Google on Tuesday announced that calls placed within the United States and Canada using Google Voice will continue to be free through the end of 2012. “This is our way of helping you connect with friends and family across the country,” Group Product Manager Vincent Paquet wrote on a company blog. Google stated last year that calls made within the U.S. and Canada would be free through 2011, but the company is extending the promotion through 2012 for reasons unknown. Google Voice was born from Google’s acquisition of GrandCentral in 2007, and the later acquisition of Gizmo5 in 2009 is expected to eventually add VoIP capabilities to the service. For the time being, VoIP calling is only supported from within Gmail.

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AT&T recently launched its new “AT&T Call International” VoIP application that, exactly as its name implies, allows its customers to place international phone calls from their AT&T’s phones using a Wi-Fi connection anywhere in the world. AT&T’s per-minute VoIP rates are cheaper than its international roaming plans and, judging from AT&T’s product page, calls placed to wireline phones appear to be more affordable than those placed to wireless phones. Customers will be billed for calls placed through the app directly on their credit cards at the end of each monthly billing cycle. AT&T Call International is available for free from the Android Market, BlackBerry App World and in Apple’s iOS App Store.  

[Via Phone Scoop]

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Last week, we told you about a weakness discovered in Skype’s Android client. The issue stemmed from a combination of incorrect file permissions and lack of encryption usage on the database files used to store contact information, chat history, and more. The company has gone ahead and updated said client, and as an added bonus has included the ability to make VoIP calls via your phone’s 3G data connection. “Calling over your 3G connection is available worldwide – now including the US,” reads the post. We can’t see any reason not to mosey on over to the Android Market and update to the latest version of Skype. The scannable QR code is after the jump.

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Viber, the popular iPhone application that allows for free calling to other Viber users, has been updated to version 2.0.1. After applying the update, Viber users will be able to send and receive free text messages to one another, complete with notifications. Viber has also been updated with a number of UI changes — the favorites have been moved, the calling mechanism has been improved and now shows the current state of any Viber call, and the application now has a deactivation feature. The update is available in iTunes now.

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Now this, is awesome. Sprint and Google have just announced that they have worked together to give practically all Sprint wireless subscribers the ability to start using Google Voice immediately without any effort. It will literally be as simple as entering your number into your Google Voice account; the system will recognize that it’s a Sprint number and ask you if you’d like to use it as your Google Voice number. The best part? Google Voice apps aren’t needed anymore, and this works with practically any phone and OS. Android, BlackBerry, feature phones — it doesn’t matter. Any calls or text messages you send from your phone will appear in your Google Voice account, and you’ll be able to place calls or send texts from your Google Voice account online as well. What’s even cooler is that when you make international calls, it will automatically use Google Voice, thus affording deep discounts compared to standard international calling.

In an email correspondence with blog Phone Scoop earlier today, Sprint confirmed that it too would provide its customers with free calling and text messaging to Japanese phone lines. The news comes just hours after both AT&T and Verizon Wireless announced similar policies for both their wireless and wireline subscribers. Although the U.S.’s fourth largest carrier — T-Mobile — was the first to offer this courtesy when an earthquake struck Haiti back in January of 2010, the company has, up to this point, been silent. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all committed to waiving fees assessed to users making a donation to the Japanese relief effort via text message.

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Among the more aggravating predicaments gadget fans often find themselves in are the scenarios where devices break or accounts get over-billed and phone calls to customer service must be made. The only sure way to make these situations even more aggravating, of course, is to navigate through a maze of key-presses and then sit on hold for 13 minutes before a call is finally connected. Thankfully, services like FastCustomer look to ease the tension a bit by waiting on hold in place of the user and then and connecting the call only once an operator has picked up the phone. Companies like Fonolo have been trying to tackle the same problem for quite some time, but no other service offers the simple UI and the smooth user experience FastCustomer affords — input the name of the company you want to reach, key in your phone number, then sit back while the magic happens. FastCustomer’s Web-based service is completely free for the time being, and it has an app in Apple’s App Store for $0.99. The company is also looking to connect with an Android developer to build a Google-friendly app, but no word on a time line. Hit the break for a video explaining how FastCustomer works.

