Today’s launch in Chicago; Reno, Nev.; Fresno and Sacramento, Calif.; and the region surrounding Los Angeles (though not in LA itself) – coupled with activations on Monday in Atlanta, Seattle and Minneapolis – bring its total upgraded footprint to 23 markets covering more than 100 million people. While T-Mobile doesn’t sell the device yet, customers with unlocked iPhones can use them on the carrier’s network. But only in areas where the upgrade is complete will they get anything beyond a 2G connection.

Though in the rest of country the network officially hasn’t seen the upgrade – which will move a portion of T-Mo’s HSPA+ network to the 1900 MHz PCS band – customers with unlocked iPhones have reported seeing HSPA+ signals from New York to LA, cities where their Apple devices would normally be restricted to pokey 2G speeds. Right up to its launch this week, Chicago was a hotbed of signal sightings so T-Mobile obviously has many more markets in the works.

T-Mobile is rushing to complete its network reconfiguration for a number of reasons. Not only will it be fully compatible with the iPhone’s 2G and 3G radios when it starts selling the device next year, but the sooner it relocates HSPA+ to the PCS band, the sooner it can start building its new LTE network.

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Here’s the full statement as published in the Gray Lady’s Bits blog:

• Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans. If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so.
• When we introduce our new shared data plans, Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing.
• Customers who purchase phones at full retail price and are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan.
• The same pricing and policies will be applied to all 3G and 4GLTE smartphones.

What that means is that you can probably cling to your unlimited plan from now until the end of time, like some old codger that refuses to give up his party line. But Verizon isn’t going to make it easy on you. The people who like unlimited data tend to be the people who like high-end smartphones, and since Verizon will no longer cut them deals when they upgrade to newer and better devices, they’ll be on the hook for full sticker price. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the prices on a brand new unlocked iPhone lately, but they ain’t cheap: $650 to $850 depending on the model.

The odd thing is, depending on how they’re priced, Verizon’s new shared plans might actually wind up saving a lot of current unlimited customers money. For instance, if you’re in a household with two smartphones both grandfathered to unlimited, you’re basically paying $60 a month for data. If Verizon keeps its same pricing structure in place you could get 2 GB to share for half the monthly cost, plus whatever per line charges Verizon chooses to charge.

The larger majority of U.S. smartphone users consume less than 1 GB of data a month. There are still plenty of people who use their unlimited data plans to the hilt – many of them GigaOM readers – and they’re going to hate this policy change in the very cores of their beings. But my bet is that a lot of people currently on unlimited plans might benefit from switching over to shared data. We’ll have to see the details of Verizon’s shared pricing, though, before we can say for sure.

Buffet image courtesy of Flickr user Wesley Fryer

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A lot of factors are involved in choosing a new device, and people might be understandably reluctant to drop a lot of money on new hardware now, given the current global economic climate. How you use your device will also ultimately determine whether new features are worth the investment. So consider the following before making up your mind.

Is your contract up?

Carrier subsidies are a huge boon to cell phone buyers. With subsidy, the new iPhone 4S costs between $199 and $399, depending on how much storage you want on your device. Off-contract pricing in the U.S. hasn’t yet been announced, but in the Canadian store, it’s listed as starting at $649 and going up $100 for each additional level of onboard flash storage, topping out at $849 for the new 64 GB tier. U.S. prices should be in the same ballpark, if they don’t match those exactly.

A difference of $450 is going to be a difficult pill to swallow for most. Unless a brand new iPhone is a valid business expense for you, or necessary because your existing phone is actually broken or failing, you probably shouldn’t upgrade if you can’t get the subsidized pricing unless you’re really interested in Siri, but let’s take a look at that particular buying incentive.

Siri looks good, but so did FaceTime

Siri plays well in Apple’s promo videos, and it was impressive during the Apple presentation Tuesday, but those things don’t necessarily make it a must-have. Many are pointing out that using Siri in public will be downright awkward, and there’s also the comparison Stacey drew to FaceTime: How many will actually use Siri with any kind of frequency or consistency?

If Siri is the only reason you’re thinking about upgrading, then taking a step back and waiting might be your best course of action. Siri isn’t going anywhere, after all, and a couple of months of it being on the market might give us a better idea of its usefulness in everyday situations.

Will you be upgrading anyway?

