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iPhone Finally Coming To T-Mobile In 2013
New submitter kc67 sends this report from ABC:
"Five years after the iPhone originally launched in 2007, T-Mobile will finally start carrying it. It might not be as buzz-worthy as when Verizon finally got the iPhone back in 2011, but it's going to be a pretty big deal for T-Mobile subscribers next year, when the carrier starts selling Apple products. ... T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said while speaking at the Deutsche Telekom conference Thursday that it will carry the iPhone and will offer it in a different way. 'What was missing? A certain number of customers wouldn't come to the store if we didn't have the iPhone,' Legere said. 'We worked very, very hard for a deal that made sense for us.'"
Unfortunately now a certain number of customers won't come to the store if there are douche bags.
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http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/
and you see an iPhone 5. T-Mobile have been offering it over here for a considerable time.
About time the US caught up with other parts of the world...
I for one welcome our new T-Mobile overlords who (supposedly) do not keep your iPhone text messages into foreverdom...as long as you do not use iMessage, that is!
I hope all the i-shiny folks coming over will not ruin that.
They are moving to a non-subsidized model, which is hot. As it stands you get your iPhone for $200 then end up paying $1400 extra in some cases for an overpriced 2 year contract. I bought my own phone and did this already on T-Mobile, I only pay $30 a month for "unlimited" data (up top 5 gigs at "4g") and 100 minutes of talk time, which is all I need.
Sprint especially made the mistake of just committing to a huge number of iPhones at a staggering price they must now subsidize. Will be interesting to see if people are still willing to pay the True Price for an iPhone (e.g. $600) versus maybe $450 for a high end Android phone.
Dunno, I know a lot of non-techs that moved en masse from iPhone to Galaxy S3 and were like OMG THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!! and they're crazy Mac users that have Macbooks.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Legere mentioned offering the iPhone for $99 and then allowing customers to pay off the rest in monthly increments.
FTFA
T-Mobile has the iPhone since ages in other countries. For instance here in Germany you could get any iPhone from T-Mobile IIRC. Don't know why that was different in the US. Probably because Apple tried to pay them through the nose. But the smartphone market in Germany is very different: very fey iPhones, many many Androids.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
You should probably be aware that you can use Android without any connections to Google at all, despite the FUD. Also, Android is not your only other option.
I had not heard they were also carrying Android.
What's mentioned in TFA, but not TFS is the news they include that they will be moving away from subsidies. This I think is an awesome improvement! Think about it, "I can pay $30 less per month, put that into a savings account and every 2 years get a good phone... or I can get a good phone now and pay an extra $50 per month for a worse plan and if I mess up it ruins my credit" They mention changing subsidies to a "payment plan" type of thing, which is really what it should be considered. I completely welcome this change.
As a result, they provide their phones with minimal margins because they'll make it up in monthly fees(for the service). I bought my wife a phone with T-Mobile and I was amazed I could get a relatively decent Android phone for $200. Try finding a decent smart phone from another carrier at that price. Also, her plan is flat $50/month with no contract, and unlimited everything. Last time I looked at AT&T, the equivalent plan was $110/month and a similar low-mid-range phone was $450 without a contract
So those techs now qualify as 'sheeple'?
Sheep, flock etc etc.
Android experiences do vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Mine with HTC is not exactly brilliant.
Keep that pack of rabid data slurpers off my carrier! (and get the kids off my lawn while you're at it)
I'm sure all 10 of the people who haven't figured out Android is better (*including my girlfriend) will be thrilled.
* She's just waiting on her contract to run out actually. Sitting next to her with a new shiny LG Venice on a real unlimited plan changed her perspective on stuff.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
Now I wonder if any of those customers acted like this.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Now if I could make a phone call longer than two minutes without being dropped...
Still, monthly increments imply that the user will still be aware of the cost of the phone. Unlike the bulk of US operators where different phones are subsidized at different rates, with the user left with the impression that all phones cost either $0, $99, or $199. In this case, I expect the user will see:
iPhone: $99 up front + $X/month for 24 months + Service Fee
iPhone: $600 up front + Service Fee
Nexus4: $299 up front + service Fee
And yes, I think that will create a significant change in customer behavior. At least at T-mobile.
