Hands on with Verizon’s Pantech UML290 4G LTE modem

No, we’re not a Verizon blog (we’re still on AT&T) but we have had the opportunity to put a lot of the new Verizon gear through the paces lately. Our latest frolic was with the Pantech UML290 from Verizon. It’s the first 4G-capable, Mac-compatible modem available from Verizon. The modems have been available from VZW for a couple months but they weren’t Mac-compatible. Thankfully, VZW pushed out an update to the VZAccess Manager software last week… we downloaded, installed and tested right away. Let’s start with the good stuff: speed. We were able to get 10mbps down or faster in all of our testing. That’s it. Everything else is pretty… meh. All of that “meh” relates to the poor performance of Verizon’s VZAccess Manager. Downloading and installing it was easy enough but connecting to the Verizon 4G LTE network proved to be very cumbersome and definitely not user-friendly. Even though we could see the 4G modem and the 4G network in the access manager, we couldn’t get our MacBook Pro to connect. Without a good walkthrough, we ended up guessing many of the configuration steps. We searched online and couldn’t find an updated setup guide for Mac connectivity. We plugged [...]

T-Mobile dominates AT&T with new ad

T-Mobile (USA) just started airing a new ad on TV that directly attacks AT&T and Apple. Well, not so much Apple as AT&T’s crummy network restrictions. No one is a fan of the numerous handicaps AT&T places on iPhone customers… handicaps that don’t exist on other networks. Verizon and now T-Mobile have been very vocal with their competitive offerings. In fact, they like to take AT&T restrictions and advertise the snot out of them. If we liked Android, we wouldn’t be on AT&T… but there’s a reason we’re called CocoaTouchApps. T-Mobile’s new ad offers video calling on your data plan, not just a wifi network. It’s filmed in the typical “Apple” style and shows an iPhone being burdened by AT&T’s network. It’s a great ad and truly speaks to every frustrated AT&T customer out there. It just may get people to switch… probably not. Video after the break.

Verizon iPhone 4 rumors persist

To be honest, we’re extremely tired of writing about the potential Verizon iPhone. Everyone knows that the iPhone 4 exclusivity contracts are either recently expired, will expire soon or invalidated by AT&T’s terrible representation of a great Apple product. We can’t pick one source for this article… it’s been discussed by countless sources since the 1st generation iPhone came out in 2007. Instead of getting your hopes up, we’ll give you all of the reasons the iPhone won’t be coming to Verizon any time soon (was that too confident?). Hardware If you’re reading this website, you probably know this: the iPhone 4 cannot work on Verizon. Unlocking your iPhone can only get you to T-Mobile here in the United States and maybe some smaller carriers that piggyback on the GSM networks. Let’s go further… current iPhone hardware uses GSM technology to reach your cell provider. GSM is a well-utilized standard across the world: Verizon is one of the few networks using CDMA. Hardware is the main reason a Verizon rollout would be difficult.

2011: the year of LTE

Several news sources have recently reported that AT&T has finally signed the papers authorizing Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson to get cracking on the infrastructure necessary for the transition to LTE (4G). That’s not very big news… but it could be tremendous for those of us who have had continuous issues with the AT&T network since the introduction of the iPhone. We’re still very adamant that any network would have terrible service with the massive amount of extra data iPhone users eat through on a daily basis, but 4G could be awesome. Don’t get too excited yet, the 4G rollout will take quite some time. They’ll be doing trial runs later this year, much like Sprint’s Chicago introduction: most people won’t have access to the 4G network during the trials and possibly far into 2011… and even that could be limited depending on your market. Cocoa Touch Apps is based near downtown Denver, so we’d expect to see the 4G network here sooner rather than later — especially since we have a major Alcatel-Lucent office 20 minutes from here. We also need to realize that the introduction of 4G doesn’t mean awesome service: 4G phones will theoretically have the ability to rollback [...]