I love my iPhone. In fact, I’ve loved every iPhone Apple has launched since the first model was unveiled in 2007. Slowly but surely, Apple has introduced new features and eliminated upon almost every major gripe people had with iOS to push the limits of what we expect from a modern smartphone, and also to keep the platform on par with or even ahead of the competition. Copy and paste, MMS, background apps, multitasking, notifications, folders and much more have been added over time. There is one thing that makes me hate my iPhone every single day though, and I hope Apple is going to address it soon. I need more control over my alerts.

I really wish Apple would create an area in settings, or even add on to the notifications options, to allow users to set custom alert settings for different things. For instance, I’d love it if I could have different profile modes with settings for vibrate, ring, volume and ringtone much like how RIM’s BlackBerry phones have worked for ages. And there’s plenty of room for improvement beyond what RIM is doing in its BlackBerry OS… just look at how great Motorola’s Smart Actions feature is. Apple could totally take this one step further and allow location-based profiles for alerts, system settings, and more. When I get home, I want Bluetooth to turn off automatically, and I want my alert profile to change, for instance.

I might want my phone to vibrate for almost all alerts, and sometimes I want my phone ring as well. Sometimes I want everything to be on silent and have my phone ring only if it’s a certain person calling or messaging me. I just want more control over how my phone acts in this respect — it’s something that is half-assed in its current state. Sure, you can set custom alert tones for SMS and iMessage, and you can set custom ringers for specific contacts as well, but this is all being fed through a very rudimentary ”your phone is either on ring or vibrate, you idiot” switch.

If Apple does decide to introduce some sort of profile control, it will fix one of the most glaring holes still in iOS, in my view. We’ll get there eventually, I believe.

As 2012 approaches, we thought it would be fun to look back on 2011 one last time and share our biggest stories of the year with you. Here they are in order, from our post popular post of the year to our tenth most popular post:

1. Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles around him
2. BlackBerry Messenger will launch on Android and iOS
3. Samsung Galaxy Nexus full specs revealed; Verizon Wireless exclusive
4. BlackBerry Dakota gets pictured; the touch and type BlackBerry you’ve been waiting for
5. Google’s first Ice Cream Sandwich phone to be manufactured by Samsung, possibly dubbed ‘Nexus Prime’
6. Live from Apple’s WWDC 2011 keynote with Steve Jobs
7. Apple testing iPhone for T-Mobile USA
8. Google Nexus 4G detailed – 720p display, 4G LTE, Android 4.0
9. BlackBerry Bold 9900 review
10. Inside RIM: An exclusive look at the rise and fall of the company that made smartphones smart

Have a great and safe New Year.

Each year on the evening of December 31st an estimated one million people from around the world flock to New York City’s Times Square to cheer in unison as the final 10 seconds of the year are counted down and the iconic glowing ball is lowered down a 130-foot pole from atop 1 Times Square. BGR recently attended the Philips Ball Test, during which the city does a dry run of the ceremonies that will take place seconds before midnight on New Year’s Eve. We had a chance to sit down with Jeff Straus, the president of Countdown Entertainment and one of the producers who has overseen the event for the past 17 years, and Ed Crawford, the CEO of Philips Lighting, which provides the bulbs for the New Year’s Eve ball. We also had a chance to walk up and see the ball in person, and learn about how the whole process works from the beginning down to the second when a switch is flipped and the ball begins its descent.

Why does the ball drop in Times Square?

Jeff Straus is an expert when it comes to all things surrounding the New Year’s Eve ball, and it was immediately apparent how passionate he is about the topic we were discussing. New York City has been celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square since 1904, Straus explained during an interview in his office. It all started when The New York Times held a celebration for the official opening of its brand new Manhattan headquarters.

“Previously the celebration was held down at Trinity Church,” Straus explained. “And they would be very raucous and the church elders were really very happy to have the celebration moved uptown. People would throw bricks in the air and they would hit people in the head. It was a crazy celebration.”

So why was it moved to, what was formerly known as, the Times Building? “It was the second tallest building from ground level up at the time and the New York Times could get their papers in and out to their readership downtown,” Straus said. “So they had this corporate promotion to announce that they were here in the new Times Square. For several years they would launch fireworks from the top of the building, and the hot ashes would rain down on people’s heads,” he added, noting the city’s decision to switch to the maritime tradition of lowering a ball. “They matched it with the latest technology, electricity, with a lighted time ball that would be lowered at midnight,” Straus added. “This being the tallest building in the area, it attracted hundreds of thousands of people to Times Square. That tradition has gone on for 107 years and there are only two years when the ball didn’t drop, ’42 and ’43 during the dim-out.”

The first ball was tiny — just 6 feet in diameter — and made of iron. It was covered in 100 25-watt incandescent light bulbs and weighed 700 pounds. In the 1920s, a new ball was made out of iron and wood and, in the 1950s, yet another one was created out of aluminum and covered with 180 incandescent light bulbs. In the 1980s New York swapped the white lights for red bulbs, put a stem on it and called it “The Apple.”

Then, in 1995, the city of New York City ditched the old pulley and stopwatch system, which was controlled by hand, and began upgrading the system’s technology as well as the entire operation behind it. “We added GPS, computer controls and an atomic clock,” Straus said, smiling. “We have a GPS locating device up there, it’s all synced with computer programming down to the second. It’s amazing.”

Then, in 1999 to mark the change of the millennium, Waterford and Philips stepped in and created the first crystal ball with halogen lights. That was yet again upgraded in 2007 to a ball with LED lights that offered double the brightness of the halogen ball before it. “The very next year we build this big ball we have today,” Straus noted. “It’s 11,875 pounds, it has 32,256 Philips Luxcon LED lights and 2,668 Waterford crystal triangles. So we made this huge change from incandescent, to halogen, to LED to really show the future of lighting changes. It’s the largest crystal ball in the world.”

New York City doesn’t just use the ball on New Year’s Eve, either. It’s decorated for several holidays throughout the year, including Christmas Eve, Earth Day, Father’s Day and Valentines Day. “For mother’s day I put ‘I ♥ Mom on it,’” Straus said laughing. “What’s even more fun is since the ball is something we all grow up with, the ball now Tweets,” Straus said, reminiscing about the history of the ball and detailing its fictional “mother and father.” The father is a medicine ball and the mother is a globe, according to the joke. Straus then took us up to get an up-close look at the ball and get a few shots of what it’s like on top of Times Square.

