Ramblings for the week of May 19th in My Digital Life

Back in February I ranted about T-Mobile's lack of news and direction (link), however as comments pointed out they are tough to beat from a value perspective. This month they have again upped the ante on value with a special promotion through June 24 called the Family 4-Pack (link from tmonews.com). The Family 4-Pack adds:

• Unlimited HotSpot@Home
• Unlimited calling to each family members 5 favorite poeple
• Unlimited T-Mobile to T-Mobile
• Unlimited Nights and Weekend

All of this for $9.99 per month in addition to your base Family plan charge and since it is an option, it has no contractual commitment. I was paying $19.99 for the HotSpot@Home option, replacing it with the Family 4-Pack saves me $10 per month. Since I have 5 phones on our Family plan we can call up to 25 My Faves numbers for free (5 per phone which can be shared). In order to get this promotion T-Mobile checks to make sure that all of your phones are compatible with My Faves, they do not care so much if they are HotSpot@Home compatible. It was interesting to find out that they knew I had connected with my iPhone, Wing, and currently HTC Kaiser (aka AT&T Tilt). They were concerned that the HTC Kaiser did not have the My Faves application. I tried to explain that I could install the My Faves application on the Kaiser but they did not think it would work so I told them I would use the Wing. I downloaded the My Faves application from xda-developers (link), installed it and it works just fine. I have been wondering how My Faves works, at first I thought the software on the phone added a code to the number called, but I am thinking that it is the billing system that handles the matching of numbers so you do not get charged. The only function the software on the phone seems to do is activate the number in your account profile by sending SMS messages. Without the software on the phone the number does not get validated and it is not active as a My Faves number. I am assuming it only does this once when you initially enter or modify the number. I will have to test my theory with my iPhone. If I make a call to one of the activated My Faves number on the iPhone, it should show up as a V call (My Faves) in my account on the T-Mobile web site. Obviously I can't add or modify My Faves numbers with the iPhone since it has no application to validate the number. Maybe someone will write one...Bottom line, I think this is a great promotion and it will keep me as a T-Mobile customer. I am now just waiting for 3G. Also it seems you can only modify a My Faves number once a month which makes sense, since if you could change the numbers at will, the plan could be viewed as totally unlimited...

I have decided to try a UMPC this month, the Fujitsu U810 to see how it might fit in with my travel gadgets. It is a Tablet PC with Vista that has a 5.6" screen and weighs 1.56lbs. This would definitely solve my photo sharing dilemma since I could easily transfer files from my camera and upload them to the Kodak Gallery for sharing. Costco is currently selling the 40GB model with Vista Home for $849 and adds 1 year to the base 1 year warranty for free. It will be interesting to see how useful this UMPC is.

This week:

• My review of SBSH Mobile Software Facade application for pocketnow.com. should be published this week. This is a smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) today screen replacement.
• Finishing on a review of SBSH Mobile Software Pocket Weather.
• Working on a review of CellPoint's Flamingo Music earphones.
• Update my Windows Mobile application list

Comments

[Chris Carlin]

Do I understand you correctly that anyone in the plan can call anyone's favorite for free? That is, I could call someone my wife has in her favorites list?

Also, I'd be interested in the result of your experiment of using a phone without My Faves software to dial a Faves number. Keep us updated.

In the end it sounds like this whole plan is to further encourage people to use HotSpot@Home. TMobile must find it very cost effective to support that service.

[Stephen Skarlatos]

Yes, that is what the CS person told me. If you have 5 phones you get 25 numbers, 4 phones 20 numbers and so on. I had heard this as a rumor, but he confirmed that he had tried personally. I will be checking my calls on the web sites to see if that is in fact the case.

I will have a chance to try it tonight with my iPhone.

I agree with you, HotSpot@Home gives them added capacity at little cost.