Some might be tempted to consider upgrading an older iPhone (a 3G or 3GS, for example) to an iPhone 4, given that device’s lower starting price point. But if you’re already going to be upgrading, and likely locking in to a new contract anyway, consider that by the next time you become eligible for a phone you’ll be two devices behind instead of just one. That isn’t working out so well for 3G owners right now, since software support ended with iOS 4.3.

A faster processor and dual-core graphics might not seem like big advantages today, but the gap will widen; the iPhone 4 will become slower and less reliable with each subsequent software update, while the iPhone 4S is better able to take advantage of its increased power. Even if you think you can live without Siri, a better camera and faster networking (which will also only get better and make older devices look worse as time passes), you should seriously think about paying up for the iPhone 4S.

How important is your carrier?

If your choice of carrier is a key factor in prompting an upgrade, then now’s a good time to move to the 4S. Sprint availability is going to be great for some, especially considering the availability of unlimited data plans on that network. If you want a new iPhone because you’re looking to improve your network reliability, then the 4S is an especially good choice because of the new, speed-boosting dual-antenna design.

In summary: The iPhone 4S isn’t a disappointing upgrade, no matter what tech pundits and analysts may say. But just because it isn’t disappointing doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Before you decide to stay up late and hit the iPhone pre-order page, consider the above, and should you think of anything else that’s worth considering, share it with us in the comments.

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Try this first

There are some good best practices to perform before running off and resetting your Mac at the first sign of strange behavior. This isn’t a step-by-step list; try each and all of the below separately when you’re having trouble:

• Quit (Command+Q) or even Force Quit (Command+Option+Esc) any and all running applications.
• Log off and then log back on to any and all logged on user accounts.
• Put the Mac to sleep and wake it up again.
• Restart the Mac.
• Shut down and unplug the Mac (and remove any battery if you have access) for at least thirty seconds before powering back on.

You may even have to press and hold the power button several seconds in extreme cases when your Mac is truly not responding or refuses to shut down and power off. But if you have tried all of this to no avail, then perhaps you do need to either reset your PRAM or your SMC.

Parameter random access memory

PRAM is used by OS X to store certain information that the system can access quickly. Macs will store settings like which startup drive to boot from, various display and video settings, startup speaker volume and even the DVD’s region settings. If you feel that you need to reset your Mac’s PRAM because of the issues you’re having, do the following:

1. Turn off your Mac. Don’t worry about disconnecting the power or removing the battery.
2. Turn on your Mac and hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys all at the same time (all four keys).
3. Keep holding down all four keys until you hear the startup sound for a second time.

If you do not hear the startup sound twice, then you most likely have not reset the PRAM.  If you find that your Mac is not retaining the information that is stored in PRAM when you perform a shutdown, then it might be time to replace your Mac’s main logic board battery.  This is sometimes referred to as the PRAM or Clock Battery. I hardly ever fully shut down and power off any of my Macs, and have yet to replace this battery on any Mac I have owned, so that should only be the culprit in very extreme cases.

System management controller

The SMC is an Intel-only feature.  There are so many symptoms that can potentially be solved by resetting the SMC that you’d think you would need to do this sort of reset all of the time. These include fans running out of control, lights not displaying correctly, the Mac does not sleep or wake properly, and just generally poor performance and high CPU cycles for no good reason. There are three ways to reset your SMC, based on what sort of Intel-based Mac you have:
Portable Macs with removable batteries

1. Shut down the Mac, unplug and remove the battery.
2. Press and hold the power button for five seconds before releasing.
3. Replace the battery (just put it back in), plug in the Mac and turn it back on.

Portable Macs without removable batteries

• Shut down the Mac.
• Ensure that the Mac is plugged into a power source.
• While the Mac is turned off, press and hold the Shift, Control and Option keys, as well as the Power button.
• Release all four keys at the same time (note: the Mac should not power on when performing this task).
• Press the power button to turn the Mac back on.

Desktop Mac Pros, iMacs and Mac minis

• Shut down and unplug the Mac.
• Keep the Mac unplugged for at least fifteen seconds.
• Plug the Mac back in and do not turn it back on for at least five seconds.
• Press the power button to turn the Mac back on.

This shouldn’t be considered a routine operation, like fixing file permissions in Disk Utility. It’s just something to keep in mind as a possible last resort solution to weird behaviors that your Mac starts to develop, which can often happen when you perform upgrades like installing OS X Lion, especially on older hardware.