Visiting the Ball

I felt like I was entering a secret back entrance on my way up to see the ball. In fact, the elevator up to it is in public view inside a Walgreens at 1 Times Square. After a quick trip to the 21st floor where I could see out over the whole of Times Square from Straus’s offices, I had to walk just three and a half more flights to get outside to where the ball is. Then, right in front of me, it sat there glowing.

Straus and Crawford were kind enough to raise and lower the ball several times so that we could grab photos of the entire process. If you’ve never seen it up close, the two men simply count down and then flick a giant Philips light switch, and the ball begins to drop. But there’s much more behind the scenes than what you might see on television. In fact, there’s a whole crew at the bottom of the ball, outside, making sure everything goes smoothly.

“We actually have five guys now. We lost the stopwatch guy, but we still need the guys to handle all of the cabling,” Straus explained. “The ball goes up and with it the same kind of robotic cabling that you see in automobile factories. It’s for the computer controls, but they have to, by hand, manually make sure it doesn’t get tied up, or cinched, or clinched, so they’re there to make sure it goes smoothly.”

Under the ball, back inside 1 Times Square, there’s also a computer control room. We had a chance to peek inside — it’s especially busy this time of year — and saw a number of Toshiba laptops, servers and more. “There’s a gentleman there that actually sits in front of a computer screen and he can program the ball just like you’d program anything,” Strauss explained. “You’ve got 16 billion colors, billions of patterns, it’s a whole system. We used to have a big lighting board, now we do everything on a laptop.”

Philips’s lighting technology inside the ball

“Philips has been involved with the ball for 12 years,” Phillips Lighting CEO Ed Crawford said. “We first got involved with the ball in 1999 for the millennium drop. At that time, the Times Square Alliance wanted to create something spectacular for 1999 to 2000. At the time halogen was the latest lighting technology. The ball you see today is revolutionary. Each LED is individually programmed and the Waterford crystal is a shell that creates the sparkle and special effect. LED’s can do things that were impossible before and are more energy efficient.”

Crawford also explained that his team worked closely with Countdown Entertainment, the group in charge of the whole event, as well as outside vendors to create the ball. But what makes the LEDs inside the New Year’s Eve ball different from the ones consumers see every day?

“In some ways the LEDs are the same, but I wouldn’t compare them to Christmas tree lights,” Crawford explained. “There’s really two levels of LEDs. There are LEDs in Christmas tree lights and in the dashboard of your car and things like that. Those are what we call low-power LEDs. In the Times Square ball, there are high-power factor Philips Luxcon LEDs that are extremely bright and extremely energy efficient.”

The CEO continued, “From a consumer standpoint, consumers have gotten used to the idea that wattage equates to light. Wattage has nothing to do with light. So a 60-watt light bulb means it uses 60 watts of energy. It doesn’t generate 60 watts of light. This light bulb in my hand generates 850 lumens, which is the measure of light and the same amount of a 60 watt standard incandescent bulb, but it only uses 12 watts to do it.”

Until next year

I have to admit, I’m slightly afraid of heights so standing under the ball on the roof was a bit daunting and I was happy to get back inside the building. Still, I’ve watched the ball drop on New Year’s Eve every year of my life and it was surprisingly heartwarming to be so close to it. Even with my fear of heights, I would visit this facility again in a second.

On the way down, I stopped on the 5th floor of 1 Times Square, where a dozen or so workers were busy blowing up more than 25,000 balloons that will be distributed on Saturday night.

Whether you’ll be down in the crowd or watching on your TV, in the viewer below or on an iPhone or Android handset, we hope you’ll enjoy seeing the ball drop even more now that you know a bit more about the process, the operation and the great people who work hard all year long to make sure it all goes off without a hitch.

We also hope you all have a happy new year.

Despite numerous lofty predictions from analysts and market watchers, 2011 wasn’t the year of the tablet. Not by a long shot. Apple’s iPad 2 continued to sell well this past year but among dozens of rivals, only a handful of tablets managed to garner even the slightest interest from consumers. No, 2011 was the year of the smartphone. Global smartphone penetration is now approaching 10% and in the United States, nearly half of all cell phone users own smartphones. While smartphones proliferated all year long, 2011 would save the best for last: at the start of the fourth quarter, Apple launched its latest iPhone handset and as the year drew to a close, Verizon and Samsung released the Galaxy Nexus.

The frequency and breadth of rumors leading up to Apple’s next-generation iPhone announcement was astounding in 2011. Some reports suggested the next iPhone would be a modest bump compared to the iPhone 4 while others said it would be a full-fledged redesign. A number of sites, including BGR, reported information from proven sources suggesting that the new iPhone would feature a larger display and a new case design. Even The New York Times was hearing rumblings of an all new iPhone design. There were also a dozen reports suggesting an “iPhone 4S” and an “iPhone 5″ would launch simultaneously.

Meanwhile Samsung and Google were quietly working on a next-generation flagship Nexus phone that would be the first smartphone to launch with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on board. At least, the companies were quietly working on the handset until BGR issued a pair of exclusive reports exposing a number of details surrounding the new phone.

As summer heated up and a number of new smartphones were hitting the market, BGR learned that Google’s new flagship phone would launch as a Verizon Wireless exclusive in the U.S., and the carrier was looking to slap its renowned “DROID” branding on the handset. October was the initial launch month set for the new pure Google device, and Verizon even passed on another popular Samsung phone to make room for the new Ice Cream Sandwich-powered phone. October was shaping up to be quite a month, as new information pointed to a mid-October launch for Apple’s next-generation iPhone as well.

October finally came, and Apple announced the iPhone 4S. With sky-high iPhone 5 expectations, however, not everyone was impressed with Apple’s new smartphone. It wasn’t until the smoke cleared that consumers realized Apple had another winner on its hands, and the new camera, faster chipset and Siri made the iPhone 4S a force to be reckoned with. Only one device might pose a real challenge to the new iPhone, and BGR exclusively revealed its full specs just days after the iPhone 4S was unveiled.

