and now they are about to kick things up a notch. They have partnered with the real time search engine OneRiot to bring you search results as they are unfolding across the web. [read]

Tags: apple, best iphone apps, iPhone, o2, Orange, uk, vodafone

How to reduce mobile phone bandwidth costs

Martin — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:11:41 +0000

Reducing the bandwidth costs of my mobile phone is one of my top priorities in this month. You might remember that I used my Nokia N73 as a modem to go online during my summer vacation which did cost me more than $400 for just a few hours of going online and writing articles. It was quite a shock that I was charged this much because I did ask O2 support how much it would cost me and they gave me a different answer at that time.

I decided to order a 200 Megabyte package for €10 after finding out about the bill which is enough to check for emails and write the occasional article. Bandwidth on the other hand is still a huge problem, just take a look at the size of some of the websites out there, they sometimes have a size of 100+ Kilobytes just for the homepage.

It is also possible to sign up for so called fair-use flatrates which give you a huge monthly quota (5000+ Megabytes for instance) but those are only available in selected countries at the moment. I’d like to share a few tricks that I use to reduce the traffic and the money that I have to pay monthly for using my mobile phone.

SMS: Use a free service like Cellity to reduce SMS costs. You pay a standard rate of €0.07 ($0.10) if the recipient is also using Cellity or €0.09 ($0.12) if he is not. Cellity is only available in selected countries in the moment but will soon go international. All you need to do is to download a small application and install it on your mobile phone to save costs.
Downloads: Reducing downloads from your mobile phone can make a huge difference at the end. Instead of downloading those ringtones, games and applications directly from your mobile phone you should consider the option to download them with your computer instead and transfer them to your mobile phone afterwards. You can save huge amounts of money this way if you download content regularly.
Another option would be if you have a mobile phone with Wi-Fi. Just connect to the Internet using a wireless connection from either your home or a public place and you will not have to pay for that bandwidth.
Using your mobile phone as a modem: The idea is to reduce bandwidth by removing unnecessary objects from Internet pages for instance. I decided to get rid of images and multimedia content completely. I did install a tool that checks my pop3 accounts displaying only the mail headers giving me the option to download only the mails that I want to read at that moment.
You should also make sure that automatic downloads and updates are disabled during that time.
Bargain for a better deal: Bargaining is a very effective method to gain a better deal or some bonuses. You could try to get a number of free sms per month from the provider if you either complain about their service or are in the position to renew the contract which is a powerful argument when dealing with your mobile phone company.

What’s your way of dealing with it ? Let me know if you have more tips that reduce the monthly mobile phone bill.

Tags: mobile phone, Nokia, nokia n73, o2, reduce mobile phone bill, sms

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