I have a Macbook and I think it's a mostly "meh" experience with a shitty screen and heavy hardware.
I just bought an iPhone 4S for use on a prepaid plan and found the experience to be very different, that is, much better than the Macbook.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Or even by country. I have an HTC G2 which runs stock android, but it is sold outside the US as the HTC Desire Z with the HTC Sense installed.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I only pay $30 a month for "unlimited" data (up top 5 gigs at "4g") and 100 minutes of talk time
Wow. In Canada, with Telus, $50 gets 1 gig of data, with the "option" of paying $25 for an extra 2 gigs. And Voicemail is an add-on for another $8 a month.
Three Squirrels
The summary doesn't even mention what's different about T-Mobiles plans! No subsidies to buy the phone up front (so you'll pay 600-850 for your iPhone, depending on the model) and this (should) result in cheaper monthly bills. I hope it works out!
The world has moved to Windows Phone.
Will be interesting to see if people are still willing to pay the True Price for an iPhone (e.g. $600) versus maybe $450 for a high end Android phone.
A comparable Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S III) costs $600 as well (slight variations depending on where you get it). Android may have cheaper phones but those phones are not comparable to the iPhone 5. If they are comparable, they aren't (notably) cheaper.
Frogs jumping over frogs and toads.
T-mobile just happens to have better coverage here.
If you get an unlocked iPhone they can give you edge
coverage. I have started using an old Samsung 3G
phone for voice. Data is WiFi for now but I can tell
you that as soon as I am contract free I will be looking
hard at changing 100% from the A&someting company.
Smart phones are not smart choices for folk that want a
phone
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
I actually own both an iPhone 5 and an S3. I've had 4 iPhones, and purchased the S3 b/c I wanted a test phone for mobile development. My plan: I'll make whatever seems the better phone my primary line.
My opinion: the S3 seems to be a superior phone. However, there are some really top notch apps on iOS, and I'm finding poor substitutes so far on Google Play (both free and paid). (TweetBot, Things, Downcast, and OmniFocus come to mind) Some of the "same" apps available on both are very poor on Android. Some of my favorite games aren't on Android (PopCap titles). Even where I've found identical apps, often there's no "Pro" version on Android that I can (re)purchase to get rid of ads.
Bottom line: the S3 is s superior device, and I love Android's features, but it's all about the apps. I'm really cheering for the S3, but I think it'll be at least a year before the ecosystem catches up. :-(
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Somebody hasn't heard of the flagship, $300 unlocked, Nexus 4
Now I gotta share my mobile bandwidth with Siri-using morons ("Siri, is that rain?"). Also guessing my days of unlimited data are numbered.
You're against T-mo getting more spectrum so they can improve coverage? Why?
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
This is a freaking ad, and it's obvious now that someone at Apple is paying one of the editors (same goes for Microsoft), or they both have someone they employ who is an editor...can we please see stories that are actually news and not freaking ads, please?!?!???!?
Can you show me where I can get it that cheap? I've only seen it for about 450.
T-Mobile is also going to end handset subsidies which translates into everyone paying MSRP for all handsets all the time. The upside of this is that it will kill most handset sales since few of them are even laughably close in value to the full retail price. b
Right. Plus, the customer can even put more down up front and pay less over the course of the 20 months. The customer can also pay off the installment plan early, too, which would also reduce their monthly bill. The other carriers won't let you do that.
T-Mobile doesn't have iPhone in the US because we have a highly fragmented spectrum for cell phones. T-Mobile uses GSM, which is compatible, but in the US it's on an entirely different set of frequencies that the iPhone doesn't support.
That's not correct. T-Mobile uses the 1900 band in the USA and all the iPhones support that fine. It's trivial to find accounts of people with unlocked iPhones who currently use them on T-Mobile in the USA. T-Mobile doesn't have the iPhone in the USA because they were basically unwilling and perhaps unable to pay Apple's exorbitant prices to get permissions to sell it.
