2011 wasn’t the best year for T-Mobile. It’s proposed merger with AT&T failed, and it couldn’t stop customers from jumping ship. T-Mobile is the only major national carrier in the United States without a clear plan to build a 4G LTE network. It’s also the only major carrier without the iPhone. These things combined paint a grim picture for T-Mobile’s future. In 2012, T-Mobile is attempting to stop the churn by addressing several major problems. According to a leaked document obtained by Tmo News, T-Mobile lost over 5 million customers in 2011. T-Mobile compared the number of customer losses to being on par with “the entire state of Colorado.” T-Mobile realizes it can no longer stay one step ahead of the churn. To fix it, T-Mobile is going to focus more on the following areas: Network, Handsets, Value, Fees and contract terms, Right-fitting and onboarding, Customer Relationship Management and Renewals. The key points to take away from the document include T-Mobile’s intentions to move customers away from 2G and 3G devices, and convert them into 4G users. T-Mobile also wants to implement its various fees in better ways. The plan is to “strike the balance between customer satisfaction and a healthy business.” The last thing I’ll mention is T-Mobile’s acknowledgement that keeping existing loyal customers is more important than getting a new customer. Maybe now we’ll begin to see less promotions just for new customers. T-Mobile still desperately needs the iPhone though. There’s no way around that fact. Via [Tmo News]  
On July 14, 2011 Spotify officially launched in the US. That means the service will have been available to Americans for six months in about a week. If you signed up right when the service launched, that could mean you’ll soon be facing some limitations on your music. For the first six months of your Spotify account you can listen to music as much as you want for free, as long as you’re willing to deal with the ads. After those six months you’re limited to just 10 hours of music each month. There’s limitations on songs as well, you’ll only be able to listen to each song five times over the course of the month. So if you have one playlist that you listen to everyday that doesn’t change often, expect to have most of the playlist not work after just one work week. Spotify hopes that by limiting your music after six months it’ll entice you to buy either one of the paid subscription services. There’s a $5 Premium plan which gives you unlimited music on your desktop without ads, and a $10 Unlimited plan that lets you listen to the music on your smartphone as well. I’ve been using the Premium plan for a few months now, and I’d say it’s worth the money, especially if you don’t listen to artists that refuse to put new albums on Spotify (full disclosure: Spotify gave me three months free to test the Unlimited plan which I recently had to start paying for). It certainly beats paying $10 per album every few weeks when you find a new artist you like. Having access to almost any music you’d ever want at any time for $5 or $10 is a pretty great deal. Read [Business Insider]  
Yesterday, a company called Moo started giving away 50 free business cards that are designed after your Timeline and highlighted by your series of cover photos. Once all the tech websites started reporting on this, Moo quickly reached its free business card quota. If you missed out on it, don’t worry. You have well over a month to get your cards. According to TechCrunch, Moo only accepts 5,000 free orders per day. Since every free pack comes with 50 cards, Moo is printing 250,000 free Facebook business cards every day. When you factor in 200,000 customers that were promised free cards, that gives Moo 40 days to complete its promotion. By now, word about Moo has spread like crazy. If you want to stand a chance at being one of the next 5,000 customers to place an order for free Facebook business cards, make sure you make it to Moo’s site “around breakfast time” according to the Eastern time zone in the United States. Site [Moo] Read [TechCrunch]  
It looks like Instagram has gotten a bit more friendly with Facebook lately. And this will come as good news for those who like uploading and sharing their Instagram photos with their Facebook friends. Moving forward, any Instagram images that you share on Facebook will be added to a new(ly created) gallery called Instagram Photos. And yes, just to clarify this — those images will be visible to all of your Facebook friends. Additionally, those Instagram images will appear full-sized in the News Feed along with the caption that you added. The News Feed will also offer a link to the public URL of that image (on the Instagram site). And of course, as with any other images that appear in your News Feed or on your Timeline — these images can then be reshared by your friends. Lastly, previously uploaded Instagram images will not automatically appear in this new Instagram Photos gallery. On a positive note though, the folks at Instagram have offered up a support center page detailing how to get them added. You know, just in case you are feeling a little OCD and are needing to have all of your Instagram images (old and new) in the Instagram Photos gallery. Via [Instagram Blog]      
We still need the official word from the carrier on this one, however it looks like Verizon Wireless will be launching the LG Spectrum smartphone on January 19th. In terms of the device itself, this handset will bring goodies to include a 4.5-inch True HD IPS display with Gorilla Glass, a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 processor and 4G LTE connectivity. In addition, the remaining specs break down as follows; - Android 2.3 Gingerbread
- 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video recording
- 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera
- 1GB of RAM
- 4GB of internal storage
- 16GB of microSD card storage
- 1830mAh battery with an optional 3000mAh extended battery available
- GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0
- Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, HDMI
- Swype
- Dimensions: 5.33 x 2.71 x 0.41 inches
- Weight: 4.99 ounces
And lastly, while this leak came complete with a release date, specs and images of the handset, it was missing one key item — the price. That aside though, maybe we can see something official come from Verizon during CES 2012. Via [Droid-Life]  
We had been thinking US Cellular would have already had some of their 4G LTE network already in place, it now looks like that time is “almost here.” The details are coming by way of the official Twitter account for US Cellular where the break the news down as follows; “4G LTE is almost here! A tablet will be available by the end of March, and our first Smartphone will be ready in April.”
