Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.

“Well, I don’t know. What I do know is that they have one in the lab…a 7.85 inch iPad that runs at 1024×768… it’s just like the 9.7" iPad shrunk down a little bit. Apps wouldn't need to be recompiled or redesigned to work optimally on it. It's just the iPad smaller.

I think the Android differences were actually for show. I had a relationship with Steve. I wouldn’t say I spent a lot of time with him over the years, but I saw him periodically. [...]

I think [the fury around Android] served their interests. For a lot of companies, it’s useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that.

The iPhone 4S is the top selling handset at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, according to new data by the Canaccord Genuity resesarch group -- as reported by "InformationWeek" (http://macte.ch/6v1nm).

Canaccord looked at individual handset sales across the top four wireless network operators in the U.S. between December 2011 and March 2012. The iPhone leads at the three mentioned; it isn't available at T-Mobile USA.

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If you have ever listened to our podcasts, or if you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been a long time Android fangirl. I've always been in favor of the Google ecosystem--the openness, the flexibility, the company's primary-colored logo. Up until recently, I swore by it. At social gatherings with other techies, I'd loudly proclaim how difficult it was to navigate iOS, and how its static 16-icon screens weren't conducive to multitasking. I loved the Android's widgets, the physical back button, and the ability to hold down on an item to bring up more options. I also loved Google Maps and its totally gratis turn-by-turn navigation, as well as the Facebook and Twitter integration. The Android user interface also felt more intuitive--the fluidity between screens as you scrolled back and forth felt natural, as much as a phone could feel in the palm of your hand.

But then the extreme fragmentation happened. And poor battery life. And that NFC chip that I'd never use. And those huge, bright screens that I have absolutely no use for. I don't want to have a different mobile operating system than my friend with a smartphone that has similar specifications. I don't want to run out of battery halfway through a night out, when I'd need my phone to call a cab, nor do I want to watch movies on my smartphone. I want a phone, a personal communication device, and something that can pull up the bus schedule or the traffic flow when I need it. I just need something to stream NPR while I'm commuting out to the suburbs, or to take pictures with when my purse is too tiny to fit a point-and-shoot. And the iPhone, well, it does all of this now.

It took many iterations of iOS before I could see the iPhone as a suitable smartphone for my needs. For one, the notifications feature before iOS 5 was incredibly aggravating. All those pop ups! Who needs things popping up at you to distract you from life? Isn't that why we ditched PCs so long ago? Android's pull-down notifications panel is exceptional, and I loved having all of my information in one place, rather than all those badges and numbers screaming at me to check them.

The iPhone also lacks the flexibility of being able to just simply plug in the phone and access it. Going through iTunes for everything can be aggravating when you're in a rush, or when things aren't syncing up quite like they should. Android was also the first mobile operating system to offer over-the-air syncing, and I loved how easy it was to sync music, photos, and documents with my Mac or my PC without any software.

This morning I woke up panicky, with a little bit of buyer's remorse, because I know there are Android features I'll miss dearly. I would still suggest an Android phone to anyone who wants total control over their phone, or has already bought into Google's cloud ecosystem. I also know that as far as hardware goes there are a few handsets out there that trump the iPhone in speedtests, and I won't have access to 4G for awhile. But then I remind myself about the aggravations of using Android and how I've been waiting two years for The Next Best Thing. As far as handsets go, I'll always refer to the HTC Incredible as The Last Great Smartphone because it never let me down. But now, we're at a junction where the Android operating system is going in a direction that I'm not sure that I can continue to follow.

New research set to be released this week found that 87% of those who own Apple’s iPhone 4S use at least one feature of its Siri virtual assistant monthly.

But most usage is across a relatively limited set of functions, according to consulting group Parks Associates, which surveyed 482 owners of the iPhone 4S, the only device to carry the service.

