The Blog of Brad
Posts tagged cell phone
textPlus, eh?
Feb 16th
textPlus Canada banner, spotted on Friday
textPlus is FINALLY available in Canada. As of last Friday, textPlus users have been able to send free text messages to Canadian wireless customers, and were notified if they were part of the beta program. Today, textPlus went public with the expanded customer base. Currently (quoting the textPlus blog post), Rogers, Telus, Bell, Fido, Virgin, Aliant, Northern Tel Mobility, SaskTel, and Telebec Mobilite are supported as of today. textPlus has implemented this switch on their servers, so you won’t have to re-download, re-signup, update, cover your iPhone in maple syrup, or anything else to take advantage of this.
Bonus: This means that all textPlus users (foreign and domestic) will be able to text Canadian phone numbers for free, and you (as a Canadian) can freely text Americans and other worldwide textPlus users. Awesome travel tip!
Also, up to 20 contacts (made of textPlus addresses and real phone numbers) can group chat. That means that if one person adds to the conversation then everyone will receive the message. *Yay* for group chatting!
Also, see the textPlus blog post to enter a contest to win textPlus gloves.
Just a bit of background: textPlus by Gogii is a free service which allows users to send text messages to cell phones, there is an app for iPhone/iPod Touch and Android which makes access to the service easier. You can sign up in app or by texting !NAME to 60611.
Sending a message from textPlus can take two paths:
1) You have the free app and are signed up; now you just enter a textPlus username, pick a contact’s phone number, or enter a phone number, up to 20 all together, and press compose. Type a message and it will be sent to the recipients for free to you (this uses data, not your text messages); the recipient(s) don’t pay for this if they have a messaging plan which includes received messages. If there are more than two people involved in the chat, all messages will be forwarded to everyone. The other people can replying to the message in their inbox. Then you will receive notification of that all in a very short period of time. The syntax is very similar to Twitter via SMS in a way.
If someone wishes to textPlus you they just text !chat to 60611, then you will receive a message asking you to add textPlus usernames and/or other numbers to the new chat session; a conversation will be started.
2) You don’t have the app/can’t get the app (using Blackberry, other phone) [see the textPlus blog 'Pro Tip' about this]
From any cellular phone, text !chat to 60611 and follow the instructions to set up a username and in the future after you’re all setup, invite other numbers to chat. Texting to 60611 and receiving messages from textPlus doesn’t cost any more than texting a domestic number.
Also, see the Revision3 show, App Judgement review textPlus.
*Remember: there isn’t a way to include textPlus in your My5 plan and requires a texting plan, unless you like overage fees.*
Bell & Telus HSPA+ Network
Oct 7th
Last October two of Canada’s three major national wireless providers, Bell (BCE Inc) and Telus Mobility, announced a joint venture to build a shared next-generation network. This partnership started in 2001 and was supposed to increase competition against Rogers Wireless (Canada’s #1 wireless carrier by subscribers), since 2001 Telus and Bell have erected shared towers, specifically in the Atlantic Canada region. Because of the shared network Bell and Telus were able to introduce 1xRTT in the early part of the decade and EVDO in 2005 very rapidly. Telus and Bell operate CDMA networks (CDMA-2000 with 1X and EVDO support to be specific). However that seemed to be changing in October of last year (2008). [read this for more information]
In October of 2008 Bell and Telus announced that they would be building a shared next-generation network, using HSPA+. Let’s take that piece by piece:
- Bell and Telus are currently CDMA carriers
- EVDO is the 3G data network for CDMA
- HSPA+ is a 3G GSM-based technology
- Verizon uses CDMA in the US
- Rogers Wireless currently operates Canada’s only GSM network (ATT, T-Mobile in the US)
- Rogers has HSPA+ sectors in major Canadian centers, 3G in most major centers, and EDGE covering the remaining area
…
Adventures in iPhone: Day 6
Jul 8th
I have had an iPhone for six days now and have loved every minute it of it, with the exception of my experience with the Rogers dealer I went to in Dartmouth Crossing not knowing of their $30 data plan for 6GB of data (as has been advertised on their site for Android phones and for both of the iPhone releases as a time-limited deal). it wasn’t too big of a deal though, the dealer who activated me gave me the number to the Dealer Service/Help line, after spending nearly an hour trying to get the plan worked out with this line and the staff in the store (the question “can an iPhone be activated like that?” was commonly used during my visit). When I got home I called the number on it and had my issue solved in under ten minutes flat (and that’s including authenticating my account, however at the end he said “I’m not sure where you got this number from, but please don’t call it again.”)