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RAM

This is the easiest place you can make an improvement with almost any Mac. iMacs have a user-accessible memory slot located on the bottom edge of the display, between the built-in speakers. It’s as simple as removing three screws, and then replacing the computer’s existing memory with large capacity, compatible RAM units. MacBooks and MacBook Pros are also easily upgradeable when it comes to memory, and require only the removal of the bottom case or a memory area cover, depending on your model.

Remember to make absolutely sure that the RAM you’re buying is compatible with your computer. You can do this by finding out which Mac you have, by doing the following:

1. Go to the Apple menu in the top left corner of the menu bar.
2. Click on “About This Mac.”
3. Click on the “More Info…” button.
4. Take note of the Model Identifier in the Hardware Overview that opens. It should say something like “iMac12,2″ or “MacBook3,1.”
5. Go to EveryMac.com and enter that identifier to get the complete specs for your machine, including what type of RAM it uses and the maximum amount it can support.

If you’d rather make it easier on yourself, you can go to OWC and browse for your model in the Memory section of their online store. Note that this does require that you at least know when you bought the computer, but you can find that out using the method described above.

Note that some Mac mini models and MacBook Airs make upgrading the RAM yourself very difficult or impossible, in which case you might want to consult with an authorized Mac service provider.

Hard Drive

RAM is easier to upgrade, but for Lion, a hard drive change could make the biggest difference. They can be a bit trickier to upgrade, and nearly impossible if you have an iMac, but for most Mac notebooks, the process isn’t very challenging. If you’re unsure how to change your hard drive, check the official Apple manual for your computer, which you can identify using the method described above.

There are a few options available to you here. Like Dave Greenbaum, you could choose to go with a solid-state drive. This is the best possible option, but it’s also the priciest, and you get relatively little storage space for your money.

Another option is to supplement your existing HDD by installing a separate, smaller capacity SSD as your startup volume. If you have a MacBook Pro, this isn’t too difficult to do. Weldon Dodd provided an excellent walkthrough of how he achieved this with his own computer. Lion requires a minimum of 8 GB of free space on your drive, but a 40 GB drive that you can get for around $100 is probably as small as you should go, even if you don’t plan on keeping anything else on there.

Finally, you can also get the best of both worlds in a single drive, using a hybrid drive. Seagate makes a hybrid drive that provides 500 GB of storage, along with a 4 GB flash storage module. It manages to achieve a 32 MB cache with a 7200 RPM drive speed, and provides much better performance than a traditional drive, in my experience, plus it’s way cheaper than a standalone SSD. Boot times, app launch times, and wake from sleep times all drastically improved after I installed this in my MacBook Pro.

The most expensive of the above-mentioned options probably won’t cost you more than $500, and that’s only if you opt for a relatively capacious SSD. Noticeable improvements shouldn’t cost you more than $100, which is a great deal shy of the $1000+ you’d spend on a brand new Mac. Any other suggestions for DIY improvements that could make transitioning to Lion that much more satisfying?

* Ed. Please remember that DIY modifications to Apple equipment is done at your own risk, and voids your AppleCare warranty.

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16 GB FTW!

NextWorth, one of the many companies that offers cash for used electronics, has recently seen a five-fold increase in the number of iPads being traded in. Not surprisingly, the 16 GB iPad is most popular, making up just under 40 percent of trade-ins during the first four days of March, with the Wi-Fi version accounting for most of those. The 32 GB and 64 GB models roughly split the remaining trade-ins, though somewhat surprisingly, the 64 GB 3G was second in popularity. For those considering selling through NextWorth, the resale price of the 16 GB model was around $255 as of last week.

Looking at eBay today, the distribution of iPads being auctioned is similar, with the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad again being most popular. Resale prices are higher on eBay than on NextWorth, with 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads selling for an official average of $420.78, and the 32 GB and 64 GB models adding approximately $50 and $75 respectively. 3G adds another $25 or so to the asking price. Keep in mind that selling on eBay entails more cost and risk, and that there are other options.

While these numbers only show what people are trading in, they also provide a good representation of what they’re interested in buying in the first place. The numbers may change with the iPad 2 as people realize they need more storage or better connectivity, but the bottom line is that it shouldn’t be hard to find a buyer for a 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad, even if these numbers shift slightly over the course of the next year.

3G or Not 3G?