But alas, Samsung and Google announced that they were delaying the announcement of their new superphone for reasons that were never truly made clear. Apple would go on to sell more than 4 million iPhone 4S handsets during the device’s debut weekend alone, and the Galaxy Nexus was finally unveiled a day after Apple revealed the staggering iPhone sales figures. There was still no word on when we could expect Verizon to finally launch the phone, however, and two more months would pass before the carrier finally offered Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus to subscribers for $300 on contract.

BGR reviewed the iPhone 4S and we were very impressed with Apple’s update. We were also blown away by the Galaxy Nexus, calling it our “favorite Android device in the world” in our full review. Even after a month with each handset, the iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus remained our favorite smartphones of 2011. With the Consumer Electronics Show and Mobile World Congress just around the corner, Apple and Samsung’s flagship phones will undoubtedly see some solid contenders emerge. Whether or not they’ll be able to supplant these two phenomenal phones, however, remains to be seen.

There’s no question about it: HP made one of the biggest blunders of the year when it comes to how the company handled Palm and webOS. During the past 12 months, HP relieved one CEO who was hired less than a year earlier in October 2010, killed off its webOS hardware, hired another CEO, brought webOS back from the dead and then open sourced it. The company also announced that it would discontinue its Pre, Veer and TouchPad products, but then flip-flopped and said we can expect new webOS devices in the future. It’s a confusing company to say the least, so let’s start all the way at the beginning and trace the curious path HP took with webOS this year.

The story begins in February when HP finally announced the TouchPad and Pre 3, the first new devices to be unveiled following the company’s acquisition of Palm. Former CEO Léo Apotheker made a promise that the new devices would ship “within weeks” and not months, a venture away from the company’s typical slow announcement-to-shelf delivery schedule. The TouchPad would finally make its debut more than four months later, however, while the Pre 3 would never see the light of day (in the United States, at least). Oh yes, how could we forget? HP also announced a tiny, barely usable smartphone called the HP Veer and while it eventually launched on AT&T, the device was soon forgotten for good reason.

The delays, poor sales and a lukewarm reception to HP’s products resulted in HP’s decision to kill off webOS hardware less than two months after the TouchPad hit the market. The company also said it was considering a spin-off of its personal systems group (PSG). There were various TouchPad fire sales where consumers could purchase the tablet for as little as $99, but the rush for dirt-cheap tablets did little to revive interest in webOS as a platform. Rumors began to float around that suggested HP was considering licensing or even selling webOS and its related assets, but ultimately it sounded like the mobile software was dead forever; then HP fired its CEO.

In September former eBay CEO Meg Whitman came out of corporate hibernation and replaced Léo Apotheker at the helm of HP. Clearly she had plans for the company that deviated from Apotheker’s: A month after she was hired, Whitman said HP was no longer planning to spin off its personal systems group and reports surfaced a day later that webOS’s future was still up in the air. So webOS wasn’t dead after all? According to Whitman, not really.

Finally, on December 9th, HP delivered its final verdict on webOS when it said it was releasing the operating system to the open source community. It seemed as though HP was, mostly, wiping its hands free of the operating system. Then, later that same afternoon Whitman came back and said that HP wasn’t exactly finished making webOS devices. Whitman confirmed that consumers could expect future webOS powered devices from HP, including even the possibility of a new tablet. Confused? So are we, let’s recap:

In less than 11 months, HP went from announcing brand new webOS devices to killing off webOS hardware, replacing its CEO, putting the fate of webOS up in the air again, deciding to open-source the operating system and then coming back full circle to tell us we can expect new webOS devices in the future. If any press is good press, then HP certainly made out like a bandit this year with its baffling decision making.

2011 was a wild, wild year to follow the technology industry. AT&T failed to buy T-Mobile USA, things got rough for RIM and Apple and Samsung fought legal battles all over the world. Still, one of the biggest stories of the year began when Google announced in August that it planned to purchase Motorola Mobility, a member of the open handset alliance, for $12.5 billion. Pundits immediately needed to know one thing: what did Google’s other Android partners think? Surprisingly, HTC, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson all voiced support for the acquisition. But why? At first it appeared that Google just wanted to control the entire Android experience, from software to hardware, but CEO Larry Page soon put a second piece of the puzzle into place: the acquisition could offer Android partners a safe haven against litigation from Apple and Microsoft.

Page explained in detail that Google needed Motorola Mobility’s patents in order to protect itself and its Android partners from patent predators like Apple and Microsoft. Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond had accused the companies of trying to strangle the success of Android by creating patent lawsuits instead of truly innovating and competing in the smartphone market. While many would argue that Microsoft and Apple are both innovative companies, Drummond had a point. Apple currently has 21 patents-in-suit against Motorola Mobility and Microsoft has already strong armed major Android players, including HTC and Samsung, into patent licensing deals. With Motorola Mobility’s patents under its wing, Google could finally have some firepower of its own in court. But can Google really protect Android by purchasing Motorola Mobility? At least one expert has suggested the company might be buying a lemon.

David Martin, CEO of patent consulting firm M-Cam, argued that Motorola Mobility already sold off all of its valuable patents. “What they bought is crap, because at the end of the day Motorola sold off its good assets,” Martin told Bloomberg in an interview. “Back in the early years, Motorola sold off some MPEG patents to GE in a securitization deal. After that, they took a bunch of the Freescale patents and sold those off.” Martin suggests that Google may have actually now face more patent lawsuits as a result of the acquisition.

Apple clearly has at least some concerns about the deal, though. In September it asked a judge to halt two lawsuits – one filed by Motorola Mobility and the other by Apple — and said “Apple should not have to face the threat of an injunction based on the claims of a party that now has no standing to bring those claims.” Those lawsuits could sit in limbo for a while. Despite gaining early approval from Motorola Mobility’s shareholders with 99% of shareholders voting in favor of the deal, the purchase is still far from a being done deal.

In September the Department of Justice said that it wanted more information on the deal. “While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes,” Google senior vice president Dennis Woodside explained. “We’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.” The acquisition also hit a speed bump in Europe when the European Union announced that it was suspending its investigation of the acquisition entirely until more information is made available.

