Gadgetory

what is going on everybody welcome to a rainy rainy Thursday at least up here in Oakland California welcome to good to go I'm Noah Kravitz from TechnoBuffalo calm I'm James Kendrick from zini net mobile news James I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say it's not pouring cats and dogs down there in Houston brilliant sunshine 80 degrees I knew there was a reason you know I was too happy about not going to orlando this year for ctia yeah i knew there was a reason and then the rains rolled in so what are you gonna do yeah that's true lots to talk about before even getting it to ctia you know AT&T t-mobile murderer some big news of the week they they sprung that on everybody on a Sunday which was all still mode did everything kind of the biggest news in the telecom business so far this year and they just kind of threw it out there and just to see what would stick to the wall yeah it's interesting you know that the timing of things good news people try to good news you know people people push out you know based on a number of factors bad news I've always seen pushed out on late on Fridays so this sunday you know sunday on the Eva CTA a maybe that's just when the deal went down who knows but what are your thoughts you know I well I mean I've talked a lot of people a lot of t-mobile customers and it seems like they're all ticked I mean I don't think any t-mobile customers happy at the thought of becoming at some point an AT&T customer yeah I had as it may I think ultimately it's probably a good thing for t-mo but that's that's my take on it now now I would agree if you said it's a good thing for Deutsche Telekom because they're all they came out really nice and the whole deal I think yeah they got they got our one report I read had you know they were asking sprint for 25 billion and AT&T offered 39 billion whatever the case they got a nice you know if the deal goes through a nice sum of cash for you know how the ugly stepchild they were trying to get rid of any way and more importantly and you don't hear a lot of people talk about this I think this is pretty significant they also being a German telecom okay come away with eight percent equity an AT&T yes and that's yes that's a big deal to me because now after the merger if it goes through AT&T is the biggest us telecom right and they're going to have a percent of that which is no small no piece of it now eight percent and a board seat now what about you said it would be good for tmobile in the long run are you talking about t-mobile USA t-mobile USA which is the only we should point out that's the only portion of t-mobile that's affected i mean the the the international or non-us operations of t-mobile or not a magic by by the snow now i think it is because I've been watching t-mobile for a long time and it's now clear and we talked about this last week you know LTE is becoming the de facto 4g standard going forward and t-mobile has absolutely no way forward right to LTE they have no plans right that I mean they have no mechanism to get there and I think well as we see healthy become more of a standard we were going to see t-mobile's start really strong I don't know what they were gonna do quite frankly going forward I mean I know current t-mobile customers don't care right now but long-term I was really you know what they were going to do going forward down now we know they really have to do anything doubling hspa+ capacity can only go so far and that's not the way forward for you know it's like oh that AT&T yeah I am I'm not currently a t-mobile customer I used to be but but you know you can put me you can let me in squarely in that bucket of people who are ticked hiya I just see it as a big lou's for consumers no matter how you look at it obviously you know like you said there's a win in there a few parties win here you know eighteen eighty 80 when waiting on I would actually this is sort of you know at a out of left field I would argue that Verizon wins a little bit they'd rather I think they'd rather see this then then sprint you know become a legitimate player now there's basically one competitor for them instead of you know a three-way race and that that's certainly a debatable point but I kind of see it that way at least initially we'll see how it plays out Apple arguably wins a little bit google i actually think kind of loses handset makers I think lose I don't know I don't be overly bleak about it the rain maybe has me down a little bit today but you know at the risk of being reductionist competition is good for consumers and you pull a competitor out of the pool you know no I think that's very true that that's always a bad thing yeah so what is a assuming this goes through which is a big assumption and we can touch on that if we have time you know one thing I'm curious about is what a sprint do now I don't think sprint does anything any differently than they were doing anyway I mean sprint is moving to LTE they've already said that that's their way forward you know long-term are they going to remain viable as a network I don't know when this deal doesn't matter in that in my view I mean they're either there or they're not there they have taken I think really good actions to be competitive with their true unlimited with dan has seized current TV ads running now which I think are very true where he makes fun of the fact that other networks like AT&T have different definitions missions for the term unlimited right right which which we've talked about before read um I think I think Sprint's doing all the right thing and they are moving till tea they've already rewarded