That said, nothing specific as to when it will be available, however we can tell you that the roll-out will begin with “select cities in Wisconsin, Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas.” Otherwise, judging from the above message from the carrier, it looks like we can also expect to see the network launch with both a tablet and a smartphone. Well, given the wording at the end of that quote, maybe we can expect the network to come available about the same time as that tablet — sometime around the end of March. Via [Twitter @USCellular] and [US Cellular]  
When the Galaxy Nexus, more specifically, when Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was released we saw a few complaints here and there. Most seemed to be small issues and more than a few seemed to be dealing with the incompatibility of apps. And well, needless to say, Swype was among those apps that do not work in Ice Cream Sandwich. But that being said, that looks like it will soon be changing. According to a recent tweet coming from the folks at Swype, a working version should be here by the end of the month. “Good news! Official ICS support is near. Final tweaks and testing should be done in time for an anticipated end-of-month beta update.”
Via [Twitter @Swype]  
In our series of posts, you may have read phrases such as “this phone has a 4.3-inch Gorilla Glass display.” We think that’s a fact worth mentioning because so many phones are all screen these days. Having a phone with a screen made from Corning’s Gorilla Glass gives its owners a little more comfort in knowing their devices are more protected against scratches and cracks. At CES 2012, Corning will demonstrate the sequel to Gorilla Glass that’s appropriately named Gorilla Glass 2. Corning will have a 82-inch touch screen monitor on display along with other Gorilla Glass-covered devices that could be used in cars and home appliances. There’s even going to be a Gorilla Glass video wall. Corning’s idea is to show how Gorilla Glass can expand into new markets and products. Naturally, we want to see how durable Gorilla Glass 2 really is. If we’re handed a hammer and are told to go nuts on a tablet screen, we’ll be more than happy to oblige. Via [Corning]   Back in October of 2011, a disagreement between Warner Bros. and Blockbuster resulted in Warner Bros. withholding new DVD releases. Blockbuster was forced to buy Warner Bros. films from somewhere else in order to maintain its advantage over competitors such as Netflix and Redbox. Warner Bros. is now throwing its weight around even more by making Blockbuster, Redbox and Netflix customers wait a whopping 56 days to rent new movies after they come out on DVD.
This decision leaves customers with fewer options to get their hands on new releases. Warner Bros. wants to sell more DVDs and figures a 56-day waiting period will convince more people to head into a retail store instead of renting movies. AllThingsD reports Warner Bros. will sell its discs to companies such as Netflix at a discount in exchange for holding off on rental options for nearly two months. Somehow I think this will all just lead to more piracy. Via [AllThingsD]  
If someone were to ask me what’s the biggest difference between Sprint’s data plans and its competitors, I’d would point out Sprint’s truly unlimited plans. Sprint spent a lot of money emphasizing to customers how it’s the only nationwide carrier in the United States that doesn’t charge overages or throttle data for its smartphone users. It turns out that’s not entirely true. The 1% gets no mercy from Sprint. Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse (the man you see in Sprint commercials), went on the record confirming there are exceptions to Sprint’s unlimited data plans. “For those that want to abuse it, we can knock them off,” Hesse said to investors. Those abusers account for the top 1% of data users. If you fall within that category, Sprint will throttle your data. So there you have it folks. There’s no such thing as an unlimited data plan on any national carrier in the United States. Sprint is just the closest to providing that privilege. Read [Nasdaq]  | 