Apple introduced Siri last fall with the 4S and has been advertising it as a big differentiator for the hit device. The technology can perform a variety of tasks from searching for information to sending an email to scheduling meetings by voice. Unlike other types of voice-activated services, Siri can understand the way humans speak normally. Commanding it to “wake me up at 9 a.m.” can set the iPhone’s alarm, for instance.

But users aren’t proving adventurous with their usage. Making phone calls and sending text-messages are the most popular activities, according to the report, a sign that Siri usage is mirroring how people use their phones more generally. Roughly a third of 4S owners use Siri to place phone calls, send text messages, or look up information daily or almost daily.

Many other Siri services are getting little pickup, however. They include playing music and scheduling meetings. Thirty-two and 35% of 4S users, respectively, said they had never used Siri to perform those actions. Those categories also had some of the lowest percentage of users that did either daily or almost daily.

Email usage is pretty split, with 30% saying they have never used Siri to send an email while 26% say they use it to send email daily or almost daily.

The pattern comes as users continue to complain that Siri struggles to understand accents and needs dead quiet to work.

Those complaints were echoed by Parks Associates, which found that the technology stirred up strong emotions in users; many either raved about or panned Siri in anecdotal comments. The comments ranged from “best thing since the invention of toast” to “it’s very disappointing,” according to the report.

Some 55% of 4S users said they were satisfied with Siri, 9% were unsatisfied, and the rest were somewhere in between.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Parks Associates conducted the research amid an expected boom in voice-activated technology as consumer electronics companies try to broaden how their devices are used.

John Barrett, director of consumer analytics at Parks Associates, says he was surprised respondents didn’t express strong interest in Siri-like voice-based search for their television, a consumer device consumers constantly complain is difficult to navigate. Microsoft offers voice-activated search through its Kinect Xbox accessory.

Only 37% of 4S owners said they definitely wanted voice-commands on their television set, while 20% said they did not want them there. Mr. Barrett said he attributes the “limited enthusiasm” for the feature on TVs to concerns it doesn’t work well in noisy areas. “When watching TV there is so much background noise,” he said.

Fu Chunli shows off her $10,000 iTunes Store gift card

Fu Chunli was not a big fan of Apple, and had only purchased her iPhone for about one month, still learning how to use the App Store. She didn’t know anything about the competition until she was contacted by Apple. When she received a call from staff at Apple (China), she thought it was a hoax. She was still confused when a friend told her that she received a prize from Apple, but did not believe her luck until she saw an email from Apple Inc.

A Braid Equity Research study -- as reported by "Fortune" -- says 24% of Americans and 29% of international respondents plan to buy the new iPad.

Before you get the idea that pretty soon EVERYONE in the world will have an Apple tablet, note that the survey notes that 488 potential customers were surveyed. And thy were a "younger, tech-savvier group on average." With that in mind the study showed:

° Among existing iPad owners, 48% indicated they plan to purchase the new iPad, with 35% of those already owning an iPad 2.

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I've learned why Apple decided to use a polarity sensitive switch in the new iPad 3. Some iPad 2 customers were having issues with their iPads entering sleep mode when they flipped Apple's Smart Cover around flat behind their iPad 2. Since the iPad 2's sleep/wake sensor wasn't polarity specific, it could sometimes be triggered from the magnet being positioned at the rear of the iPad. By changing to a sensor that requires the correct polarity, the problem is eliminated.

Apple’s latest service puts all of your tunes in the iCloud, for a fee. Is it a must-have for music fans, and is it worth the $24.99-a-year asking price?

Looking after a big iTunes library can be a problem. We started ripping our CDs in the early days of the iPod when disk space was still at a premium, and as a result a good chunk of our library consists of poor quality, low bitrate MP3s. It’s enormous, too, and fear of losing the lot means we’re constantly spending cash on ever larger hard disks. And then there’s syncing.

Oh, the syncing.