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According to the latest intel gathered by TmoNews, the nation’s fourth largest carrier, T-Mobile, will begin offering two new, pre-paid international calling plans on March 13th. Aimed at those who frequently dial from the U.S. to friends and family internationally, the plans include unlimited calling to landlines in 50+ countries, unlimited text messaging to any mobile phone in over 220 countries, and discounted calling to international mobile and landline numbers. The plans look like this:

• $60 – International Unlimited Talk & Text with 100MB of domestic data
• $80 – International Unlimited Talk & Text with 2GB of domestic data

Both plans also include unlimited, domestic voice minutes and text messages. That’s a pretty strong offering — especially in the pre-paid category — from T-Mo. Thoughts?

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Two quick bits of Skype news to report. Today, the internet-based communications company has posted an update to its iOS client. The new code allows the app to function on the Verizon iPhone and adds H.264 support. The additional MP4-codec will allow users to place calls from their iOS device to a wider range of Skype-enabled devices, including TVs.

The second, less official bit of Skype news comes courtesy of blog Droid-Life. The site has acquired information that indicates video-calling capabilities will be coming to Skype mobile for Android — for Verizon Wireless devices only — on the 28th of February. Unfortunately, it does look like  those with LTE, Android handsets will be the only ones able to utilize the voice calling capabilities — it is unclear whether you will have to actually be connected to Verizon’s LTE network to initiate a video call. We should know more in the coming weeks.

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AT&T will be launching its Unlimited Messaging with Mobile to Any Mobile plan tomorrow. Just ahead of the launch, BGR has acquired an internal AT&T memo that details exactly what customers will have to do to qualify for said plans. Spoiler alert: not much. Surprisingly, there isn’t any fine print with AT&T’s latest offering. Customers with individual, post-paid lines costing between $39.99 and $59.99 per month are eligible for the unlimited texting and mobile to mobile offer — individual plans over $59.99 include unlimited calling. Customers with family, post-paid lines costing between $69.99 and $109.99 per month are also eligible for the offering — family plans over $109.99 *drumroll* include unlimited calling. That’s pretty much it… no red tape. Who’s jumping on this tomorrow?

]]> http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/09/more-details-on-atts-any-mobile-calling-plan-emerge/feed/ 84 http://www-bgr-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ATT-Any-Mobile110210012056-80x80.jpg http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/09/at-carrier-agnostic-available-tomorrow/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/09/at-carrier-agnostic-available-tomorrow/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:15:27 +0000 Andrew Munchbach http://www.bgr.com/?p=75912

Piggybacking on an offering available to Sprint customers for some time, AT&T will launch an unlimited “Mobile to Any Mobile” calling plan beginning tomorrow. Details on the plan, for the time being, are scarce. What we do know is that users will be required to have the $20, unlimited text-messaging plan ($30 for family plans) to be eligible for the program. No word on whether there will be an added fee for the any mobile-to-mobile privilege, or if it will now be a part of the unlimited messaging plan. Seems like a pretty good deal if it’s included free of charge… thoughts?

UPDATE: Unlimited, any mobile to mobile calling is included free with the unlimited text messaging plan. The full press release just crossed the wire and is waiting for you after the break.

AT&T Introduces Unlimited Calling to Any Mobile Number

New Feature Offers AT&T Wireless Customers Unlimited Calling to Any Mobile Number

Go ahead and dial up those digits–no matter which wireless network you’re calling. AT&T* today announced customers can enjoy unlimited mobile calling to any mobile number in America. Unlimited Mobile to Any Mobile is available to AT&T customers with an unlimited messaging plan and a qualifying voice plan**.

Beginning Thursday, Mobile to Any Mobile will be available to new and existing AT&T customers with a qualifying voice plan who subscribe to unlimited messaging plans. Existing customers with an unlimited messaging plan can activate Mobile to Any Mobile by visiting www.att.com/anymobile. The URL will be available beginning Thursday.

“Mobile to Any Mobile is an exciting offer that will keep our customers connected to the people they want to talk to, when they want to talk to them, without the hassle of watching minutes,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “We’re giving customers more options and even better value. And when you include Rollover Minutes, a benefit available exclusively from AT&T that lets customers keep their unused minutes for all domestic calls, including to landline numbers, it’s clear that AT&T offers the most flexibility in the industry.”

Unlimited messaging is available for $20 per month on an individual plan and $30 per month for a FamilyTalk Plan, which allows for up to five lines.