So what’s next for the Google/Motorola partnership? The latest rumors suggest that Google has plans to market its own Nexus-branded tablet, and the device could land on store shelves in mid-2012. Unfortunately, while Google’s partners may have patent protection, the new tablet could cannibalize sales of their slates. Rumors suggest that the Nexus tablet will run a new version of Android that will, initially, only be available on the Google’s device. That means consumers could gravitate to the newer software available on the Nexus as opposed to older builds available on tablets from other vendors.

Will Google’s planned acquisition gain government approval? Does it have a tablet up its sleeves? If it does complete the acquisition, will Google will come to bat for Barnes & Noble, which is currently the target of a Microsoft patent lawsuit, or help defend Amazon’s Android-powered Kindle Fire? We’ll certainly find the answers to those questions and more during the next 12 months, which will no doubt prove to be just as exciting as the past 12.

2011 was a huge year for the wireless industry. Global mobile connections surpassed 6 billion as the world’s total population hit 7 billion people, and worldwide smartphone penetration is now approaching 10%. In the United States, smartphone penetration has now topped 44% as converged, connected devices continue to flood the market across all age ranges. The rapid growth in the smartphone space can be attributed for the most part to two platforms, Android and iOS, and other companies continue to struggle to gain or even maintain their ground in a market that is expanding faster than it ever has before. Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS is heralded as a breath of fresh air but significant sales still elude the company’s vendor partners. On the other side of the coin, age finally caught up with Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS and smartphone users are becoming increasingly disinterested in a platform that was once the most desirable mobile experience in the world.

The year started out well enough for the Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone maker. BGR exclusively revealed a number of upcoming BlackBerry devices in mid-January — the next-generation Curve, Torch, Storm (which was later added to the Torch line) and the highly anticipated BlackBerry Dakota all made appearances — and BlackBerry fans around the world eagerly awaited their arrival.

RIM was also hard at work on its first tablet offering — the BlackBerry PlayBook — and while other platforms were building a huge ecosystem lead in the tablet space, BGR revealed that RIM had a trick up its sleeve. The company was planning to offer a number of options to developers looking to support its first QNX-based device, and adding support for Android applications would give RIM access to Google’s massive Android ecosystem. It would also ensure that PlayBook users had a huge catalog of apps available right out of the gate.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.

The PlayBook finally launched on April 19th and software had proven to be a bigger challenge than RIM had seemingly anticipated. The pressing need to launch forced RIM to bring its debut slate to market without native support for email, contacts, calendar or even BlackBerry Messenger, the mobile chat client that put BlackBerry devices on the map among consumers. Instead, PlayBook users were forced to tether to their Blackberry smartphones in order to make use of this core functionality. The tablet also launched without support for Android applications, and the small catalog of lackluster apps available for the PlayBook remains a big problem to this day.

To compound matters, BGR revealed shortly after the PlayBook launch that despite RIM’s best efforts it was only ready to announce one device at the BlackBerry World conference in late April. That device was the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and while it was a device BlackBerry users had been clamoring for, it also came to market more than a year later than it should have with an operating system and user interface that was stale at best.

Things grew worse still when pent up unrest among RIM’s own employees finally reached its boiling point. Fed up, a high-level RIM executive provided BGR with an open letter in an effort to finally get his message across to RIM’s top brass. RIM issued a defensive response to the letter, explaining that it was addressing several issues but it was “thankfully in a solid business and financial position to tackle the opportunities ahead.” The company would go on to disappoint with its second and third-quarter earnings, and its fourth-quarter guidance suggested that relief would not come soon.

Today, RIM sits in a tough spot. It’s first major PlayBook update won’t come until February next year at the earliest, though continually weakening sales make the update less significant than it might have been six months ago. The new software will include native email support and other PIM functionality, but BBM is still proving to be a challenge for RIM’s software team. Even more of a concern, however, is that the first RIM smartphone to carry its next-generation BlackBerry 10 software is now delayed until the third quarter next year at the earliest.

Even more concerning is that while RIM waits for new LTE chips before it can launch any BlackBerry 10 phones — apparently the vendor is only working on 4G smartphones right now, despite the fact that many of its biggest markets have not even begun to deploy LTE networks — the company also continues to have huge development issues that grow more daunting each day.

There is no question that RIM has the talent to succeed in the modern smartphone market. It also has a user base that continues to grow with each quarter. The vendor has a lot of catching up to do, however, and it once it finally does launch its first BlackBerry 10 phone, it had better be a blockbuster with a massive marketing budget to back up its launch. In the meantime, RIM has a tough six-plus months ahead.

AT&T made headlines in March of this year when it announced plans to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. Here we are nine months later and the deal is dead in the water, but there was a huge game of tug-of-war going on all year between AT&T, policy makers, the government and AT&T’s competitors. There were points when it seemed that the merger was bound for approval, and others where it seemed fairly certain that the government would reject AT&T’s application. The only thing we knew for sure is that this deal, if approved, would change the wireless landscape in the U.S. forever. Read on for more.

AT&T’s announcement to acquire T-Mobile USA was almost immediately met with strong resistance from its competitors, Sprint in particular. While Verizon Wireless supported the deal, Sprint and several regional carriers voiced strong opposition. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said the merger would “stifle innovation” and would leave Verizon Wireless and AT&T controlling 97% of the U.S. wireless market. AT&T Mobility boss Ralph de la Vega, however, argued that the merger would address spectrum shortage concerns in the United States and would help deliver mobile broadband to more people in areas without wireless service. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson also said the merger would result in “net job creation.”

Despite the resistance from others, AT&T’s General Counsel Wayne Watts said in June that the merger was on schedule for approval in March of 2012. Less than a month later, however, the tide began to turn against AT&T when Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee said “I have concluded that this acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies.” That was just the start of the government’s opposition, and AT&T soon began to face much more serious problems.

In August, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it planned to review AT&T’s panned $1.925 billion acquisition of Qualcomm’s FLO TV lower 700MHz frequency band spectrum at the same time as the company’s planned T-Mobile merger. This no doubt highlighted the government’s concerns that AT&T might control too much wireless spectrum if it was allowed to purchase both T-Mobile USA and Qualcomm’s spectrum.

Things really started to heat up in August.