Maybe we’re unusual, but our iTunes library is shared across a few devices. There’s the iMac, of course, but we like to listen to the odd thing on our old MacBook Pro too. There’s the iPhones -- the 4 and the 3GS -- and the iPad, and the Apple TV. Home Sharing helps, but we’re still spending more time syncing music than we do actually listening to it.

Downloading music from iCloud is very straightforward, just right-click and select Download.

iTunes Match solves all of that. It replaces your terrible rips with shiny 256Kbps AACs, and if it doesn’t recognize a track it automatically uploads your copy of it. It automatically syncs playlists and purchases between all your devices. And it saves on storage space by streaming music from iCloud.

It sounds great. Is it?

Data Grumbles

The problem with anything cloud-based is that at home you have speedy cable or DSL and the joys of Airport Extreme, but when you’re out and about you’re dependent on mobile data networks. And in our experience, they’re usually awful. So what happens when you try and use iTunes Match on a 3G connection?

The short answer is that you wait. A lot.

We tried iTunes Match in multiple locations -- in the gym, in the garden, on the bus -- on an iPhone 4 and the results weren’t great, even when we had a strong 3G signal. Clicking on a song that wasn’t already on our iPhone meant waiting ten seconds or more for it to start playing, and switching from song to song killed the currently playing track long before the next one was ready to start. We also encountered playback problems with songs stopping, and starting, and stopping again. 3G mobile broadband should be up to the job -- its top speed in our area is 7.2Mbps -- but that figure only applies if you cover yourself in tinfoil and tie yourself to a mobile phone mast. Our mobile broadband struggles with small PDFs in email attachments, so it’s not a huge surprise that it chokes on good-quality music files too.

Things are more successful on Wi-Fi. We tried iTunes match on our iPhone and on our Apple TV, and, in both cases, songs started instantly. You could use iTunes Match as an alternative to Home Sharing for your Apple TV, although we’re not sure why you’d want to: after all, Home Sharing uses your home network, not the wider internet, so it’s less likely to suffer from connection problems.

When it comes to streaming, then, iTunes Match is great on Wi-Fi and less great on 3G. Apple knows this, we think, because 3G’s off by default: to enable it you need to go to Settings > Store > Use Cellular Data > On. It’s also worth mentioning that you should disable 3G if you’re off on holiday. If you don’t, the data roaming charges could ruin you.

Backups and better

There’s much more to iTunes Match than mobile music: it’s an excellent backup service, and it’s an exceptionally easy way to upgrade your iTunes library too. That’s not bad for $24.99 per year.

iTunes Match is handy on devices with limited capacity as it gives you unlimited music storage.

There are several benefits to backing up your iTunes library. The first is that the alternative of re-ripping years of CDs is horrible, and the second is that it saves you from having to buy an external hard disk or go through the process of burning CDs or DVDs. That said, we’d advise making a backup of your music before signing up for the service. Better safe than sorry.

The icing on the cake is that you can also use iTunes Match to improve the quality of your library. Provided you’ve ripped tracks at 128Kbps or higher and iTunes Match recognizes them, you can replace the existing copies with a new AAC file converted at 256Kbps. In our case, that meant updating 6,400 songs.

There are a couple of conditions. You can only upgrade music, not other kinds of audio content, and you’re limited to 25,000 songs plus iTunes purchases – they don’t count towards the total number of tracks. There isn’t a one-button “Upgrade my music” option, but the upgrade process is still simple. Once you’ve signed up for iTunes Match and let iTunes scan and upload your library (a process that takes hours), you can create a Smart Playlist. The criteria should be:

-- Match all of the following rules
-- Bit rate is less than 256kbps
-- Media kind is music
-- Any of the following are true (option-click the Plus sign to do this)
-- iCloud status is Matched
-- iCloud status is Purchased.

Save your playlist. Now for the scary bit: you need to select every file in your new playlist, press option-delete, and select Move to Trash. iTunes will now ask whether you’re sure about deleting the files; before clicking on Delete Songs, make sure that the “also delete these songs from iCloud” box is NOT checked.

