Hasta La Gadget!

T-Mobile is kicking off its official sales of the iPhone 5 today, marking the first time the U.S.’ fourth largest carrier has offered an Apple smartphone. Thanks to T-Mo’s new Uncarrier plans, the iPhone 5 can be had starting at just $99, with two years of $20 monthly payments to cover the balance, or for free if you’re switching from another carrier and bring a device in for trade. So far, so good, according to reports of lines forming at retail stores for a phone that’s now over six months old.

BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk tweeted the photo above of a line at a location this morning, and reports on Twitter suggest that small lines are forming at various locations around the U.S. Our own intern Michael Seo said there was a small one outside the T-Mobile store near our New York offices when he came into work this morning.

The appetite for the T-Mobile iPhone is good news for both Apple and the small carrier. T-Mobile’s existing potential reach only represents around 26.1 million total additional subscribers for Apple (a smaller percentage of which are realistically potential iPhone 5 buyers). That’s not a huge number in global subscriber terms, but it does give Apple room to expand its smartphone dominance in the U.S., and could provide it a late-stage bump for the iPhone 5, which is going to face increasing pressure from new competing flagship devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4.

T-Mobile has consistently been left out of launch day hype surrounding the release of Apple’s iPhone, with the carrier relegated to watching from the sidelines as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon locations saw customers queue for the iPhone 5 back in September, so it’s probably very happy to see lines form with this launch. Combined, the iPhone 5 and the carrier’s new model could lure away quite a few switchers, but we’ll have to wait and see if that impacts the overall distribution of U.S. wireless customers in any significant way.

Dig hazy music festivals, but tickets to Coachella are too expensive? Don’t fret, Google and T-Mobile may have the next best thing. For the third consecutive year the folks from Mountain View will air a free live stream of the show on YouTube. The remote festivities run from April 12th – 14th, giving you and your posse plenty of time to designate a device worthy of this broadcast. While some equipment may work better than others, you and your besties shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a YouTube-friendly doodad that’s up to the task.

Filed under: Internet, Google, T-Mobile

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Source: Google (Google+)

While executives at T-Mobile and MetroPCS may be ready to close their merger, some shareholders aren’t — major advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services has been recommending that MetroPCS investors vote against the deal unless T-Mobile can sweeten the pot. Consider it sweetened. T-Mobile’s parent Deutsche Telekom has made a “final offer” that would slash the debt owed by the post-merger company by $3.8 billion (to $11.2 billion), reduce the interest rate on that debt by half a point and prevent Deutsche Telekom from selling its shares in the merged firm for 18 months, rather than the original six. The reshuffled finances may not sound very exciting on the surface, but they’re enough to put MetroPCS in a tizzy: the carrier is delaying a shareholder vote on the deal from April 12th to the 24th to allow for some reevaluations. There’s no guarantees that the new offer is enough to please the naysayers. Still, we’d venture that T-Mobile will get a warmer reaction than the last time it tried a corporate alliance.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile

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Via: Bloomberg

Source: Deutsche Telekom IR (Twitter)

T-Mobile will finally make available the iPhone 5 to the masses, and right after their Uncarrier plans that intend to modify the landscape of wireless connectivity in the US, they will be offering the iPhone 5 which is set to be made available in a few days’ time, where there is an amazing upfront pricing to snag those who have been on the sidelines all this while, in addition to a special trade-in offer that would be difficult to turn down – not when there is a $0 tag attached to it.

Mike Sievert, chief marketing officer for T-Mobile, explains, “Our message to iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 customers is simple: bring in your device and trade up to iPhone 5 on T-Mobile. We’re making it incredibly attractive to buy an iPhone 5 by pairing an un-beatable upfront price and trade-in offer with Simple Choice, the most hassle-free and affordable rate plan in wireless.” This offer will last through Father’s Day on June 16, where well-qualified customers who want to ditch their iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 can pick up the iPhone 5 for $0, although monthly payments will be involved of course.

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T-Mobile already made the announcement of Lumia 521 at the MWC back in February, today’s press release is the second official confirmation we’ve received about this exclusive device. T-Mobile is partnering with Nokia to bring the Lumia 521 exclusively to its customers. This Lumia smartphone runs on Windows Phone 8, like all other smartphones in Nokia’s signature range. T-Mobile says that the Nokia Lumia 521 is a perfect, everyday smartphone that embodies a range of high end features at a very affordable price. The smartphone will run on T-Mobile’s nationwide 4G network.

The Nokia Lumia 521 has a 4-inch super sensitive touch screen display with a resolution of 800 x 480. It has a 5 megapixel camera on the back capable of 720p video recording. There’s 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage with an option to increase externally via microSD card. Its just 9.9mm thick and is said to feel a bit cheaper than the high priced Lumia smartphones. Lumia 521 will be available in May from Walmart, T-Mobile Retail channels and Microsoft Retail Stores. T-Mobile says that exact pricing and availability details will be shared at a later date.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Chrome for iOS Offers Full-Screen Browsing, Web Page Printing In Update, BlackBerry Q10 Releasing On April 30th In Canada [Rumor],