Is the Nexus 4 comparable? The 16GB version is $350 off contract. A 16GB iPhone 5 is $650 off contract.
They have similar ppi resolution, Nexus 4 has a bigger screen. iPhone has better battery life.
You buy a sim card, stick it in, pick a generic pay as you go plan with data service and off you go. I have an all you can eat plan for $50/month. I'm guessing that this announcement has something to do with the elimination of that low cost option. so that all we'll have are the same options offered by AT&T and Verizon, i.e. a locked iPhone for initially less money with a contract. If that's the case then this is just bad news. Hopefully they'll keep the pay as you go with an unlocked phone option.
What do you like about the S3 that you feel makes it superior to iPhone? What I've noticed about most iPhone/Android comparisons is that people will present minor features that most users will never touch as their reasons for their preferred device being "superior". It's like at the beginning of Monty Python and the Meaning of Life where the Protestant husband is describing how they are superior to Catholics because they can have sex anytime they want and not have to worry about having children because they are allowed to wear condoms. And during the conversation with his wife it is revealed that they've only had sex twice and have two children.
I've got an Android tablet on T-mobile (Galaxy Tab 7 Plus). I've had it for about a year now. Before that I had the Droid Triumph, the Droid, and the G1. For all of these except the G1, I've had to find custom firmware. The pre-installed, unremovable shovelware is annoying, but the lack of updates is unacceptable. The iPhone 3GS was released 3.5 years ago and will run iOS 6, no waiting for the carrier to release the update.
Even with Samsung, supposedly a good Android manufacturer, my device hasn't received any major update since its release in August 2011. If I didn't root and update the device I would be stuck with an OS from July 2011. Even the custom firmware (derivative of CM, which doesn't officially support my device) has its issues, including Wifi problems.
Then there's the lack of accessories, I got a 7" tablet because I thought the larger screen would make for a better GPS device in my car. My tablet was advertised along side a "navigation dock" for this purpose. The dock was never released. It also won't charge off a computer's USB, unless the tablet is off. This applies even if you pay extra for their special "charge and sync" cable which Samsung claims will allow the device to charge while tethered (sharing the data connection) with your laptop.
As soon as Google Maps for iOS 6 comes out, I'm switching to an iPad Mini. Looks like the AT&T version should work fine on T-mobile. I really liked Android, but it's far too rough around the edges for its maturity.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
>$30 a month for "unlimited" data (up top 5 gigs at "4g")
That's like seeing a hot looking hooker and when you get up close its a tranny. God I love those unlimited up to 5 gigs deals.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
And I just signed a 2-year contract for 1G data, some minutes (can't remember) and lots of texts for £6/month. US$10?
Admittedly, it's an awkward deal -- it's really £12/month, with 50% rebated by sending in copies of my bill (about 6 times over the two years), so it takes some time on my part. But I've done it twice before now, and it works.
Straight from Google on the play store, whenever they get more stock in.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
When I bought my first Android phone at T-Mobile some years back (MyTouch 3g) I walked in totally ready to buy the phone outright and get on a no contract plan. When I told the sales person that was what I wanted to do, he said "cool" and then went on to say that if I wanted to, I could get the same no contract plan, and finance the phone at 0% interest for 18 or 20 months -- can't recall exactly but something less than 2 years. Obviously that is a better deal even then just buying the phone outright so that's what I did. The phone payments were just added to my bill. Anyway, when T-Mobile gets to financing iPhones, maybe it will be doing a similar 0% interest financing plan which, if it can be used with a no-contract plan, is a real no brainer.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
They are switching to LTE, but selling non-LTE phones. And, my understanding is they are pushing current users onto only one of their frequency bands to make room. Maybe I'll be back when my new Verizon plan runs out in 2 years and things are settled.