Your songs don’t disappear when you do this. Instead, a cloud icon appears next to each one. That icon means the songs are not on your Mac, but are available in iCloud. The next step is to download them. To do that, it’s time for another Smart Playlist. This time your criteria are:

• Match all of the following rules
• Location is iCloud
• Location is not on this computer
• Media kind is music.

Open your new playlist, select everything, right-click and then select Download. Now, go to bed: if you’ve got a hefty selection of songs to download, downloading the new versions is an overnight job.

What happens if...?

There are a number of things to consider before putting your head in the iCloud. Once you hit 25,000 songs you can’t add anything else to iTunes that you didn’t buy from iTunes. There is a way around that, but it’s a clunky one: you can split large iTunes libraries in two and then only synchronize one of them with iCloud. Then again, it’s not a problem that’s going to affect huge numbers of people: 25,000 songs is the equivalent of nearly 2,100 CDs. You’re more likely to run into the device limit, as iTunes Match is limited to ten devices.

The main limit, however, is financial. If you don’t renew the service after 12 months, your iCloud music library disappears. The tracks you’ve updated won’t revert to garbage bitrates again -- they’re yours to keep forever -- but if there’s anything in iCloud you haven’t downloaded to your Mac it’ll be gone. There appear to be a few. iTunes Match simply doesn’t recognize some tracks, which is particularly annoying if it’s happily matched the other 11 songs from the same album, and if there is more than one version of a particular song - for example, because it appeared on more than one album -- it sometimes matches the wrong one. We found that albums were occasionally split up, so you might have tracks 1, 2 and 3 in one version of the album and the others in a second version. It’s not the end of the world -- a quick command+I enables you to fix the metadata -- but it’s quite annoying. To be fair to Gracenote, whose MusicID technology does the matching, it’s an incredibly difficult job: not only are there hundreds of thousands of records to compare tracks to, but those records have been released as remasters, anniversary editions, radio edits, US, UK, Japanese and German editions, collectors’ editions, box sets… it’s amazing the system works at all. Nevertheless, don’t be surprised if iTunes Match sometimes fails to, er, match. If that happens, it’ll upload the version from your library instead.

There are other issues. Some people have experienced artwork disappearing from matched music, while others have seen explicit versions of their favorite songs replaced with the swear-free radio edits or found that iTunes Match reset their ratings and play counts. Others didn’t realize that iTunes Match erases libraries from other devices, so for example if you turn it on on your iPhone it’ll erase your playlists (although it’ll keep the songs that you’ve already got on the device) and some people have found their smart playlists playing dumb.

Match Point?

If you’re looking for Spotify-style 3G streaming, iTunes isn’t for you: unless you have an exceptionally good connection mobile broadband really struggles with the high-quality tracks. On 3G, it’s better to think of iTunes Match as a solution to those “Aaagh! I really want to listen to some Bowie but it isn’t on my iPhone!” moments than a streaming music service.

The real draw here is threefold: iTunes Match makes it easy to share content between your various bits of Apple kit; it backs up all your music; and you can use it to upgrade all the duff tracks in your library, which in our case meant over 6,000 songs.

Will iTunes evolve into a Spotify-style streaming service that also offers music you don’t already own? It’s possible, but for Apple it represents a lot of effort and expense for very little return; Spotify, famously, doesn’t make a great deal of money. We suspect that Apple will keep iTunes Match as-is, not least because 4G mobile broadband, which is already rolling out in key US cities, is more than up to the job of delivering 256Kbps songs properly.

Rather than copying Spotify, we think Apple will add more kinds of content to iTunes Match: just look at the range of TV and movie apps available for the iPad, and the size of iTunes’ film and TV catalogue. For now, iTunes Match is just about music -- but in the not too distant future it might match movies and TV shows too.