The Daily Dog for Friday, November 06, 2009

With any material change when it comes to wireless companies, it's almost expected that the other carriers will follow suit.  Case in point: Verizon's decision to raise their ETF (early termination fee) to $350 for smartphones and other "high-end" devices.  Within minutes of the announcement, Twitter and technology websites were buzzing about whether other carriers would pursue the same policy.

In a tweet from Sprint's official account today (seen in the picture above), the carrier confirmed that they aren't planning to make changes to their early termination fee.  So, that's one down, two more to go (AT&T, T-Mobile).  Anyone care to speculate on which direction they'll go?

Via: PhoneArena

Imagine hanging out somewhere, minding your own business, maybe checking email or texts on your iPhone, when suddenly this message pops up on screen:



If you have a pristine, fully sanctioned iPhone, you can breath easy. Those with jailbroken phones may want to pay attention to this, though: A Dutch hacker has figured out how to tunnel into jailbroken iPhones, via SSH, and remotely turn on the message, "Your iPhone's been hacked because it's really insecure! Please visit doiop.com/iHacked and secure your iPhone right now! Right now, I can access all your files."

Understandably, this shocked and unnerved some unsuspecting users in the Netherlands. But was it a random act of helpfulness by some magnanimous stranger? Not exactly. Once on, the alert didn’t go away until the user plunked down €5 via PayPal for instructions on how to remove the hack.

Luckily, the young man wasn’t a thief or data vandal, and no illicitly gotten info was pilfered. He was just a precocious opportunist looking to make some coin — or at least he was. His parents must’ve found out about his shenanigans, because he wound up posting the instructions for free, issuing an apology for this wacky scheme and returning the money. (Kind of like Mom marching you right back into the store to pay for that Snickers bar you pocketed, no?)

But how did he do this to begin with? Sometimes in the jailbreaking process, users forget to change the default root password on their iPhone. All he had to do was find such a handset in range. Scary stuff. Luckily, this guy wasn’t out to do damage. But the next guy might.

So consider this a PSA: If you’re going to break into that phone, don’t leave the backdoor open. Another hacker might follow you in.

Via: Engadget Mobile, TUAW, Ars Technica

The boys at the FCC have just given approval to the Dell Mini 3iX in US form factor - 3G on the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands, along with Wi-Fi.  It will offer a 3.5-inch touchscreen, 3G connectivity, GPS, a microSD card slot, and a 3.0-megapixel camera.  No word on what Android OS it will be running, but the hope is that it will run Android 2.0 "Eclair" out of the box (or some sort of newer Android build).

Though conventional logic states that the device will be heading to AT&T at some point in early 2010, I wouldn't hold my breath.  Yes, the fact that it passed through with 850/1900 MHz 3G bands is promising, but we've seen the same thing happen in the past.  My hope is that as time progresses, we'll get some leaked documentation from AT&T, but until that happens, I would recommend taking the thought with a grain of salt.  Pricing and availability have yet to be determined, but with the holiday shopping season heating up (Droid, Droid Eris, Behold II, and more), I'm a bit surprised that this phone isn't out on the market.

Stay tuned to PhoneDog.com - and our Droid-centric website, DroidDog.com - for more information.

Via: IntoMobile

Last but not least, we take a look at T-Mobile's third quarter earnings.  Step up to the plate, T-Mobile, it's your turn!

In the third quarter, the nation's fourth largest wireless carrier lost 77,000 net retail wireless customers, a dramatic turn from the 670,000 additions in the same quarter last year and the 325,000 in the second quarter.  T-Mobile lost a total of 140,000 postpaid subscribers in the quarter, and gained 63,000 prepaid subscribers in the same time period (hence the 77,000 number you see above).  T-Mobile's ARPU (average revenue per user) was at $47 in the third quarter, down from $48 in the prior quarter and $52 in Q3 of 2008.  Churn hovered at 2.4 percent, higher than the 2.2 percent reported in the second quarter of 2009 and flat when compared to the same timeframe last year.  Data ARPU sat at $10 for the third quarter; an increase from $9.90 in the previous quarter and $8.90 in Q3 of 2008.  The carrier had 32.14 million subscribers at the end of September.

T-Mobile blames the subscriber losses on fewer gross adds and more churn as a result of the FlexPay program, which allows those with credit-challenged backgrounds to obtain a wireless device on a two-year agreement.  One thing is universal across all of the financial reports released in the past few weeks, however: data revenue is going up.  As subscribers turn to smartphones and other data-centric devices, carriers are reaping the benefits, and it shows on paper.

Via: FierceWireless

Today's a big deal, whether you care about Android, iPhone, Verizon, AT&T, Motorola, or none of the above. The biggest wireless provider in the land is now selling Google-powered smartphones. With all due respect to Sprint and T-Mobile, both of whom I love, with Verizon in the game we'll really start to see whether or not US consumers have love for Android.

To that end, I present to you John Walton, PhoneDog Editor Extraordinare and Founder/Managing Editor of DroidDog.com.

Or, as I like to call him, the guy to whom I pose incendiary one-liner questions about Android.

Today's topic? Can Android really compete with Apple if Android apps are limited in size by the lack of internal memory on Android phones? Or, in other words, iPhone games and apps can get all big and crazy because iPhones have 8/16/32 GB of internal storage. Android apps can't get all big and crazy because they have to be saved to internal storage and there ain't no Droids I've seen with internal gigabytes of room. You want to play Myst or FIFA 10 on a mobile phone? That's a big app.

So, John, what's the deal? How will Google and Android developers cope with this limitation? Or is it really a limitation?

John's answer, of course, is yours for the taking on DroidDog.

And speaking of Johns weighing in on this topic, the ever-entertaining John Biggs weighed in over on MobileCrunch, as well.

Sure, they launched the Bold in white, but do you think that's going to stop them?  Of course not.  It looks as if the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is getting ready to be re-launched in white - at least the back part of the device.  Missing from the Curve 8900 iteration of the white color scheme is the matching keyboard (instead, they kept it black).  Considering the use that most keyboards go through, I think it's a smart idea.  Pricing and a release date aren't known as of yet, but I imagine that it will be priced somewhere near the current Curve 8900.

What do you think?  Good idea, or quick to get dirty?

Via: BGR

Carrier: Verizon Wireless
Retail Price: $299.99 or via ebay
Contract Price: $199.99 or via Lets Talk
Hot Features: Android OS, High-Res capacitive touchscreen, 5MP camera, slide-out full QWERTY keyboard

Carrier: Verizon Wireless
Retail Price: $199.99 or via ebay
Contract Price: $99.99 or via Lets Talk
Hot Features: Android OS, capacitive touchscreen, 5MP camera