they are stated that's where they were moving I think this this really hurts them though in the sense of you know going from one of the two smaller of the big four in the u.s. to being the only little guy so to speak and also now you know the gap between them and number two becomes that much bigger you know eighty would become the number one with what a hundred and thirty million subscribers yeah now and one of the thousand yeah and when you get into things which you know frankly get a little bit out of what I usually cover but things like lobbying the government you know net neutrality things things like that where there has been a little bit of a pattern of t-mobile and Sprint being on one side of the argument and sometimes joining up to fight again say you know verizon you know things like that things like negotiating with handset makers things like you know it there there was a little bit of a sense of sprint and I mean spread a little bit less so since they enacted the ten-dollar premium data fee though as you said the true unlimited is still a very big selling point for them but sprint EVO will being kind of the cheaper of the four big carriers in terms of rate plans and now you know can sprint afford to i don't know i just i think i mean when i first started covering mobile i remember you know about a year year and a half into it talking to some PR people saying you know I don't get it with sprint they they innovate they have you know at least where i use them they have pretty solid service their data speeds are good they're at least trying to innovate even though some of the thinking way back to like the upstage music phone which wasn't a huge success but they were trying to do innovative things like that they still are you know evo 4g and this week the evo 3d being launched and everything but they're always just having trouble you know really bridging that that gap to try to get up into the big boy leagues and you know I think this is really a blow to that in that sense see I see it the opposite number one sprint as themselves are no smaller than they were before this was an ounce from assuming this but let's say this deal was consummated right right sprint is no different than they were before the deal I think they're actually in better position because they are now or will be after the deal conserv 8b the far cheapest of the big three right I think that's actually a very competitive thing that's it that's that's that's the niche that they've carved out like you said that and I think that they have at where t-mobile failed they have carved out at least through the the you know the clearwire affiliation with the wimax and to get real 4G speeds if you will out on the market first I mean they did that really quick they did that they turn that into at least a competitive advantage and they are moving to LTE like everybody else we don't know where that will wind up or how the clearwire debt is going to impact them but but but the bottom line for me is do differently without this ATT tmobile deal as it would with so right I think in that respect it's it's it's kind of a wash right red yeah no fair argument for sure um I wonder if I wonder if this will have any impact on how Google does business with the carrier's you know they weren't t-mobile wasn't the only one to launch a with google phone for sure but they've kind of been Google's go to at least more than any other carrier for these with Google devices or kind of the new you know obviously the g1 g2 the the nexus nexus one was you know the team mobile banded and timo will work with them a little bit when you know that kind of half-baked attempt to sell the phones directly without a service plan that kind of thing and I wonder you know I think it was coincidence that this week you saw you know sprint at CTA with a bunch of Google devices but just kind of going forward to be interesting I mean there's a lot that's interesting to think about with what's going to happen with Android and sort of that split between the premium Android devices and then the ones that the carriers are you know perhaps going to more and more look to modify to suit their own needs something came out today the Angry Birds developers posted on their facebook page that ATT is going to be putting the amazon appstore on at least some AT&T phones going forward which we knew they would have to be and to tell you the truth I don't lose do they lose sight of the fact that Android and Google is now the elephant in the room ok ATT cannot afford to ignore or or or give short attention to Android they can't write because they've got nowhere else to go windows microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with muslim seven every single day it's it's like there's nowhere else for them to turn and they're gonna have to play ball if they want to play ball at all you have to play ball with with google at some point we are going to see and i'm actually working on an article about this we are going to have to see and i think we will see google realize how big an elephant in the room it is now in smartphones and step up to the carriers and get in their face so you know what this is the way this is going to work from now on right yeah otherwise you're out of the game cuz you got you've got no alternative here yeah the the sort of faux opens open-source stance that they have right now least to me doesn't serve anybody well it doesn't sir it doesn't serve Google at all but I do it all I think that's where they're going to have to step up because I think this whole system updates thing that has been brought to fore from again