If you plan on owning an iPad 2 for years or more, the extra connectivity of 3G is worth considering, and as an added benefit, the 3G iPad also features true GPS. Unfortunately, for U.S. iPad 2 buyers, that also means choosing between iPads designed specifically for either the AT&T or Verizon network.

Setting aside coverage issues, comparing plans comes down to price and data. AT&T offers the cheapest plan at $14.99 per month for a measly 250MB of data. Nonetheless, if you get by on that with an iPhone, it’s worth considering for an iPad, but note that for just five dollars more Verizon offers four times the data. Also worth considering is speed, where Verizon still lags until the iPad gets LTE capability. Unfortunately, neither company offers rollover data like rollover minutes.

Which is Right for You?

The takeaway is that if you plan on upgrading your iPad yearly, the 16 GB Wi-Fi model will likely offer the best return on investment. Those planning on keeping an iPad 2 for as long as possible should consider the model with the highest storage capacity they can afford. While rumors of an iTunes cloud service would make storage less of a necessity, the likely reality is that Apple will offer unlimited downloads rather than storage-saving streaming, at least for the foreseeable future. Also, increasingly rich and sophisticated games like Infinity Blade need between 500 MB and 1 GB of storage today, and requirements will only go up from there. More storage is a good long-term investment, and so is 3G capability.

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I generally wait to see how a new product is received before upgrading. I’ve been holding off on moving to Mac OS X 10.6.4, for example, because it’s reported to break some software that I depend on. But for some reason, I decided to upgrade to iOS 4, the latest version of the operating system for my iPod touch, the first day it was available. Unfortunately for those of us who use Exchange to sync our mail, calendars, and contacts with Google Apps, the upgrade required the re-syncing of this data, which in turn slowed Google’s servers to a crawl. It took almost 24 hours before I again had a usable device.

During that time, I got to thinking about the questions I should have asked myself before starting the update. Here’s what I came up with; please add your thoughts in the comments.

• Do you need the new features of the update? If it fixes security issues, then probably yes. If not, then you should consider whether the update will actually improve your workflow. For example, one of iOS4′s new features is the ability to create “folders,” or groups of applications, on the home screen. Is this important to you, even given its limitations? Another feature is multitasking, which has gotten mixed reviews, at best.
• What will the update cost? Of course, some new hardware and software isn’t free, but even if the manufacturer isn’t charging, what is the value of the time and effort it will take you to move to the new version? I suspect that evaluations of this question are why many companies are still using Windows XP and IE 6.
• Are there technical issues in the new version that may cause problems? This is where blogs and discussion forums can be lifesavers. If I had waited only a couple of hours before starting my iOS 4 upgrade, I would have found several posts and threads describing the exact issues I encountered, and would have known to wait until they were resolved.
• What are the consequences if something goes wrong? How easily can I revert to a previous version? Can I afford down time? Luckily, I wasn’t going anywhere the other day, but if I had been, it would have been very inconvenient not to have access to my email, calendars, and (especially) to my contacts.

How do you decide when to upgrade?

Image by Flickr user .schill, licensed under CC

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So here we are, just past the six month mark since Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard was sprung last August 28, and I’m still using OS 10.5 Leopard.

I have lots of company. The NetApplications HitsLink Market Share data for February 2010 shows that Leopard is still the most widely-used OS X version, with a 2.21 percent global market share compared to 1.8 percent for Snow Leopard, and good old OS 10.4 Tiger still hanging in at 0.72 percent.

Why the Procrastination?

So, why the procrastination about upgrading? It’s certainly not the cost holding me back. Snow Leopard is the cheapest Mac OS version upgrade in history, other than complete freebies.

Well, for one thing, Leopard works so darned well, and making a major OS upgrade always involves time investment and the hassle of upgrading at least some of your software and utilities (more about that in a moment), and I’ve been short of spare time the last several months. I also tend to be of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” persuasion, and haven’t been convinced there’s anything Snow Leopard has to offer that’s a genuine must-have for me.

Some of the improvements — things like a more responsive Finder rewritten from scratch in Cocoa, faster Time Machine backups, a more powerful version of the Preview application — sound like welcome tweaks, but nothing I find compelling. Stuff like enhanced Microsoft Exchange Server support for Mail, iCal, and Address Book have zero appeal for me since I don’t use that service or any of those features, preferring third-party alternatives. Nor do Snow Leopard’s Safari upgrades fizz me much since I favor other browsers with Safari being my fourth or fifth choice, if that.

