Microsoft Musings

Do you remember those old Nextel ads? Now not only can you watch the old ads, but you can also listen to the almost extinct Nextel chirp.

Download Nextel Chirp Out or Nextel Chirp In .

Via Howardforums.com

Engadget breaks the news that the iPhone has been unlocked. Kinda reminds me of a favorite quote of mine:

“The only system which is truly secure, is one which is switched off and unplugged, locked in a titanium lined safe, buried in a concrete bunker, surrounded by nerve gas and very highly paid armed guards. Even then, I wouldn’t stake my life on it” – Gene Spafford

This is soo not cool. If I want to add a line to my existing Nextel account, I can’t do it online! Sprint.com asks for my zip code, upon entering it I get the following message:

Service Available in Your Area

Sprint currently offers wireless service in the 17013 area. To purchase Sprint products and services:

Shop online

Call 1-800-213-5431

Find a Sprint Store

Nextel wireless service is also available in the 17013 area. To purchase Nextel products and services:

Call 1-800-SPRINT-1

Notice that it doesn’t give me an option to buy Nextel service online? My guess is… that no one wants to anyway…

I had promised to expand on my iphone experience in my last post, and never got it done, so here goes.

• It was very sleek and beautiful phone. Very nice to look at. 
• Screen had lots of fingerprints.
• It was smaller than I had anticipated.
• I was disappointed in the amount of apps available. Very few.
• I made lots of mistakes in typing on the keyboard. With time though, it probably would’ve improved.
• You had to really push on the screen sometimes to get it to respond. Several times I had to try two or three times til if finally did what I wanted it to.

These are some of my first impressions with the iphone in the few minutes I played with it. In summary, I would say that its a cool phone, although it was really over-hyped.

I couldn’t resist. So I stopped at an At&t store and checked out the iphone. Its pretty sweet althought it does have its cons. But more on that later.

P.S. No, I didn’t buy one. Its too expensive for what you get.

Edited to add: There wasn’t even any body in line when I got there about 7:20 or so.

The competition is heating up. heh.

rcrnews.com reports:

The carrier, which is floundering behind rivals AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, boasted that during 2006 company measurements showed double-digit decreases in the percentages of blocked and dropped calls on its CDMA network. Sprint Nextel claimed that an unnamed, third-party study found that the carrier earned top honors for the fewest dropped calls.

I’m not sure where the third-party study was done, but apparently it wasn’t done in my area. The Sprint CDMA network is almost NO good around here, not to mention the increasingly problematic Nextel iDEN service. Why can’t the cell phone providers operate a network that actually works? CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

Text Messages to my Nextel phone cost me $.10 a message. That’s fine. I don’t use it all that much, but what gets me is SPAM!! I will pay $.10 for a message from my friend, but who want’s to pay $.10 for an unwanted message about Online Pharmacy’s??

Subject: MED Sales
Online Pharmacy No
Prescription Needed!
Private and Secure Visit
www pickresults com

and I thought this was supposed to be illegal??