Yes, I can also write my own PIM and POOM applications and build my own cloud. I'm talking about practicality here, not what's physically possible.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
>$30 a month for "unlimited" data (up top 5 gigs at "4g")
No, they have a true unlimited plan with no caps or throttling. With 500 minutes it's $59.99/month or $69.99/month if you want unlimited talk. The only thing is that it doesn't allow tethering.
I thought the nexus 4 was a halfstep behind the siii
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
At least the tranny is hot and knows how to please you.
Can you explain how? Someone gave me a TMobile G1 phone, but I was unable to use it until I created a Google account and enter the account information into the phone.
The Nexus 4 also doesn't come with LTE. $300 is a lot to pay for that, but it might be worth it for some people.
I keep all of my music on my phone, and the 16GB maximum on the Nexus doesn't cut it. Can the Android music player play music directly off the SD card, including searching, creating/storing playlists, purchasing music and storing it on the SD, etc., or do you have to do something funky there and manually merge the on-board flash with the SD?
It will be even longer if people keep starting with an iOS app and port it too closely for Android. The reduced number of controls on iPhones mean a few more compromises must made in navigation, and those should be removed, as Android users generally aren't used to them, and they waste screen real-estate. You really need to take the available controls into account when developing the UI, and many to a quick port without doing that. I have a couple of apps that are barely usable because of it.
I'd love to get a MacBook (and run Debian/KDE on it). Those new screens are quite nice. If Apple would allow people to install software from alternate sources and stop with the proprietary connectors and frivolous lawsuits, I might be willing to shell out the cash for one.
>What I've noticed about most iPhone/Android comparisons is that people will
>present minor features that most users will never touch as their reasons for
>their preferred device being "superior"
That is because because all phones are approximately alike but everybodies specific needs are different. So you can pick the minor features to get your personal best phone.
My phone needs to have a physical keyboard which almost nobody cares about anymore, I need the screen real-estate to not be obscure with an onscreen keyboard in landscape mode when ssh-ing into servers if the need arrives. So Apple is out of the picture, most Androids manufactures also (even HTC which so far supplied me with a G1 and G2 announced killing keyboards). Maybe something like a Note2 will work for me when my G2 breaks.
I was so puzzled by this question that I had to go digging for an answer, and it looks like the MOP is actually an ex-metroPCS employee. Likely with a low opinion of his former employer...possibly bitter over witnessing typical sleazy telecom behavior and being forced to carry it out... Still though, given the way a telecom merger works, your question still requires an answer.
That's a great phone and an amazing price. But the Nexus 4 isn't quite comparable to the top of the line phones: iPhone 5, HTC 8X, Lumia 920, Siii,
This chart is a few months out of date but you can see the difference in specs between the phones listed and the Nexus 4: http://www.cultofmac.com/189929/the-iphone-5-how-it-stacks-up-against-the-competition-chart/
You can find Popcaps games from Amazon Android market. Just download the market app from amazon.
All Android phones can do that, and they're treated as normal file systems, as they should be. The problem is that the Nexus 4 does not have a removable SD card. Even though it doesn't advertise it, apparently it does have LTE though. Type in a sequence of characters on the phone and it turns it on. I'm really hoping the next batch still uses the same underlying hardware.
My last MP3 player treated the music as a normal file system, and it was a royal pain to use. You can't search metadata that way without indexing the entire SD card.
Since the Nexus doesn't have more than 16GB of storage or supported LTE (there's a reason why they don't advertise it, that is HUGE feature), it's a non-starter for me, and not comparable to the iPhone.
Same in the US, especially for a prepaid smartphone BYOD -- I just spent a few months researching prepaid providers so I could switch, and T-Mo's $30 plan was the best for smartphone web access by far.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I was a T-Mo customer for several years. I waited and I waited. Finally I gave up and switched to Sprint.
I'll be curious to see what their pricing structure is for unlimited, if they even offer truly unlimited.
And they'd have to beat Sprint by a wide margin to get me to switch; I'm not talking about $2 or $10. I'm currently paying about $230/month for four lines. I'm thinking under $200 for four lines. (And I have to wait for my Sprint contract to expire.)