The Justice Department, which had been reviewing the merger for several months, decided to sue AT&T in an effort to block the acquisition in late August. The U.S. government wasn’t just worried that AT&T’s merger would create a duopoly, however. It also feared that allowing AT&T to purchase T-Mobile could result in job cuts, not job creation. AT&T addressed both concerns by promising to bring back 5,000 call center jobs from overseas, and rumors suggested the carrier was considering to sell off as much as $8 billion in assets to other companies. The FCC, however, said AT&T hadn’t ever proved how it planned to create new jobs, even though unions such as the Communications Workers of America argued the merger could create as many as 96,000 additional jobs in the United States.

It became clear later in the year that the merger was in dire straits when AT&T decided to pull its FCC application to purchase T-Mobile altogether, to instead focus on its lawsuit with the Justice Department. Should the carrier have won the lawsuit with the DoJ, it would have no doubt used the ruling as ammo in its bid to gain the FCC’s approval in a future application. Unfortunately, the merger was already on life support by this point.

The FCC’s concerns were aired out in late November when the agency released preliminary thoughts on the merger to the public, which suggested the merger was not going to go through. AT&T argued that blocking the deal would increase prices across the industry, but it was already too late for arguments. Three days later, AT&T asked the court to delay its suit with the Department of Justice. The DoJ was clearly on the same page; it also asked the court to toss or delay the lawsuit, and said that there was no need for a case since AT&T no longer had an active application filed to purchase T-Mobile USA. A judge quickly approved both requests for a stay, but that delay quickly became irrelevant.

On December 19th, AT&T announced that it was canceling its plans to acquire T-Mobile USA. As a result, it paid Deutsche Telekom $3 billion as part of a promised breakup fee and provided T-Mobile USA with AWS spectrum and a 3G roaming agreement. All was not lost, however. The FCC had promised to review AT&T’s planned purchase of Qualcomm’s spectrum at the same time as the merger, and as a result of AT&T pulling out of the deal, granted AT&T its blessing to purchase the added spectrum.

AT&T’s failed acquisition of T-Mobile USA certainly took up the better part of this year, and it was one of the more compelling stories to follow closely. 2012 will be a year to watch T-Mobile USA, as it struggles to hold on to fleeing contract customers and remain competitive with AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint, all of which have plans for faster nationwide 4G LTE networks.

LTE quickly became one of the most talked about wireless topics this year, but before 2011 it was a term most consumers probably had never heard of. A standard developed by the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), long-term evolution (LTE) is a progression of UMTS/HSPA and GSM/EDGE networks. Just a year ago, 4G LTE wasn’t available to the general U.S. public and now, as we begin to enter 2012, a massive chunk of the U.S. population has access to it. 4G spread like a wildfire during 2011, so let’s take a look at some of this year’s LTE highlights.

Verizon Wireless kicked off the year with a handful of 4G LTE announcements during the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Two months later, in March, it became the first major U.S. wireless network to launch a 4G LTE handset, the HTC ThunderBolt. AT&T and T-Mobile meanwhile struggled to compete with Verizon’s 4G marketing and as a result, they advertised their slower HSPA+ networks as “4G.” That move no doubt contributed to the confusion surrounding 4G.

As the year went on, Verizon’s network continued to expand. The HTC ThunderBolt received praise for its speed, although it was clear that the technology needed to move LTE’s faster data took a toll on the phone’s battery life. Data speeds shocked reviewers, which noted that in some cases, Verizon’s network was capable of outpacing an average home’s cable Internet connection. Verizon maintained its momentum all year long and it blanketed the United States with its new network quicker than it had originally planned. Verizon now covers 200 million people in 190 markets with 4G LTE service.

AT&T wasn’t sitting still in 2011, either. It followed Verizon by launching its first LTE markets in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York, San Antonio, Boston and Washington, D.C. While Verizon offers a larger network, AT&T’s has been ruled faster in at least one study, but it’s not uncommon for AT&T or Verizon users to see speeds nearly 10-times that of 3G networks. AT&T only offers three 4G LTE handsets right now, although we expect that figure to increase rapidly next year.

Sprint lagged behind Verizon and AT&T in 2011, both in terms of 4G and overall data speeds, but it now has a strategy in place to switch from WiMAX to LTE. The carrier will deploy its own 4G LTE network next year and has promised to launch several handsets by the second half of 2012. Sprint has already hit a few snags along the way, however. It’s planning to deploy at least part of the new network in the 1600MHz frequency spectrum in partnership with LightSquared, which has been the subject of GPS interference concerns for years now. While LightSquared has argued that it already fixed GPS interference problems, the U.S. government still refuses to grant the company its safety blessing. Luckily, Sprint has a new 4G LTE agreement with Clearwire, too.

T-Mobile was the only major U.S. carrier that failed to discuss its 4G LTE plans in 2011. Its efforts were no doubt stifled by AT&T’s failed acquisition of the carrier from Deutsche Telekom. Thankfully, AT&T’s breakup fee includes $3 billion in cash, fresh AWS spectrum and a 7-year 3G roaming agreement with AT&T. Perhaps it can use those assets to work towards deploying an LTE network of its own.

The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show was just a sample of 4G LTE. Here we are nearly 12 months later and more than two-thirds of the U.S. population has access to the faster data network. We’ll no doubt see dozens of new handsets and plenty of other products taking advantage of 4G LTE during this year’s show, which begins in a few short weeks.

It will be exciting to watch 4G expand in 2012 as AT&T and Verizon continue to add markets and Sprint’s LTE network begins to roll out. We also might finally see a 4G iPhone launch in 2012 — we know that Qualcomm’s Gobi 4000 platform, which Apple has reportedly been waiting for, recently started shipping to manufacturers — and both RIM and Microsoft will see the first round of 4G LTE smartphones launch on each of their platforms this year.

Apple rocked the consumer electronics industry when it launched the “magical and revolutionary iPad” in April 2010. It wasn’t the first media tablet aimed at the consumer market by any means, but it was the first that consumers actually wanted. Following the iPad’s unveiling, Apple’s rivals scrambled to build tablets of their own and market research firms were quick to herald 2011 as “the year of the tablet.” More than 100 different tablets were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2011, the bulk employing Android to power their user experiences, and the year of the tablet was upon us. Read on for more.

