To protect Galaxy Note 5 owners from themselves, Samsung wants to make sure they’re fully warned before they accidentally break their devices: the company is adding stickers to the product’s packaging alerting users that there’s a right way and a wrong way to stow styluses, and doing it incorrectly could do permanent damage to their phones. [More]
smartphones
Samsung Adds Warning Stickers To Galaxy Note 5 So Owners Won’t Stick Stylus In The Wrong Way
By 11.18.15
NYC Taxi Commission Approves Pilot Program That Would Use GPS, Tablets To Calculate Fares
By 10.16.15
The taxi you hop in on your next trip around New York City may function a lot more like Uber and other ride-hailing services: the commission tasked with regulating the city’s taxis approved a pilot program that would replace traditional fare meters with those powered by GPS location. [More]
Kids These Days Would Rather Play Video Games On Mobile Devices Than On PCs, Consoles
By 9.24.15
Are the days of fighting over the best video game controller over? Perhaps, says a new report: though consoles and computers used to be the most popular for gaming, smartphones and tablets now rule the roost among the younger set. [More]
Samsung Reportedly Getting Into The Direct Phone-Leasing Business As Well
By 9.21.15
Maybe the mobile phone industry is finally coming to understand what consumers want. What many of us want is to have the newest and shiniest flagship smartphone, and then cast that phone aside when another phone that is shinier comes along a year later. Forget two-year contracts: why don’t we just rent the darn things? Carriers like Sprint are doing this, and Apple itself has joined the rental party. Why not Samsung’s Android handsets, too? [More]
Samsung Wants iPhone Users To Test Drive A Galaxy Smartphone For 30 Days
By 8.21.15
If you’re an iPhone user who’s been flirting with the idea of switching to an Android phone, it’s understandable that you might be resistant to change — it can take some getting used to when you switch from one operating system to another, in either direction. Samsung wants to take that uncertainty away for iPhone users with a new promo that allows those folks to test drive one of a few Galaxy smartphones for a month. [More]
AT&T Revises Data Plans: Lower Prices But Fewer Options
By 8.14.15
Why is the wireless industry so antsy? Not so long ago, it was all about giving customers a vast array of options so they could very precisely buy just the amount of data they want. Now, following Verizon’s recent simplification of its plans, AT&T is culling a number of its data tiers, which could result in savings — if you make sure to do some math before switching. [More]
Target Testing System That Sends Customers Notifications On Deals While They Shop
By 8.5.15
Target wants to track your every move while shopping at its stores. Or at least that seems to be the gist behind the retailers’ new test of transmitters – known as beacons – that link to shoppers’ smartphones through the company’s app, sending coupons, deals, product recommendations and recipes based on their location inside the big box store. [More]
Poll: Most People With Digital Wallets Don’t Bother To Use Them
By 7.13.15
Many of our readers have smartphones, and you could be reading this post on a smartphone right now. While they make fine Consumerist-reading devices, we keep hearing that smartphones will become out method of choice to make in-person payments, and we won’t have to carry physical wallets around. However, while Google and Apple would love for everyone to use their respective digital wallet products, consumers simply aren’t interested yet. [More]
Sprint Expands “Direct 2 You” House Call Service To Four More Cities
By 6.29.15
After launching a program that brings Sprint-trained experts to customers’ homes to help them with the switch to a new device in April, the company says it’s expanding the Direct 2 You service to four more cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver. [More]
Samsung Rolling Out Security Update To Fix Keyboard Vulnerability That Affects Up To 600M Galaxy Phones
By 6.19.15
After a security researcher found a flaw in the way Samsung phones update their SwiftKey keyboard software that leaves Galaxy phone owners open to hack attacks, the company says it’s rolling out a security update in the next few days that will address the vulnerability. [More]
18-Year-Old Tracks Lost Smartphone Using GPS, Is Shot To Death
By 6.17.15
Authorities still aren’t quite sure what happened in a case in London, Ontario, Canada, where an 18-year-old man set out to find his missing smartphone using GPS and ended up shot to death. He tracked his phone remotely, and followed it to an address in the city of London. After a confrontation with three men in a car, he was shot and killed. [More]
Forget Fingerprints, Amazon Working On Ear-Unlock Feature For Phones
By 6.15.15
Could answering your phone in the future be as simple as pressing it to your ear? It could be if Amazon’s latest patent ever makes it to the real world. [More]
AT&T Ditching 2-Year Contracts At Walmart & Other Retailers
By 5.21.15
In the latest move to nudge new customers into paying full price for their phones, AT&T is going to stop offering 2-year contracts through third party retail stores like Walmart and others. [More]
Smartphones Leapfrog Over Laptops, Now In Nearly 3 Out Of 4 U.S. Households
By 5.11.15
All one needs to do to get a grasp on the near-ubiquity of smartphones is to go out to a bar any night of the week. Anyone who is not actively involved in conversation (and plenty of people who are supposed to be conversing), can likely be spotted looking down at their screens, scrolling, pinching, and tapping the glass. And a new report confirms that the devices are not only as widely used as you’d suspect, but are approaching TV levels of popularity. [More]
More Google Searches Are Done On Mobile Devices Than PCs For First Time
By 5.5.15
In the beginning, a person with a question that needed to be answered would shout, “To the Google!” and that would most often mean sitting in front of a desktop computer or opening a laptop. Not so, anymore: For the first time, U.S. Googlers are Googling more on mobile devices than personal computers. [More]
Putting Your Phone In Your Back Pocket May Also Be Bad For Your Butt & Back
By 4.14.15
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last year, it’s that some phones can bend if put under enough pressure. But in addition to possibly putting an unwanted curve or crack in that expensive telecommunications device, stashing a phone in your back pocket may result in a literal pain in the butt. [More]
Sprint Set To Make House Calls With Launch Of “Direct 2 You” Service
By 4.13.15
Like doctors of yore carrying black bags filled with tools straight to an ailing person’s bedside, Sprint is rolling out its own version of the house call with a new service needlessly employing numerals instead of letters, “Direct 2 You.” Roving Sprint workers will be on the road to customers in need of help upgrading their phone, transferring information to a new device and recycling old phones. [More]
Nearly 7% Of Americans Say Their Smartphone Is Their Only Way To Get Online
By 4.1.15
We may often joke that losing our smartphone would mean being cut off from the outside world. While that’s likely an exaggeration for many consumers, a new report from The Pew Research Center finds Americans’ reliance on smartphones to stay connected with the rest of the world is very real, especially when it comes to accessing the internet. [More]