I should say that the overall experience was great! I was out of the store after more than two hours (I’m a new Rogers customer) and on my way to spend my day in Halifax. All that I can say is that 3G is awesome, I was able to burn through more than 200MB in <3hrs without trying. The speed of 3G may as well have been my home network because pages rendered over the 3G as fast as they rendered on my iPod Touch at home. I used RSS Player to download podcasts at 700KBps inside of Mic Mac Mall… the reception was everywhere, even inside of Costco.
But then I drove home. I lost 3G after about 15 minutes on the highway. So for most of my time with iPhone I will be using EDGE, which doesn’t bother me as much as I had thought. EDGE (with at least 4 bars) seems to have enough bandwidth to listen to TWiT.am or Last.fm, or to download email, check Twitter, or browse the web (albeit for a limited time before frustration sets in). My average speed (as determined by the SpeedTest.net app) is about 120kbps down and 140kbps up. Not so bad.
So in the past (almost) week I’ve done a lot with this phone that I’ve never been able to do before. Given that I’m not a complete virgin to the iPhone experience as I’ve had an iPod Touch for more than a year leading up to this… but there’s no comparison. Using the $1.99 app AutoStitch I made panoramas, something that I last did in 1998 on an 800MHz computer by hand, and this app does it all for you. The other app I’ve really got into is TweetReel, which is a combo-$2.99 app and online service that allows you to record a video or take a picture on your iPhone, upload it to the service and Tweet a link to the video. The quality isn’t so bad, here is a test I did this morning with it.
Panorama Made by AutoStitch
Another app I will definitely play with is called RK_Free (short for Run Keeper), which you use when you’re running, biking, or another outdoor activity where you would like to see your speed, distance, and a map of where you’ve been. This is a free version of the app and is limited to storing five runs. This is intended for the 3G/3GS, and according to the app information, isn’t accurate on other iPhones or the iPod Touches. The other issue I’ve had is in areas of limited GPS signal (on the screen as ‘poor signal strength’) it misreports my location and stated that I was travelling 165KM/h for a period of time and ruined the results for that bike session. But overall is a great app, especially because it’s free.
The other utility I’ve been playing with is MobileMe, or at least a free trial, and I love the push email, in fact I would have all of my mail be push, but $109 CAD/yr for it… I don’t think so. So I’ve also heard that Yahoo mail does push (for free!)… so I wondered what the difference in cost would mean, also whether Apple would truly allow someone else to do push for free. So I did a simple test, send a message from my GMail account to both addresses, with exactly 1 byte of data on each (lorem ispum) to see which one is faster responding. Here are the averages:
- Over Wifi MobileMe took <2 seconds to deliver the message and over EDGE, took 8 seconds.
- Yahoo took 10 minutes to deliver over Wifi, and over EDGE took 10 minutes and 31 seconds.
From what I can tell from this, Yahoo might as well not offer ‘Push’ for the extra server capacity it requires and just stick with the typical 15 minute-fetch cycle.
This is the best internet device-iPod-phone I’ve ever used.
Review: LG KEYBO
Jan 24th
This is my long awaited video review of the LG KEYBO on Telus…
Check back soon for the video review of the TELUS Mobile Music subscription.
Blackberry Storm: C|Net Video Review
Nov 29th
This is the C|Net New.com video review of the Blackberry Storm. The Storm is on Verizon in the United States and on Telus and Bell in Canada. This may make up for the lack of iPhone on Telus and Bell.