Apple does allow people to install software from any source on a MacBook. They always have, even under the newest OS X release.
What I've noticed about most iPhone/Android comparisons is that people will present minor features that most users will never touch as their reasons for their preferred device being "superior".
How about platform openness? Just sayin' ...
Seriously, though. The reason I went with Android rather than iPhone back in the day was because Apple made it so difficult to jailbreak their new devices. With a Nexus phone, rooting and installing a custom ROM is actively encouraged by Google. For someone who loves coding like myself, it's a no-brainer.
12 pounds a month on Giffgaff gives you unlimited data, heaps of free calls and texts and no contract at all.
Yeah, but for the android device, its as simple as selecting "skip" when asked to log into google, then installing an alternative app market of your choice through the web browser. Oh, you might have to enable installing apps from other sources, a simple tick in the settings.
Hardly the same thing.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Plus, once the plan is paid off, your monthly rate goes down. The other carriers don't do that; if you don't jump on the upgrade opportunity as fast as possible, you end up wasting even more continuing to pay as though you still owe money for the phone.
I've been a TMoUS customer for years, and have been happy with them. This makes me more happy. Thank $DIETY AT&T's grubby paws were kept away. My only real concern out of this is that they might end up facing worse network congestion. Right now, it's incredible how much less loaded their network is that the big two.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Up to 5GB at max speed. They'll throttle you back to about 300kbps (still fast enough for music streaming, which is where most of my phone data usage goes) until the end of the month if you go over 5GB on that plan, or so I've heard; my friends who have it say that's never happened to them. I'll probably switch to that plan shortly myself.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
It's 4G up to 5 gigs and then you get unlimited 3G.
Yep, that's one of my pet peeves. A "Back" button up on the top left and a title bar using up 5% of the screen is the usual giveaway. There's a dedicated back button on every Android handset FFS!
How about platform openness? Just sayin' ...
For 99% of the population, who gives a poop about platform openness? when it comes to my phone, all I care about is whether it runs the apps I want. While yes, I could program for my phone, I don't have time or the inclination to do so. In fact, the lack of openness probably keeps some of the riffraff out by presenting a slightly higher barrier to entry.
The fact of the matter is that from a usability perspective ,a lot of open source software simply sucks. I've been running linux since 1997, and except for some bright spots (XBMC comes to mind) most end user applications lack any kind of polish that would make it useful for my parents, or anyone else who doesn't have a technical bent.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
It's funny, because you're exactly backward. T-Mobile is dropping subsidized contract plans altogether. Instead, all plans will be month-to-month (even on iPhones) and when you buy a new phone, you'll have the option of paying full retail price or putting it on a payment plan that is added to your monthly bill until the loan is paid off. A much better system all around than the other big carriers, and one that I'm pleased to see T-Mobile is able to take even with the iPhone (not that I have any interest in buying an iPhone, but this is not the way they're usually sold and it sounds like TMo standing up for its customers).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
TMO decided to stop subsidizing phones in 2013, making Value Plans the norm and letting us see the true cost.
In that scenario. This is easy.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
> Thank $DIETY AT&T's grubby paws were kept away.
$DIETY? What is that, the god of calorie restriction?
Try Wind Mobile. They don't cover everywhere, but for $40 per month I get unlimited talk, text and data. Of course, that price won't last forever, as they're just trying to build a customer base, but you can get it without a contract, so you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
With something a bit more advanced than the first device that ran Android. That changed a long-assed time ago.
In fact, one of the more popular Android tablets doesn't even come with the Google Marketplace. It comes loaded with the Amazon App store.
That you wont be able to get one with the 55 or 30 per month plans.
Oh come on. Macbooks are amazing. They're just expensive as fuck.
You want the best, you pay for it. You can't afford the best, you go with anything else.
Alas, I am in the latter category now. When my current MBP dies, I'm going to have to get a PC. :/
They've talked plenty about refarming over the AT&T(1900 HSPA+) bands, but not many places have been converted.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Looked at Wind, but the limited coverage area makes it a no-go for me. Otherwise I'd be gone in a flash.