For the complete array of AT&T offerings, visit http://www.att.com/.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

**Mobile to Any Mobile Calling – Available only with select Nation and FamilyTalk plans. Direct calls to & direct calls received from US mobile numbers only. Rollover Minutes: Unused Anytime Mins expire after the 12th billing period. Night & Weekend & Mobile to Mobile mins do not roll over.

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Today, VoIP chat and calling provider Skype announced a new version of its iOS client simply titled Skype 3.0. The new code brings several, small improvements and, most notably, adds the ability to make and receive video-calls from your supported iOS device over both 3G and Wi-Fi networks. As the press release reads:

Skype video calling is supported over WiFi and 3G* data connections. You can enjoy video calls with users on all Skype desktop versions and with other Skype for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users.

You can make video calls in both portrait and landscape mode and use both front and back cameras.

Users on iPhone 4, 3GS and iPod Touch (4th Generation) can enjoy full 2-way video calling. Users with iPod Touch (3rd Generation) and iPads can receive video.

Video calling with Skype requires iOS 4.0 or above to be installed on your device. Skype 3.0 for iPhone will also work on iOs 3.x, but without video support.

The new bits are waiting to be downloaded via iTunes or the App Store on your iOS device. Enjoy!

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Google announced Monday the extension of a free calling initiative for U.S.-based Gmail users that was set to expire this month. ”In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year,” Google has extended free calling in the U.S. and Canada through the end of 2011. The promotion applies to all calls made from within Gmail, and is completely separate from Google Voice, which also affords free calling to the U.S. and Canada. Gmail’s recently added voice calling feature is thought to be a prelude to the eventual addition of VoIP services to Google Voice.

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According to a memo acquired by TmoNews, U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile is set to introduce a new, low-cost, international text and calling plan in time for the holidays. The new offering will allow users to send unlimited text messages to cell phones in over 220 countries and call land-line phones in 56 countries without incurring long-distance charges — calls to these countries will count against your plans monthly minute-allowance. The new international talk and text plan will require subscribers to have a postpaid calling account with a monthly plan costing $49.99 or higher and an unlimited domestic text messaging plan. After those prerequisites are met, users can add the international text and calling plan for an additional $10 per line. The plans should be available to T-Mobile customers starting December 8th. Hit the jump to see the full memo.

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Here it is ladies and gentlemen, the heir apparent to the myTouch 3G throne and T-Mobile’s second HSPA+ handset, the myTouch 4G. The new device, which is manufactured by HTC, has all the trimmings of a flagship device: 1GHz processor, front and rear facing cameras, vivid touchscreen display, and, depending on whom you ask, a 4G radio. The myTouch 4G is getting the lion’s share of T-Mobile’s ad buys these days, but how does the handset perform when put to the test by your friends at BGR? Hit the jump to find out.

The Inside

While the first iteration of the myTouch handset — the myTouch 3G — was a solid device, it certainly was not one you could have considered a flagship. However, even with the presence of the G2 and HD7 in its handset lineup, the 4G looks to be the T-Mobile’s franchise device. Combine the advertisement blitz with the device’s spec sheet… and we think it’s fair to say that the mT4G is the S-Class of Magenta’s offerings.

Let’s go over some raw specs. The myTouch 4G comes standard with a 1GHz, second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 Processor; 3.8-inch TFT display with an 800 x 480 pixel resolution; 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash, face finder, digital zoom, and the ability to record 720p, HD video at 30 frames per second; front-facing VGA camera; 768 MB RAM; 4GB of internal storage; an included 8GB microSD card (capable of expanding to 32GB); Wi-Fi b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.1+ERD; AGPS; and a 1400mAh battery. This impressive package weights in at just 5.4 ounces stands 4.8-inches tall and is 0.43-inches thick.

The myTouch 4G runs the Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system and is skinned with T-Mobile’s myTouch UI. The overlay is a mash-up of several HTC Sense elements and a number of T-Mobile tweaks that, for the most part, do not hinder the phone’s performance. If you’re an Android purist, and can only tolerate handsets running un-modified versions of Google’s mobile OS, you may not enjoy the myTouch experience. For the majority of consumers, however, we feel the myTouch will do just fine. With T-Mobile’s UI comes the ability to change profiles, set screen lock timeouts, link contacts, and more. A lot of the “upsides” of the device we’ll highlight later in the review are a direct byproduct of the myTouch overlay… so we really can’t stay too many bad things about it.