Bitten Once…

There is also the bitten once; twice shy factor. I ordered OS 10.5 Leopard from Amazon.com a day or two after it was released on October 26, 2007, and immediately installed it on my then main production machine, a 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4. I’m not by nature or temperament an enthusiastic early adopter, but Leopard, hyped by Apple as being “the largest update of Mac OS X” yet, incorporating more than 300 new features, had so much cool stuff I really wanted to check out. Especially the Spaces and QuickLook features, which were every bit as good or even better than I had anticipated, and what I miss most on the two old G4 upgraded Pismo PowerBooks I still have in daily service running OS 10.4.

However, there was pain associated with my early move to Leopard, notwithstanding all the good stuff. I’m a windowshading junkie, and I simply can’t abide not having that feature, for which no function built into any version of OS X comes remotely close to being a satisfactory substitute. Windowshading’s been integrated into my work habits for more than a decade. Typically I may have two dozen or so windows open, scattered amongst nine Spaces views, mostly windowshaded, conveniently identifiable by their full title bars being visible.

Unfortunately, OS 10.5 upgrade broke third-party WindowShade X, and I was obliged to struggle along for several months without windowshading until its developer, Unsanity Software, got a Leopard-compatible version of its proprietary and required system add-on Application Enhancer (APE) out the door in February 2008, mercifully restoring WindowShade X support to Leopard.

Withdrawal too Painful to Repeat

Snow Leopard broke Windowshade X and Application Enhancer redux, and I’m not willing to go through that form of addiction withdrawal again.

Unsanity say they’re busily rewriting their more popular “haxie” add-ons to support Snow Leopard, the latest word being that WindowShade X is largely redone, its MIP system rewritten from scratch, and currently at internal beta status, a new build seeded to testers on February 13. A public beta should be released any day now. Until it is, I’m sticking with Leopard.

How about you? If you’re among the plurality of Mac users still running Leopard, and not because you’re on a PowerPC Mac, is something else in particular holding you back?

A prize draw for passing the training for sales associates for the month advertises two prizes of MacBook Pro laptops, featuring the Intel Core i5 processor. Intel, for its part, maintains that although the flyers are indeed company material, the suggestion that MacBooks will soon feature Core i5 tech is merely a typo.

The Intel Core 2 Duo has been running the show in MacBook Pros since the very same year Intel took over chip-making duties for the Apple line of computers in 2006, although originally the upscale notebooks ran Core Duos, and were upgraded late in the year. That means it’s been nearly four years since we’ve seen a major platform upgrade, although we have seen minor spec bumps and the introduction of the Santa Rosa platform in 2007, which incorporated the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M integrated graphics card.

Intel formally introduced the new Core i3, i5 and i7 chips last week during CES, and the mobile i5 is definitely the most likely suspect for inclusion in subsequent generations of Apple’s powerful notebook line. If Apple does decide to go with the Core i5 chips, contrary to earlier rumblings, future MacBook Pro owners can expect a nice little increase in performance over the Core 2 Duo chips, while at the same time not sacrificing anything due to increased power demands. Advantages also include increased battery performance, more speed and better graphics, and they could allow Apple to assign less internal space to the motherboard, which could clear up room additional battery volume or other things. 3G antenna, anyone?

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As previously reported, Apple TV 3.0 supports iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, and does so with a new look. According to Eddy Cue, Apple VP of Internet Services, the new interface “gives you instant access to your favorite content.” The new interface continues an evolution away from Apple’s other media software, Front Row.

In addition to the “widescreen” interface, Apple TV 3.0 also includes Genius Mixes, Internet radio, and photo enhancements. For the latter, users can now flip through photos grouped by event, while face recognition software similar to iPhoto puts “snapshots” of each person named on a corkboard background. It’s sort of like wanted ads at the Post Office.

As for iTunes, besides supporting Apple TV 3.0, the 90 MB update adds “an option for a dark background for Grid View, and improves support for accessibility.” What’s not mentioned in the support note is that iTunes has once again been fixed to keep Palm from leeching off Apple via the Pre syncing with iTunes. Get a life, Palm.

That would probably be good advice for the Apple TV, too. While additional features are always good, features people really want are even better. Is the Apple TV really going to be the last one in the living room to support Netflix without hacks like XBMC?

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