Three Squirrels
It might not be 100% as awesome, but at half the price I think you'd have a hard time convincing the average person of that
How are MacBooks "the best"?
High-end wintel laptops are better, imo. They're just not as "pretty" and hipster as teh MBP.
Uh, how isn't it comparable? The Galaxy S3 does have an external SD and a slightly larger screen. The iPhone has neither. The Nexus 4 has more up-to-date software. If you're on Verizon or Sprint then the fact that the Nexus 4 is not available in CDMA is an issue.
Some complain about the lack of LTE, but at least in the US ATT's LTE service isn't nearly as fast as what the Nexus 4 can deliver by HSPA+. If ATT gets their act together they could in theory do better as LTE is somewhat faster than HSPA+, but by the time they do that you probably will have a newer phone anyway. On T-Mobile LTE isn't even supported yet, and their HSPA+ service probably outperforms ATT's LTE service anyway.
...stop with the proprietory connectors
I think those days are mostly counted, the current MBP has USB 3, HDMI, SDXC card and Thunderbolt connectors, of which you may count the Thunderbolt one as proprietary, but all its rights belong to Intel, not Apple. And as "Internal Modem" has mentioned, you of course can install on a Mac whatever you want. The Mac App Store is not really good anyway.
this sig is useless
I'm not talking about Macs here ... they're not the ones pushing the industry in a bad direct (yet). On the contrary, I think all laptops should have screens like that available. Unfortunately, they're made by the same company that make the iOS 'eco-system', and that part makes them most of their money. I can't in good conscience reward them for their laptops when they seem hell-bent on talking away people's rights to use their own devices as they please. I think the end of openness for th Mac is coming as well. Currently, there are certain features you can only use if you install software through their market.
Ah I see, didn't read it that way. With the "certain features you can only use if you install software through their market" you probably mean Xcode, which is free but you still have to register, agreed.
this sig is useless
... and iCloud.
Well, you don't have to install anything to run iCloud stuff, but of course you have to sign up if you want to use it. But you don't have to, everything will just work as it used to.
this sig is useless
So Apple may be more hostile to the practice than Google, but Redsn0w makes the jailbreaking process pretty idiot-proof. In either case, jailbreaking/rooting and installing new firmware is a warranty-voiding activity (at least until you revert to stock firmware).
Despite the smaller market share, iOS users tend to be much heavier users of their devices than Android users. Thus, as a software developer, it makes sense to start with iOS as you will be able to monetize your app much more readily. And once you've developed the iOS version, porting to Android is the path of least resistance to maximize the overall monetization of your effort.
I'm pretty sure that only applications from their market can integrate with iCloud.
That is correct.
this sig is useless
In fact, the lack of openness probably keeps some of the riffraff out by presenting a slightly higher barrier to entry.
Wow. I really have no idea how to respond to that, except to say that I never thought anyone on /. would want to actively discourage people from coding. Extraordinary.
Apple doesn't let any developer spy on you like they can on Android. That's enough for me right there. Bad enough Google scrapes everything they can off the users.
A close friend, who uses Tmobile in the SF Bay Area for the Nokia N900, got an iPhone 4S half a year ago. Both phones were bought at the non-subsidized expensive price, unlocked. Where the N900 had been getting 3G signals, in the same location the iPhone 4S would get EDGE only. Siri would be useless. Apparently the iPhone 3G was not on the same frequency as the N900 3G.
That changed about a month ago, where suddenly during the long daily commute up the peninsula (between Silicon Valley and San Francisco), suddenly there would be big areas with the iPhone 4S lighting up with a nice strong 3G signal where there previously had not been any before. We speculated that this was due to MetroPCS merging into Tmobile, but we really didn't know that much (does MetroPCS even have iPhone-compatible 3G?).
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Last time I used the T-Mobile installment plan you could only pay the full balance due or the scheduled monthly payment. Any extra you pay just becomes a credit balance applied to you next monthly bill