The Outside

The myTouch 4G really is, in our opinion, quite a looker. The device is available in four different colors – black, white, red, and plum – and feels incredibly natural in one’s hand.

On the lower portion of the device’s front are the three Android keys: home, menu, and back. The fourth key, which is typically a search key on other Android handsets, has been replaced with a “Genius” button. The four keys sit just below the screen and are physical keys (not soft keys) that are beveled with rounded edges; the keys feel and function perfectly. Centered below the buttons is an optical track-pad. Just like the BlackBerry Bold 9700, the track-pad can navigate around the OS, scroll through webpages or emails, and, when depressed, select UI elements. We didn’t find ourselves using the track-pad for navigation very often, but it makes editing text infinitely easier. Tap the screen to get the cursor in the general area then slide your thumb left or right over the track-pad to zero in on what needs to be edited. Perfection.

On the upper section of the device is a centered earpiece (duh!) that is flanked on the left and right by an LED notification light and the front facing camera, respectively. The right side of the device is home to the dedicated two-stage camera button and the left side contains a volume up-down rocker, micro-USB port, and docking station contact-points. The top of the device houses the 3.5mm headphone jack and a flush-mounted sleep/wake/power button; the bottom of the device is nearly void except for a pinhole for the device’s microphone. Both the volume up-down rocker and the power button sit flush to the device and are painted in your myTouch’s selected color; the dedicated camera button is raised, textured, and chrome colored. The back of the device has an LED flash, camera lens opening, and speaker grill.

Regardless of which myTouch color you chose, the front of the device looks exactly the same: all black. There is a dull-chrome bezel that wraps around the front touch panel that leads your eyes to the colored portion of the phone. We do have to give T-Mobile and HTC credit for the way the color flows on this particular piece of hardware; it complements the phone without being tacky or distracting. We might even be able to tolerate the plum version…. might. The part of the device that actually wears the color is the plastic casing that wraps around the top, bottom, and sides of the phone. The colored piece also wraps around the back of the handset and borders the battery cover and camera bezel. The battery cover is made of metal and the plastic camera/speaker bezel is painted with the same dull-chrome color that is used on the front of the device.

Now, above we mentioned plastic, and we know what you’re thinking: cheap. This is simply not the case. The device has an extremely solid feel and a really comfortable-to-hold form. It has a little bit of an iPhone 3GS feel to it – especially the white and black models – and that isn’t a bad thing. You really do feel like you’re palming a well-built, durable piece of hardware.

The Upside

Earlier in the review we told you that the myTouch UI brought some desirable features to the myTouch 4G that are not present in stock Android. These features include profiles, threaded email, and security timeouts.

Profiles are something that have been around forever but are missing from stock Android and iOS. Currently, RIM’s BlackBerry OS and Nokia’s Symbian are the only two major players that utilize profiles as part of their mobile OS and we’re not really sure why. For us, profiles make life easier so we’re happy to see them in the myTouch 4G. The device allows you to edit/choose between four pre-configured profiles — Standard, KidZone, Home, and Work. With profiles – referred to as myModes by T-Mobile – you can control your handset’s theme, wallpaper, lock wallpaper, ringtone, notification tone, email notifications, and call forwarding. The KidZone, Work, and Home profiles are preconfigured to have certain behaviors, but they all can be adjusted. The KidZone profile, for example, disables access to messaging, the dialer, and more in case you want to let a child play games on the phone – which we think is pretty neat. If none of the preconfigured options is what you’re looking for, or you want more than the four profiles, you are free to add them. The recently released DROID Pro also has profiles — thanks to the BLUR interface — and we hope this feature makes its way into stock Android at some point.

Mobile email is a big motivating factor for users to take the plunge and buy a smartphone, and the client on the myTouch 4G does not disappoint. The device uses the standard Gmail application to handle Google’s email implementation and uses a client similar to the one found on most HTC sets for Exchange, POP, and IMAP accounts. If you pin the “Mail” icon to one of your home screens, it live-updates with a magenta badge and white text (think iOS) displaying how many unread messages are sitting in your inbox. The client also offers several views: the standard inbox, a Favs view (to browse all the messages from contacts you’ve marked as favorites), an attachments view (to see all messages carrying a document payload), and a conversation view. For us, since we usually have an inbox full of related messages, the conversation view is super helpful. You can also flag Exchange email and move messages into any standard Exchange folder (Trash, Drafts, Sent, etc). The myTouch 4G also respected the fact that our Exchange administrator had configured a password requirement and prompted us to set a device password upon account configuration.

