MuniWireless

AT&T is giving away access to all of its Wi-Fi hotspots in Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, and other locations to iPhone users. I can understand why they’re doing this: they want iPhone owners to use Wi-Fi instead of the 3G network which has suffered a number of outages in recent months in various parts of the US. According to Engadget, there is a hack for people who don’t own iPhones but want to get access to AT&T’s Wi-Fi networks for…

It’s here: the first Android-based phone, the G1, from T-Mobile for $180 with a two-year contract. The phone has a Qwerty keyboard, touch-screen, and uses both 3G and Wi-Fi. Users can also purchase applications from the Android Market (similar to the Apple app store). Go to http://www.T-MobileG1.com for more information.

I am very curious to see how many people buy the G1 given that there’s been a lot of hype about it. The Android operating system is open-source, making it much more…

You can buy the Apple 3G iPhone unlocked from the Apple store in Hongkong. Unfortunately if you try to order and get it delivered outside Hongkong, the Apple HK online store does not allow it. But I am sure there are retailers in Hongkong who would gladly ship it to you. The Apple HK online store says (see screenshot below): “iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from…

T-Mobile rolled out its latest device, the G1 phone which uses Android (Google’s open-source OS for mobile devices). Now that the hype has finally died down, here’s my take on the phone:

it’s rather ugly: cheap plastic keyboard, looks too much like all the other old devices with their cheap plastic keyboards (thinking of the Sidekick) no desktop syncing application no video playback except for YouTube; you need an SD card for music or video playback you can use only one…

According to Meraki, the mesh equipment provider, the iPhone now accounts for 20% of devices using the Meraki network in San Francisco, up from 6% a year ago. The company says that 150,000 devices have accessed the network, so that’s a lot of iPhones!

My take: not only are there more iPhones out there, but many people also prefer to use Wi-Fi given the frequent AT&T outages and the slow cellular network, which isn’t really optimized for heavy data use. Indeed…

Wired reports today that iPhone users have been reporting a lot of outages of AT&T’s data service in places such as Boston, Chicago, Washington DC and St. Louis.

Meanwhile, a retired Chicken of the Sea executive has filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Apple alleging the carrier and device maker misrepresented the performance of the 3G iPhone on AT&T’s 3G network (too slow, often gets bumped down to an EDGE network). He claims there are too many people on the network…