phones

Tim Cook likes to talk in religous tones about Apple's higher calling. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology conference last month, Apple's CEO laid out his credo, noting that the only thing the company will never do is produce "a crappy product."

"That's the only religion that we have," Cook said. "We must do something bold, something ambitious, something great for the customers, and we sweat all of the details."

In the meantime, customers and investors are waiting for Apple to do something bold and ambitious again, and Cook is calling … Read more

Apple released on Tuesday a small update to its Apple Store app for the iPhone. The update added the ability to add your wireless account to the app and receive an alert once your line is eligible for an upgrade.

Adding your account to receive upgrade alerts only takes a few seconds. Before you add your account, you'll need to know the last four digits of the account holder's Social Security number, the billing ZIP code, and the account password. At least this was the information I needed for a Verizon account; your experience may vary.

For Sprint Nextel, it's darkest before the dawn.

Sprint is slated to decommission the Nextel network at the end of June, finally putting to rest one of the worst mergers in corporate history and ridding itself of an awkward dual-network structure that put a hefty, unnecessary burden on the company.

But before Sprint can declare mission accomplished on a turnaround, it'll have to deal with what will undoubtedly be an ugly second quarter.

Sprint earlier Wednesday reported first quarter results that showed a narrower loss and a healthy increase in its adjusted operating earnings. However, a weak performance … Read more

Apple's shares were hovering around the $400 mark again today, and not in a good way.

By the end of trading on Wednesday, the shares had largely pulled themselves out of their funk, closing at $405.46, just a hair below the previous day's close.

But things were a bit gloomier in the first few hours of trading Wednesday, when shares in the high-profile technology company were generally down 1 percent or more to just around $401, with a handful of dips into the $399 range or below. Shares had closed Tuesday, just ahead of Apple's earnings … Read more

Apple doesn't seem ready to leap into the mobile payments arena, at least according to comments made Tuesday by CEO Tim Cook.

During Tuesday's conference call announcing fiscal second-quarter earnings, Cook responded to a question about mobile payments.

"I think it's in its infancy," the Apple CEO said. "I think it's just getting started. Just out of the starting block."

Reading between the lines, that likely means Apple has no plans to jump onto the mobile payments bandwagon, at least not at this point. Past rumors have continually suggested that the company … Read more

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer took a minute during Tuesday's earnings conference call to cite Apple's success in Japan -- an important metric in a country where national brands were once invincible.

"In Japan, IDC Japan announced that iPhone gained the number one position for all of calendar year 2012, as well as for calendar Q4 2012 in both handsets and smartphones," Oppenheimer said.

He continued. "This is also the first time a non-Japanese company has achieved the No. 1 spot for an entire year...In addition, Apple was ranked No. 1 in Nikkei'… Read more

In the battle between wireless giants over consumers, Verizon Wireless toppled rival AT&T in the first quarter.

Growth in the traditional contract subscriber business -- seen as the bread and butter of the wireless carriers -- has been slowing for over the last several quarters. But Verizon appears to be weathering the slowdown better than most.

It wasn't much of a contest. Verizon added a net 677,000 new contract customers, compared with 296,000 net new contract subscribers at AT&T.

"The difference between subscriber trends at AT&T and Verizon is pretty … Read more

Is your Android phone looking a little stale? Fortunately, there are dozens of great customization tools and launchers available for Android to give your handset a fresh new coat of paint. Download these top free launchers and give your Android device an almost unrecognizable makeover with minimal work involved.

GO Launcher EX

GO Launcher has been around since the Froyo days and has its fair share of features that still keep it an old favorite among Android users. It's a robust launcher that transforms your Android experience, allowing you to customize your icons, grid, and dock dimensions; transition animations; … Read more

AT&T sold 4.8 million iPhones in the first quarter.

The company sold 6 million smartphones in total.

The number almost certainly means that AT&T continues to be the largest retailer of iPhones in the U.S. Verizon Wireless sold 4 million units in the same period. Sprint Nextel reports its results tomorrow, but it's unlikely to top AT&T's number.

AT&T added 296,000 net contract customers in the first quarter.