Among all of the slates on display at CES 2011, Motorola’s XOOM was undoubtedly the star of the show. It would launch as the first Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet and enthusiasts were excited to get their hands on the first Android slate with a true tablet OS. Motorola and Verizon’s marketing efforts would pay off to an extent, and demand for the device was solid — Motorola shipped 250,000 XOOM tablets during the slate’s first quarter of availability, 440,000 units during its second quarter and another 400,000 tablets last quarter. Unfortunately, the XOOM ended up being the exception to the rule.

Barring a handful of successful slates — the most notable of which are likely the Barnes & Noble Nook Color, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 — the bulk of Android tablets came and went without any amount of consumer interest worth measuring. Android wasn’t the only game in town, however, and anticipated offerings carrying two other platforms that had been generating a bit of a buzz would be introduced as well.

One came from Research In Motion, and it was the first device to launch with the vendor’s next-generation operating system based on QNX. The BlackBerry PlayBook was released in select markets on April 19th, and the world watched as RIM’s debut slate hit store shelves. Unfortunately, watching is the only thing most consumers did. While a number of early adopters enjoyed RIM’s tablet, sales didn’t come anywhere close to meeting expectations and RIM would eventually be forced to take a $485 million charge related to unsold PlayBook inventory. The company shipped 500,000 PlayBook tablets during the device’s first quarter of availability, 200,000 during its second and just 150,000 units last quarter.

Sadly, the PlayBook isn’t even the worst tablet story 2011 would have to offer.

Only July 1st, Hewlett-Packard launched the HP TouchPad. Six weeks later, HP said it was discontinuing the production of all webOS hardware including the TouchPad tablet. The company would go on to announce that webOS, which it gained ownership of as part of its $1.2 billion Palm acquisition, would be open-sourced.

Now, as 2011 draws to a close, 2012 is again being called “the year of the tablet.” A stunning lack of differentiation from rival offerings left Apple’s iPad 2 as the only indisputable tablet success story in 2011, but many analysts and industry watchers seem to think the tide will turn the coming year.

Two promising slates hit the market in late 2011 — the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet — and sales expectations are high. Google also unveiled its next-generation Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system recently, and the first wave of ICS tablets is expected to be revealed in a few short weeks at CES 2012. It remains to be seen if Google’s updated platform will offer an experience compelling enough to draw real consumer interest, however.

Of course Windows 8 is due in 2012 as well, and expectations are high for an OS that could potentially bring a more usable and elegant interface to tablets with desktop-like utility. Current Windows tablets are bulky and awkward, but Microsoft’s Metro UI could be part of a package that finally helps Microsoft gain ground in the tablet space.

Tablets have plenty to offer, taking the portability and convergence that made smartphones popular and presenting it to the consumer in a larger package. Differentiation, a solid catalog of third-party apps and a compelling user experience are among the key elements competitors will need in order to gain ground as the battle against Apple’s iPad continues, however, and whether or not vendors are up for the challenge in 2012 remains to be seen.

Apple sold 925 iPhone 4S handsets each minute during the device’s debut weekend, and it sells 81 iPads every 60 seconds on average. Research In Motion sells 103 BlackBerry phones, Amazon sells 18 Kindle Fire tablets and Microsoft sells 11 Xbox 360 consoles every minute. More than 700 computers are purchased around the world every 60 seconds, and 232 of them are infected by malware. That malware stat seems surprisingly low, however, when you consider that 2 million people watch online porn every minute. Read on for more.

Website design firm GO-Globe recently spread a variety of technology-related stats out across an infographic and the result helps us put a lot of things in perspective. Beyond the scary amount of Internet porn watched around the world, we can see just how entrenched various consumer electronics and digital goods and services have become in modern life.

Eleven million conversations take place using various instant messaging platforms every 60 seconds, 2,100 people check in using foursquare and 1,100 acres of virtual land are farmed in FarmVille. Thirty-eight tons of e-waste is generated around the world every minute, though we’re not sure if that stat includes all of the virtual land in FarmVille.

Every minute, $219,000 worth of payments are made using PayPal, $10,000 of which is sent from mobile devices. EBay is used to purchase over 950 items each minute and more than 180 of those purchases are made using mobile phones or tablets.

Surprisingly, perhaps, physical media maintains a huge presence in our lives despite the advent of the digital age. Four hundred and fifty Windows 7 discs are sold, 1,400 Redbox DVDs are rented and a staggering 2.6 million CDs containing 1,820 terabytes of data are created each minute. Four thousand USB devices are sold every 60 seconds as well, along with 2,500 ink cartridges.

It’s amazing how much happened every 60 seconds in 2011 and as the year draws to a close, we can’t wait to see what each minute will hold in 2012.

I finally had space for a decent media room, but I quickly realized that throwing up a flat screen on an empty wall would make the TV look incredibly small. I hadn’t liked projectors up until this point; they looked terrible with any light on in the room, they were bulky, noisy and heavy, and they required power and video (among other cables) to be run up through the ceiling. I finally gave in, though, and here’s a quick look at some of my favorite products from companies I’ve used to put together a small in-home media room.

Planning

The room I wanted to use was about 20 feet by 20 feet, and putting a sofa anywhere in the room aside from the back wall didn’t make much sense. Looking at a flat panel television on a wall that’s 20 feet wide by around 12 feet high from a distance of about 18 feet would be less than ideal, even if it was 65-inches. After evaluating different options (I so, so slightly considered making a media wall with a 65-inch in the middle and two vertically-orientated flat panels on both sides), I finally decided that a projection screen and projector was going to give me the best experience in a room of that size.

Now, what size projection screen should I get? I wanted to be incredibly sensitive to the fact that a projector, even an amazing projector, still isn’t as good as a LCD panel, so I didn’t want to push it. The bigger the screen, the more light from the projector, the less sharp the picture (assuming you don’t change your viewing distance) — and other things can affect the quality of the picture as well.

I settled on a 118-inch projection screen. Centered, it would take up approximately half of the wall I was mounting it on, and I figured that would be perfect. After looking at various projection screen manufacturers, I decided to go with a Carada Criterion series screen.

