HTC appears to be struggling to sell its flagship HTC One, despite rave reviews, an expensive marketing campaign, and plenty of praise from pundits and users. So in an effort to shift a few more of them over Christmas, the company is now giving U.S. customers interest-free credit over two years with $0 down to finance an unlocked handset.
Yesterday, AT&T announced new Mobile Share Value plans that were pitched as making subscriber’s monthly rates cheaper if you already own a smartphone.
It seemed like a pretty honest move. Most carriers bill you a set monthly that includes a fee designed to pay off your smartphone’s full prive over a two year period, which is common knowledge. What isn’t common knowledge is that on most carriers, even if you bring your own smartphone to your contract or fully pay off your device, the carrier will continue to bill you for that smartphone subsidy in perpetuity. It’s super sleazy, so AT&T’s move seemed like a refreshing dose of honesty.
That’s not how T-Mobile sees it, though.
While Spotify can be used without a paid subscription on your desktop, you need to sign up to Spotify Premium at $9.99 a month to enjoy it on mobile. But that could be about to change, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that Spotify is planning a new ad-supported version of its music streaming service for mobile devices.
HP Chromebook 11 owners are still being advised not to use their standard factory chargers following a recall notice which was implemented because many owners found that their chargers were overheating after just a couple of charge cycles. However, it looks like they may be able to get their hands on a new charger in the next few weeks. Google has put up a listing for a new Chromebook 11 charger on its website.
Late last night, Google officially announced the expanding availability of its Google Search service, Google Now to include an additional 3 new languages, Japanese, German and French. Obviously, you’ll need the latest version of the Google Search app installed on your device to use the service, but once that’s done you’ll be able to ask questions in these three newly implemented languages, as well as English and receive spoken results.
