Cheddar reports that T-Mobile is set to launch a new, ad-supported television streaming service for subscribers within the coming weeks. However, the service is not the supposed “disruptive” streaming platform CEO John Legere made promise of last year.
T-Mobile today announced the release of its eSIM app for compatible iPhone XS, XS Max and XR devices. The app serves as a streamlined portal to activate an eSIM line without the need to head to a store or call a hotline.
Once activated, users can remove their physical SIM, freeing up the slot for a secondary line.
T-Mobile has announced its latest “un-carrier” initiative, dubbed “Un-carrier Unwrapped.” Rather than a permanent addition to the company’s offerings, Un-carrier Unwrapped is a month-long event during which the carrier will gift its subscribers and new customers with special deals and benefits.
The first of those was announced today: unlimited LTE data for all subscribers on Simple Choice post-paid plans for the next three months.
Image via Re/code
T-Mobile CEO John Legere said tonight during a talk at Re/code’s Code/Mobile conference that demand for the iPhone 6 Plus was higher than was originally anticipated, with the larger model grabbing about 45% of orders. He said initial expectations put demand somewhere in the ballpark of 20-25% (Video below)
This unexpected level of demand may have contributed to the supply problems many customers have experienced, and Legere says it will still be a while before iPhone shipments are able to meet demand again.
Legere also said that only about 100,000 people took advantage of the carrier’s ‘test drive’ offer that allowed customers to use an iPhone on T-Mobile for a week completely free of charge. He took a chance to reiterate the points made during his recent Apple SIM tweet storm as well.
As expected, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are both now available for pre-order on Apple’s online store and carrier websites, at least for some users. As the stores start to catch up to the load, more and more and customers should be able to get in their orders. Initial buyers seem to have the most luck on carrier websites as well as the Apple Store App. The store is almost an hour late in opening.
You can get the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 starting at $199 for the 16 GB model. Unlike previous years, there is no 32 GB option, which was replaced by a larger 64 GB model at $299 and a new 128 GB version for $399.
The iPhone 6 Plus sports the same internals as the smaller model accompanied by a 5.5-inch display and a camera with optical image stabilization. You can get the larger version of the phone in 16 GB for $299, 64 GB for $399, or 128 GB for $499 with a 2 year plan.
Apple has announced several new wireless features for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, including faster Wi-Fi that achieves speeds of up to 3x faster than previous models. New LTE technology is also preset, allowing speeds of up to 150 Mbps.
Perhaps more importantly, Voice over LTE calling has been enabled, and can take advantage of the new Wi-Fi hardware to place calls over a Wi-Fi connection while still using your cellular phone number. T-Mobile is one of the first carriers rolling this out in the United States.
The iPhone 6 will operate on over 200 carriers on 20 different LTE bands.
As noted by the folks over at TmoNews, the magenta-branded un-carrier will be offering a discount of up to $50 on all iPhones starting tomorrow. An internal memo leaked from the company indicates that not every model will get the full $50 drop, but at least a few will. The cut comes off of the “device-only price,” or the full price of the phone. Subsidized models won’t be affected, it seems.
This discount is just the latest blow in the ongoing war between U.S. mobile carriers. Sprint recently announced all-new family and individual plans in an attempt to compete with more capable networks like AT&T and Verizon, while scrappy underdog T-Mobile continues its campaign against the norms established by its competition.
T-Mobile announced today that it has partnered with Apple to rent customers a brand-new iPhone 5s (“or whatever is the latest and great iPhone”) to test out the company’s network for one week as part of its “Uncarrier 5.0” event. The offer is part of the “un-carrier’s” new “Test Drive” program that attempts to lure away subscribers on competing networks. The program starts on June 23rd.
Users can sign up on T-Mobile’s website and will receive an iPhone 5s to use for one week on the T-Mobile wireless network. After the trial period ends, customers can drop the phone off at a T-Mobile store. The entire process costs nothing.
The company hopes that this will eliminate buyer’s remorse and give people a chance to see how well the network will work for them on a daily basis. The full press release is below:
All Things D reports that T-Mobile is finally taking advantage of this year’s MetroPCS merger. The fourth-largest mobile carrier in the U.S. plans to use the new spectrum to offer even faster speeds on its LTE network nationwide. Some markets are already seeing an increase in speed, and more will see faster service next year. The company says it hopes to cover up to 90% of its current subscriber base with improved service.
In direct contrast to this data network improvement, T-Mobile is also planning to launch new pre-paid plans with no data allowance included, according to TMo News. The carrier confirmed that the new plans will come with unlimited talk and text, but will not include any data. These new pre-paid plans will be available on December 8th, the the same day AT&T is launching its new selection of plans.
In a move that follow’s T-Mobile’s recently launched “un-carrier” initiatives, Verizon Wireless plans to debut a new “VZ Edge” program aimed at retaining its customer base, according to a leaked presentation slide posted by Droid-Life.
Specific details on the new approach are currently slim, but, based on the slide, it seems that the essence of Verizon’s plan is to merge T-Mobile’s new JUMP and pay-for-a-device-overtime programs. T-Mobile’s JUMP program, with a $10 monthly fee, allows users to upgrade to a new handset twice a year.
Marketed as a plan to “stay on the leaning edge of technology,” this new Edge program seems to be similar. T-Mobile also allows customers to put a down payment on a phone and then pay the cost overtime, and Edge seems to provide a similar solution.
Edge will also allow customers to upgrade to a new phone once the device if 50% paid off, and this seems to be similar to T-Mobile requiring users of the JUMP plan to have already paid 6 months of service for their current device.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MHbElOIF6A?rel=0]
Following last week’s launch, U.S. carrier T-Mobile has begun airing its second TV ad for the iPhone 5. It is of similar style to the first ad as it explains T-Mobile’s new no-contract approach. Thanks, Matthew!
T-Mobile is hemorrhaging customers, as it reported nearly a half million lost customers during its Q3 2012 earnings call, and a T-Mobile executive recently attributed the carrier’s struggle to its refusal to carry Apple’s iPhone.
Jim Alling
“Make no mistake about it: We would love to carry the iPhone. However, we want the economies to be right for us,” said T-Mobile COO Jim Alling, who, according to Fierce Mobile, spoke candidly during a discussion at the Morgan Stanley Twelfth-Annual Technology, Media, and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona, Spain:
“Alling said T-Mobile would not want to sign a deal similar to one a competitor recently signed with Apple. That was likely a veiled reference to Sprint Nextel, which began carrying the iPhone in late 2011 under a four-year, $15.5 billion deal with Apple. The device has substantially driven up Sprint’s device subsidy cost, and the operator has said its iPhone business will not turn a profit until 2015. […] Alling acknowledged that not carrying the iPhone has been detrimental to T-Mobile, saying, ‘We recognize that it has been a point of churn for us.'”