Now that I had the screen figured out, it was time to find a projector. I bounced around between a Panasonic PTAE7000u and Sony VPL-HW30 for a good month. The Panasonic wasn’t out yet, but review units were out, so I was able to get feedback from other people on how the unit performed, while the Sony had been available for a month or so. I’m a huge Sony fan and from everything I had read, the HW30 was one of the best 3D projectors in the world in its price range, and the only other projector that competed with it was the Panasonic. There were other factors that influenced my decision to go with Sony, but the main one was that I trust Sony’s ES line of products, and the reviews on the HW30 were stellar.

The screen was figured out, the projector was chosen, so now I had to move on to audio and components. One of the main pieces in any home theater besides the display and speakers is going to be the receiver, and I wanted to pick one that not only supported everything I wanted to do, but was also guaranteed to play nice with my projector. I couldn’t have any HDMI handshake issues especially, since I had been through that before in another set up. I do have a soft spot for Sony gear, so after looking around I started to drift towards one of their ES receivers.

Sony sells three different ES receivers, though all three have similar features. Since I didn’t need the ability to add a second zone, I decided to go with a Sony 3600ES receiver (Sony replaced the 3600ES with an almost identical 3700ES a few weeks after I purchased mine). 3D HDMI pass-through, 5 HDMI ports, ethernet, iOS and Android control apps, and everything else I’d want in a receiver in 2011 were all included.

I wanted some good sound in this room, but I didn’t want to go too crazy. When I asked my friends at JD Audio & Video Design to help me with the project, they asked me if I wanted to feel it in my chest when a helicopter crash scene was playing. I said one notch back from that. We decided to go with three Sonance VP85 in-wall speakers for the front wall, two Sonance VP63R in-ceiling speakers for the rear, and a Velodyne Impact-10 subwoofer. I figured a 5.1 set up was more than decent for this room, and a 7.1 system would probably be overkill.

Before I settled on what components I was going to put in the room, there had to be a unified way to control everything. While I had used a Logitech Harmony 1100 and then a Phillips Pronto 9600, I found these controllers to be terrible for what I wanted. So I went with the best, Crestron.

Years ago, Crestron products were so expensive that they didn’t make sense for most applications, but with the company’s new Prodigy line, I felt it was worth doing. One remote that could control every single component, including the lights, and even heating if I wanted; no IR nonsense, no line of sight — just a remote solution that covered all the bases.

I also wanted to make sure I had a solid Blu-ray player that could perform well in my configuration. I went with a Sony BDP-S580 at first, but it was absolutely terrible and I quickly replaced it with a Sony BDP-S1700ES. In addition to Blu-ray, most of the computers and devices in my home are Apple (what, you thought I had one of those Windows 7 stores in my home?) so an Apple TV was a no brainer. I also wanted a way to watch all kinds of media and after looking at different products, I gravitated toward the Popcorn Hour A-300. Throw in the obligatory Optimum DVR, a Linksys 8-port ethernet switch for routing traffic (my house has ethernet ports wired throughout every room, how could I be happier?), a power conditioner and an Xbox 360, and I was ready to tear it up — literally, tear the walls up.

Installation / Programming

While I could easily connect and configure everything in this room without issue, I wasn’t about to start breaking sheetrock, cutting, notching and running hundreds of feet of cable all over. This was something I used JD Audio & Video for. With the help of an electrician, we moved some power outlets and put one in the ceiling for the projector, installed the Crestron dimmers for the lights, and after that, it was time to run all of the necessary cables and wires.

Any good installer will try to future-proof your space by running extra cables in case you want to do something else in the future, or if a cable or two breaks, and since you can run basically anything over a CAT-6, we ran extra CAT-6 cables from front to back. In the front of the room, we needed to run three speaker wires for the three in-walls, and since this was a 3D set up, we needed to run a CAT6 for the 3D sync transmitter that would go under the projector screen. Those cables needed to go to the right side of the room where the component cabinet was placed. In the rear of the room, we needed to run two speaker wires for the in-ceilings, multiple CAT6 cables (so we could run RS232, IR, etc), two HDMI cables and more.

After all the cables were run, notches and holes had to be patched and painted. Once that was done, the set up and programming was next.

Cables were connected and Crestron programming started. Since I had some components that most people wouldn’t normally use, like the Popcorn Hour for instance, those had to be programmed into the system one button a time to get the right codes. Start to finish, programming took a good seven hours. Imagine doing a full house with Crestron including alarms, IP cameras, gates, three or four floors of lighting, and you can see not only how intricate and powerful an integrated Crestron system can be, but also how meticulous you have to be to program it properly. Two major advantages of a Crestron system like the Prodigy are the ability to use an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet as a controller, and the ability to control your components and set up remotely. Forget to turn some of the lights off when you went out to dinner? Just tap the off button in the app and off they go.

After weeks of trying to figure everything out and several more days of installation and configuration, I had the media room that I’ve always wanted. Now I just have to figure out what to put on the three other walls.

Thanks to Carada projection screens, Sony, Popcorn Hour, and JD Audio & Video for helping to put this together.

We recently sat down with Sony Ericsson President of North America Paul Hamnett to discuss the company’s future as a wholly-owned division of Sony Corporation, its upcoming smartphones and strategy pertaining to the U.S. market, Sony Electronics’ “four screen” opportunity, and much more. Check out the full video interview after the break.

We had a chance to sit down with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop a few weeks ago in New York City to get a the skinny on Nokia’s strategy straight from the top. We covered the company’s upcoming push (and hopefully valiant return) in the United States, Nokia’s latest smartphones, potential new Nokia tablets and of course the company’s new Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 Windows Phones. Catch the full video interview after the break.

Last week, research published by security expert Trevor Eckhart pulled back the veil on Carrier IQ, a suite of what can seemingly be described as spyware pre-installed on a wide range of devices by both carriers and vendors. Eckhart cited a BGR story from September as an early reference to the software, which at that time was thought to be a somewhat benign set of quality-control measures. “Carrier IQ is used to understand what problems customers are having with our network or devices so we can take action to improve service quality,” a Sprint spokesperson told BGR in September. “It collects enough information to understand the customer experience with devices on our network and how to devise solutions to use and connection problems. We do not and cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool.” But Eckhart’s interest was piqued. Read on for more.