Battery life on the myTouch is very good. You can easily get 18 to 20 hours out of the battery with moderate to heavy use (not including tethering). The device has a feature called “fast boot” that is on by default. With fast boot enabled the device never actually fully powers down, instead it sort of hibernates. If you’re familiar with BlackBerrys then you’ll know what we’re talking about. When you turn the device off and power it back on, it boots in a matter of seconds, because the device was never really all the way shutdown in the first place. It is a great feature, especially if you want to turn your phone off in a meeting, but does tax the battery more than you’ll want it to if, for example, you turn the device off while you’re sleeping. Having the device off for 8 to 9 hours while we were catching some Z’s spent around 15% of the handset’s battery. We chose to turn the feature off and deal with a 45 second boot time. We like that the option is there, but it is just something to be mindful of as it is on by default. We managed to use our laptop tethered for just over three hours before the battery of the device fully discharged — which is right on par with other Android sets.

Other niceties included the ability to set a security timeout after the screen sleeps, the media room application for sharing digital content using DLNA, the SWYPE keyboard, carrier supported visual voicemail that is free, and the device’s ability to make calls using a connected Wi-Fi network. Call quality over both Wi-Fi and cellular is very good, no anomalies or hiccups to report and the speakerphone is on par with other HTC-manufactured handsets.

The Downside

There were several things about the handset that we didn’t really love and we thought we would point out. First and foremost: the camera. It really is just okay. HTC isn’t known for making the best smartphone shooters and they definitely aren’t doing anything to help break that notion with the 5 megapixel showing on the myTouch 4G. If you’re indoors pictures are blurry and grainy and it is really easy to get completely distorted pictures with very little camera shake. The 720p video the device takes is very good, but getting quality stills out of the myTouch proved to be a challenge.

Another odd issue we were having was slowness and lag when we connected a laptop via the device’s Wi-Fi hotspot feature. We could browse for 20 or 30 minutes at a reasonable pace — some fluctuation in speed but that is expected — but after 30 or 40 minutes the phone’s hotspot would become unresponsive. Once this happened we tried toggling the Wi-Fi hotspot functionality on and off but the only thing that seemed to remedy the issue was a reboot. We saw several tech bloggers throw out S.O.S.’s on Twitter — asking for T-Mobile’s APN addresses — that mentioned the spottiness of the service as well, so we’re pretty sure it wasn’t our device or our location at fault. We mucked around with the handset’s settings a bit and couldn’t really come up with a workable solution. Our connection speeds also topped out at just under 5Mbps even though we were testing in an HSPA+ market.

The third major disappointment was using video chat on the device. It’s just bad. There, we said it. We love the fact that you can utilize VC over your phone’s cellular data connection but even on Wi-Fi we found the audio and video to be choppy, delayed, and uninviting.

Some other annoyances include the fact that in order to switch keyboard layouts you don’t navigate to Settings > Language and Keyboard. Instead, you have to go to an editable text field, press and hold the screen, select text input, and pick a keyboard from there. SWYPE is on by default and it was several hours before we eventually stumbled upon the hidden setting. Not all that intuitive.

Peep, HTC’s Twitter client, is what the myTouch uses for Twitter contact-list synchronization, but you can’t directly access the program from the application menu (it has no icon). For this reason you’ll end up downloading the official Twitter client (which is better in our opinion) and have duplicate notifications until you remove your Twitter/Peep account from the phone’s list of accounts.

Also, the three buttons present at the bottom of all home screens – Phone, All Applications, and myFavs – are not customizable. We like having the phone button on the left (which it is) and the browser button on the right — a la Nexus One — but couldn’t make it happen.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line: the myTouch 4G is a great phone. It has a great build and feel, workable UI enhancements, and some awesome convenience features. Are the data speeds and video-calling capabilities – two of the features T-Mobile is marketing the hardest – the most amazing we’ve ever seen? Not really, but your mileage may vary.

At the end of the day if you’re a user looking for a smartphone to keep you organized on a network with affordable voice and data plan offerings we can highly recommend the myTouch 4G. If you’re a gadget nerd looking to replace your HTC EVO, keep on looking.