AT&T

Okay, this gets a little complicated. More complicated than it should, really.

I am an AT&T customer. My current two-year contract is up on July 30-- just 19 days from now.

Normally, AT&T allows customers to upgrade early by paying a moderate fee.

As CNET's Dawn Kawamoto put it in this blog post, "eligibility for an upgrade discount, the carrier said, is generally determined by amount of time remaining on a current contract and the payment history." One version of the upgrade rules is visible on Best Buy's website.

The worst-case situation, one might suppose, is that… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO AND EMERYVILLE, Calif.--Apple's iPhone 3G just made its debut on the West Coast, and CNET News reporters Erica Ogg, Josh Lowensohn, and yours truly brought offered live updates from our perches in downtown San Francisco and Emeryville, just across the Bay Bridge.

I was at the Stockton Street Apple store in downtown San Francisco, Erica was at the AT&T store a few blocks away at 3rd and Market streets, and Josh was checking out the Bay Street Mall in Emeryville, which has both an Apple store and an AT&T store.

The following … Read more

We interrupt your iPhone coverage to bring you this late-breaking news: As promised, today Palm announced a price drop for the AT&T Palm Centro. From July 11 to September 20, you can now get the Centro for $69.99 with a two-year contract and after a mail-in rebate. This $30 price drop is part of a back-to-school promotion for the AT&T and applies to all color models of the Palm smartphone, which includes the new electric blue, glacier white, and obsidian black. So there you have it. And now back to you regularly scheduled program.

As you know, the Macalope's not galloping out this morning to get an iPhone 3G. Particularly since he feels like he just got a new iPhone yesterday with the 2.0 software update.

And it seems that might not be a bad idea all around. Taking a look on the Twitter, MacUser's Dan Pourhadi says AT&T's in-store activation system isn't working and they're telling people to activate at home (that won't get you a phone you can unlock, though, unless you want to pay $600 for it -- failure to activate).

Meanwhile, … Read more

So the iPhone 3G is coming out tomorrow. Are you ready? OK, that's more of a rhetorical question that those who've been lining up in front of Apple and AT&T stores in NYC and San Francisco would call me crazy just for asking. (Though, in fact, it's they who are crazy). The real question is if AT&T is ready. And it looks like it is.

It's only fitting that AT&T announced today that it offers the nation's fastest 3G network, by a significant margin. The claim was made based … Read more

Amid all the iPhone 3G and App Store talk today, another rising star in the smartphone world got its FCC wings today. Yes, the much-anticipated RIM BlackBerry Bold received FCC approval, bringing it one step closer to a real-world debut. We already know that the Bold is headed for AT&T, but the exact availability date has been in question. Some sources, such as the Boy Genius Report, say it will be released some time in mid-August.

Many are already calling the BlackBerry Bold an iPhone competitor, which frankly bugs me. While I certainly understand the inclination to do … Read more

If you're planning on waiting in line for an iPhone, be sure to do your homework and bring all the necessary items with you. Or, watch Wednesday's edition of the Daily Debrief where I talk to CNET News' Tom Krazit about the lines and the purchase process. Apple has finally disclosed that stores will start selling the phones at 8 a.m. The company has also said it will let customers into the stores in groups of 30. This part of the system sounds similar to last year, but this year's big unknown is what the activation … Read more

Though there's no shortage of places to buy an unlocked iPhone, I haven't seen many wireless stores that specialize in selling them. But last weekend, I came across a store in San Francisco's Civic Center (corner of Larkin and Golden Gate) that does just that. Not only will the store sell you an unlocked iPhone with the activation of a new T-Mobile account--all for just $299--but also it will unlock your current AT&T iPhone for you. Since it was Saturday and the day after Independence Day the store was closed, so I didn't get … Read more

Apple has revealed how it plans to handle the iPhone 3G crowd on Friday at its retail stores: about 30 iPhone buyers at a time.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Ron Johnson, Apple's retail chief, explained the company plans to admit iPhone customers into its retail stores starting at 8:00 a.m. local time on Friday. There will be an orange-shirted "concierge" at each store, according to Apple, who will herd iPhone 3G buyers approximately 30 at a time to the "iPhone bay" for processing.

Apple did something similar last year, when … Read more