UPDATE: Sprint and several vendors have issued statements regarding Carrier IQ, which have been added below. 

The security researcher began to dig, and shortly after publishing his findings, he was hit with a cease and desist order from the company behind the software. Clearly, Eckhart was on to something.

“Carrier IQ (CIQ) sells rootkit software included on many US handsets sold on Sprint, Verizon and more,” Eckhart wrote in a report on his website. “Devices supported include android phones, Blackberries, Nokias, Tablet devices and more.” A rootkit is defined as software that enables access to a device unbeknown to the device’s owner. Carrier IQ defines its own solutions as “Mobile Service Intelligence solutions that have revolutionized the way mobile operators and device vendors gather and manage information from end users.”

With support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation Eckhart was able to convince Carrier IQ to retract its borderline comical cease & desist order, which had initially complained of the researcher’s use of the term “rootkit” to describe its software. Carrier IQ had also demanded that Eckhart remove the company’s manuals from his site, though these documents had previously been available on Carrier IQ’s own website.

What’s the big deal about Carrier IQ? From Eckhart’s report:

From training documents found we get an insight to the Carrier IQ Portal. Devices are displayed to the portal operator by individual phone Equipment ID and Subscriber IDs. The “portal administrator” can put devices into categories and see devices in California that have dropped calls at 5pm.

The down side to all of this is the “portal administrator” is also able to “task” a single phone with a profile containing any combinations of metric and trigger. From leaked training documents we can see that portal operators can view and task metrics by equipment ID, subscriber ID, and more. So instead of seeing dropped calls in California, they now know “Joe Anyone’s” location at any given time, what he is running on his device, keys being pressed, applications being used.

References to the software have reportedly been discovered on Android phones, BlackBerry handsets, Nokia devices and even on the most recent public release of Apple’s iOS software. While Nokia has publicly denied the allegations that Carrier IQ software can be found on its Symbian smartphones, other vendors have remained quiet on the matter. Several carriers have seemingly gone into hiding as well, though Verizon Wireless confirmed on record that none of its handsets contain Carrier IQ’s software.

Eckhart estimates that Carrier IQ’s software is currently installed on more than 141 million handsets, and that was before references were found in Apple’s iOS software.

It is likely still too early to panic, however. Despite the extensive coverage this story has garnered across tech blogs and in the media, it remains unclear exactly what Carrier IQ and its clients are doing with this data. It isn’t even clear what data carriers have access to.

We know Carrier IQ software on Android devices can log anything from usage data and location to key strokes and usage habits, but it has not been determined that this data is sent to carriers regularly or at all. Carrier IQ’s software can theoretically be used as a window through which carriers can spy on users in real-time if they so choose, but whether or not the software is used in this manner is also unclear. Going back to Sprint’s statement to BGR from September, “We do not and cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool.”

Things do look ominous, however. Geek.com has reportedly found ”a potentially significant volume of data being collected” by the software, and Eckhart’s own video shows an alarming amount of data being recorded by Carrier IQ, including keystrokes. Of its monitoring suite, Carrier IQ says simply, “Our software is designed to help mobile network providers diagnose critical issues that lead to problems such as dropped calls and battery drain.” The firm goes on to state that it “does not provide real-time data reporting to any customer.”

More information will undoubtedly be brought to light in the coming days and in the meantime, a video of Carrier IQ in action while being monitored by Eckhart follows below.

UPDATE: Sprint on Thursday issued a statement regarding its use of Carrier IQ software:

Carrier IQ provides information that allows Sprint, and other carriers that use it, to analyze our network performance and identify where we should be improving service. We also use the data to understand device performance so we can figure out when issues are occurring. We collect enough information to understand the customer experience with devices on our network and how to address any connection problems, but we do not and cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool. The information collected is not sold and we don’t provide a direct feed of this data to anyone outside of Sprint.

Sprint is well known for our serious commitment to respecting and protecting the privacy and security of each customer’s personally identifiable information and other customer data. A key element of this involves communicating with our customers about our information privacy practices. The Sprint privacy policy makes it clear we collect information that includes how a device is functioning and how it is being used. Carrier IQ is an integral part of the Sprint service. Sprint uses Carrier IQ to help maintain our network performance.

Apple supplied the following statement to AllThingsD:

We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so.

HTC’s statement:

Carrier IQ is required on devices by a number of U.S carriers so if consumers or media have any questions about the practices relating to, or data collected by, Carrier IQ we’d advise them to contact their carrier.

It is important to note that HTC is not a customer or partner of Carrier IQ and does not receive data from the application, the company, or carriers that partner with Carrier IQ. HTC is investigating the option to allow consumers to opt-out of data collection by the Carrier IQ application.

RIM’s statement:

RIM is aware of a recent claim by a security researcher that an application called ‘CarrierIQ’ is installed on mobile devices from multiple vendors without the knowledge or consent of the device users,” the company said in a statement. “RIM does not pre-install the CarrierIQ app on BlackBerry smartphones or authorize its carrier partners to install the CarrierIQ app before sales or distribution. RIM also did not develop or commission the development of the CarrierIQ application, and has no involvement in the testing, promotion, or distribution of the app. RIM will continue to investigate reports and speculation related to CarrierIQ.

Nokia’s statement:

Nokia is aware of inaccurate reports which state that software from CarrierIQ has been found on Nokia devices. CarrierIQ does not ship products for any Nokia devices, so these reports are wrong.

And finally, an excerpt from Carrier IQ’s statement issued last week:

We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the functionality of Carrier IQ’s software, what it does not do and what it does:

• Does not record your keystrokes.
• Does not provide tracking tools.
• Does not inspect or report on the content of your communications, such as the content of emails and SMSs.
• Does not provide real-time data reporting to any customer.
• Finally, we do not sell Carrier IQ data to third parties.

Our software is designed to help mobile network providers diagnose critical issues that lead to problems such as dropped calls and battery drain.

Here’s what our software does:

• Our software makes your phone work better by identifying dropped calls and poor service.
• Our software identifies problems that impede a phone’s battery life.
• Our software makes customer service quicker, more accurate, and more efficient.
• Our software helps quickly identify trending problems to help mobile networks prevent them from becoming more widespread.