Verizon iPhone reaches 1 million-sold mark
It may look like Verizon’s Apple iPhone sales were going really slowly, but Verizon has now managed to fly past the 1 million-sold milepost.
Dan Mead, Verizon Wireless chief, announced this weekend that 60% of the company’s iPhone sales were preorders– which explains why the turnout on a cold February launch day was much lighter than some may have expected.
According to recent analyst estimates, Verizon’s iPhone preorders totaled 600,000. If that was 60% of total sales, we could safely say that 1 million iPhones were sold on the debut weekend. And that is not counting the many more that have been sold since then. AT&T, on the other hand, sold 1.7 million iPhones 4s on its debut last year.
Verizon says it will not release the actual sales figure until its first-quarter earnings report in April.
Goodbye, T-Mobile Sidekick
Looks like it’s goodbye for T-Mobile’s Sidekick. The once-beloved e-mail phone will finally bid adieu on May 31, when T-Mobile and Microsoft pull the plug on the specialized data service that delivers Web pages, e-mails, and apps to the Sidekick line.
Existing users of T-Mobile’s Sidekick devices will still be able to make phone calls and send text messages, but after May 31 they’ll lose access to the cloud-based data service for their contacts, photos, calendar items and notes.
T-Mobile USA and Microsoft both issued a statement confirming the impending shutdown of the Danger Inc. servers that have long powered the T-Mobile device. Danger was acquired by Microsoft in 2008 for $500 million. “It was a joint decision reached by Microsoft and T-Mobile,” T-Mobile spokesman Tom Harlin said. “We think it’s a natural order for products to be replaced by newer technology, and we’ve announced there will be a 4G-enabled, Android-powered Sidekick.”
T-Mobile says it will have offers for existing Sidekick users to transition to a new phone, and it will be offering a Web tool at myT-Mobile.com for them to export their personal data prior to the Danger transition. The company has also announced plans to relaunch the Sidekick brand, based on Google’s Android mobile operating system, this spring.
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Software update causes Gmail glitch
If you’re one of the Gmail users who found his/her accounts to be deleted, including every email, application, contact and calendar information this weekend, no need to fret as Google has now assured that full functionality will be restored today after a software update caused the unexpected glitch.
Apparently the problem began late yesterday when thousands logged onto their accounts, only to find all their personal information had been erased, or reset. In an update on the situation this evening, Ben Treynor, Google VP of engineering, apologized for the inconvenience and said the company expects to have the lost data restored soon.
“The good news is that email was never lost and we’ve restored access for many of those affected,” Treynor wrote in a company blog. “Though it may take longer than we originally expected, we’re making good progress and things should be back to normal for everyone soon.” In the meantime Google is offering this message on their Apps Status Dashboard: “Google Mail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.”
