upgrade

commentary Research in Motion, is that really all you've got?

After a critical outage that left some BlackBerry users without e-mail for as many as three days, RIM is offering customers $100 worth of premium apps for free. Enterprise customers also get a month's worth of technical support.

The problem is, the BlackBerry faithful stick with you for primarily one reason: your excellent e-mail service. If they wanted games, media apps and other whiz-bang features, they would have fled to an iPhone or Android smartphone already. You lose your e-mail, even for one day, and you lose your … Read more

Carrier contracts and device subsidy policies mean wireless subscribers who want the latest and greatest iPhone have to think carefully about their upgrade strategies.

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I offer some advice to one frustrated reader who has been waiting a long time to upgrade to a new iPhone. She can't decide if she should pull the trigger now and buy the iPhone 4S, or whether she should wait for the next upgrade to the iPhone, expected next year.

I also explain how the fact that Apple has used common chips for the iPhone 4S on AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel means that travelers have more freedom to use their phones when they're overseas. But at the same time, the software each carrier uses to lock these phones to their own networks, also limits where and how they can be used.

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers' wireless and broadband questions. The column now appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double dosage of Ask Maggie's advice. If you have a question, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put "Ask Maggie" in the subject header. You can also follow me on Facebook on my Ask Maggie page.… Read more

Galaxy on Fire 2 is a fully 3D space trader game with sleek graphics, fun missions, and an engrossing storyline--as long as you can stomach the less-than-stellar voice acting. Cut scenes early in the game explain your situation: a malfunction in your hyperdrive has somehow managed to warp your ship across the galaxy and 30 years into the future. With only your basic ship and the help of friendly people at various space stations you visit, you'll slowly learn the ins and outs of equipping your ship, buying and selling commodities for cash, mining for minerals, and how to … Read more

Apple's MacBook Pro series could be the next in line for a hardware upgrade, according to a new report.

Citing anonymous sources "with proven insight into Apple's future product plans," AppleInsider says the Mac maker plans to introduce new models of its Pro portables with speedier Intel processors. The new models are said to ship in time for the holiday shopping season, though could arrive this month, the outlet says.

How big a bump are we talking about? AppleInsider points to Intel's latest crop of quad-core Core i7 chips, which come in at 2.4GHz, … Read more

I admit it. I enjoy a good firmware upgrade.

There's nothing like a software fix to make you feel better about your device, especially if it adds new features while eliminating bugs. But not every firmware upgrade is good. Sometimes things go horribly wrong. Which is what happened recently when I updated Jawbone's little Jambox Bluetooth speaker to version 2.0.

The update gave me something called LiveAudio, a "technological breakthrough" that would let me experience my music, games, video "like never before"--as if I was, "on stage, in the action, hearing it live." Furthermore, this immersive, three-dimensional listening experience brought "incredible depth, detail, and unprecedented spatial realism to everything from mp3s to special binaural recordings."

Based on the promo material, I expected a lot; I wanted in on the 2.0 LiveAudio action. Wanted it bad. … Read more

In conjunction with the impending release of its new Thunderbolt Cinema Displays, Apple's pushed out a software update to its latest MacBook Air models that gets them ready to plug in to the new hardware, while fixing a handful of bugs in the process.

The EFI update, versioned 2.1, comes in at 3.9MB and promises to fix issues that arise when recovering Lion using the new Internet Recovery feature. The update is also aimed at improving performance in target disk mode when plugging in via Thunderbolt.

Of special note is the fix of an issue with plugging in to Apple's yet-to-be-released Thunderbolt Display, which has been marketed as a docking station of sorts for late-model MacBook Air owners.

For instance, those users can plug in to the display to get a Firewire 800 port, FaceTime HD camera, Gigabit ethernet and three USB 2.0 ports, extending the I/O that ships on Apple's smallest notebook, and demoing some utility for the computer's Thunderbolt port, which currently has just a handful of third-party accessories to make use of it.

Apple introduced its Thunderbolt Display alongside new versions of the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and its Lion OS software update in late July, saying only that it would be launching that new display hardware "within the next 60 days." A report in MacRumors last week suggested that Apple was already in the process of shipping its $999 Thunderbolt Displays to stores. However, Apple continues to list it as shipping within the next "2-3 weeks" from its online store.… Read more

Yesterday we reported that Sprint is raising its ETFs to a whopping $350 for advanced devices, though it will be prorated based on the remaining months of your contract.

Well, perhaps to ready itself for the incoming deluge of customers who want to upgrade their handsets to the Samsung Epic 4G Touch or the rumored iPhone 5, Sprint will also increase its upgrade fees from $18 to $36 on September 9, according to an internal document leaked to SprintFeed.

We're not quite happy with all these fee increases, but hopefully this means Sprint will be able to keep its … Read more

A week after downgrading Google's stock, Standard & Poor's reversed course, saying the stock price had fallen so much that it was now a more attractive buy.

Scott Kessler, head of technology sector equity research at S&P, wrote in a research note released today and cited by the Associated Press that he was upgrading the Web search giant's rating to "hold" from the "sell" rating he bestowed on the company's shares last week following Google's gutsy move to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The acquisition will give … Read more