by Microsoft yeah is actually been an ongoing common theme with andrew is fragmented big carriers have too much control consumers just flat loose but we don't we don't we don't enter into the equation at all right and and that is the wrong to be on every business level it doesn't even make sense that's the thing is it still you know the folks watching out there saying I'm a consumer i rooted my phone you know yeah they still win but but if that's a very small percentage of the people actually buying phones yeah and that is not a good reason no to yeah and that is that's not a good method to have to get up existing updates but you know that the absolute the amazon appstore example is interesting for a number of reasons but one of which you know it's there are a means become a joke online the eight easy steps to installing the app store which i haven't actually tried to do but apparently you know it involves just things that the average consumer was never meant to do on an android phone i've done it and you can actually go online and do it now yeah and they email you a link and you click it now they emailed me a link i click the link and it said install and that's what i did now and that was ethical T comes comes with the AT&T phone because they AT&T locks android phones down to third party apps yep but as you see they've already had to back off of that and that proves how much stroke Google and Android has even with ATT now I will say it that the the tides are turning here what was the ATT was it the backflip the AT&T android phone that had yahoo is the default search engine i forget which one it was yeah they did that and then they locked down you see you couldn't install anything not in the android market which meant be right no sighs on abs yep yep but I mean they back down that in two days but you know the app store it was big the App Store thing is interesting because it just sort of highlights you know Google's sort of almost non-committal stance if you look at their actions you know we're open source but there are these you know sort of things you can and can't do and it's also feeding into you know more carrier controlled way we're doing it now it's a business for us but we're not going to step up and lay down the law so that we can actually realize it as better business we've got an app an app market out there but we're gonna you know but it's okay for somebody else to create their own app market even if it you know turns out to be one that's better than ours just all these different use cases that that um I don't know I think they're great that not to dwell on the Amazon article I'm vm son case I'm working on an article about that it's great for somebody like Amazon it's potentially great for you know a carrier I mean like sprint if they're Sprint ID thing or something they can do with it you know really gets going it's been great for HTC that they've you know really built a solid business customizing sense to run on top of differentiating their devices that way but it just you know it's sort of just neither here nor there for for everybody from the average consumer to Google themselves so I I agree with you I think it will be interesting to see if they do step up a little more and how they you know how that's perceived and how they have they cast it i'm working on an article on we'll show them how to do it there you go anna and i hope they do because i want updates and yeah I want them when they're available and i wanted to decide if i apply them or not I mean it's just that simple right I paid for the phone and I want control over what I do with it it's real simple well you do have control over we're wait we're we're way over time we got going and I was watching the timer and we're way over that's why we could we could I were just barely scratching the surface of this stuff oh yeah it's a long topic one once we got on to updates it was all over yet yeah I know real quick neither you nor I was in Orlando this week I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the most interesting thing I saw from a distance was Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablet from samsung because it's the first honeycomb device with customized user experience layer there's a version of TouchWiz it's basically from what I could tell you know mostly just widgets and some things being replaced settings dialog boxes and stuff but it adds a layer of potential usability to Honeycomb I hadn't seen before yeah it looked pretty good yeah any-anything catch your eye from the coverage you saw for tablets tablets are the hot thing right now and we're starting to get above every size and their every shape and every color and it's a good thing I mean competition for US consumers so we get a lot more choice all right well you said we're way over time and the rain is now it didn't light up let's looking out the windows like the rain stopped not hasn't stopped stuff maybe I'll just go run around the rain for a while anyway James always a pleasure and for the folks who want to check out your blog what's the URL it is zdnet com / blog / mobile dash news there you go well worth the read the nice thing about the blogosphere is you don't have to pick one read them all get the different perspectives different it goes well till next time when we do it again next Thursday from Oakland California for TechnoBuffalo calm I'm Noah Kravitz I'm James Kendrick for ZDNet James always a pleasure I'm liking the new look with the haircut much ready for summer there you go enjoy the a sweet 16 starts tonight so tonight all right we'll see you next time alright see ya you