Google Wallet has already been available on a few smartphones and tablets, and now the search giant has announced more phones onto the list. From now on, users of Sprint’s HTC One, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S4 and US Cellular’s Note II will be able to use Google Wallet to purchase in store via NFC-based contactless payments.

You can download the app for free by heading to Google Play here.

Meanwhile, Google has also announced a way to make sending payments simple, which will be as easy as sending an email. They are integrating Google Wallet with Gmail, and sometime in the coming months US users over 18 years old will be able to send money through Gmail via a $ icon in the attachment options. “It’s free to send money if your bank account is linked to Google Wallet or using your Google Wallet Balance”, but you will be charged a flat fee of 2.9% per transaction for payments using your linked credit or debit card. Receiving money will always be free.

Check out the video below to know more about the upcoming service.

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SoftBank has been in talks with Sprint to acquire the US carrier with an offer of $20.1 billion. That deal would close on July 1, but it won’t happen if Sprint accepts Dish’s counter offer of $25.5 billion. And now we have a war of words between the two bidders.

Both SoftBank and Dish have created their own websites regarding the merger, while the Japanese carrier funded a study to question the claimed benefits of a Dish acquisition of Sprint.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen earlier said, “Sprint shareholders will benefit from a higher price with more cash while also creating the opportunity to participate more meaningfully in a combined Dish/Sprint with a significantly enhanced strategic position and substantial synergies that are not attainable through the pending SoftBank proposal“.

But these benefits are “unsubstantiated and unrealistic“, according to the SoftBank-funded study. Industry expert Scott C. Chandler writes, “Dish’s $37 billion estimate of the NPV (net present value) of total synergies created in the proposed Dish/Sprint merger is unusually high and there are multiple reasons to believe that Dish’s projections are neither achievable nor credible“. He is also pointing to the fact that Dish and Sprint are “two dissimilar companies” operating in “different sectors“, which would make the claimed synergies hard to achieve.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who is to meet with Sprint’s major shareholders this week, earlier said that his company’s experience with TD-LTE would help improve Sprint’s LTE efforts in the US. He has also referred to Dish’s bid as “incomplete and illusory“.

Ergen slammed back: “We are an American company and the modernization of Sprint’s network will have to be done from the US. You have to climb the towers here, and you’ll have to have U.S. employees who speak English. Operations command control will be in America. That’s good for jobs“.

Regarding SoftBank’s study, Dish says, “The study was paid for by SoftBank and lacks the credibility that comes from third-party objectivity. We remain confident Sprint shareholders are going to accept the offer from the company that brings the most to the table, including the best price and strategic plan going forward. Dish is offering more money, greater synergies, and we’re bringing over $10 billion of spectrum“.

Meanwhile, regarding another bid, we reported earlier about Verizon’s plans to buy out Vodafone with a $100 billion bid to take full control over Big Red. But it appears like that bid could reach up to $130 billion.

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The post SoftBank’s War Of Words With Dish Over Sprint Merger appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The in-store release of the much awaited Samsung Galaxy S4 has been delayed by both Sprint and T-Mobile. AT&T appears to be capitalizing on this and have made an announcement via their Twitter account that the AT&T S4 smartphones will arrive in-store on the earlier announced date with no delay.

The handset will be in-stock on April 27^th. This of course is not a surprise since the AT&T Galaxy S4s are already in the hands of those who pre-ordered the device. It will be interesting to see how the carrier performs this quarter with this early availability advantage.

As for the other carriers, Sprint has moved in-store availability of their S4 from April 27th to an undetermined date. While T-Mobile’s S4, which was originally planned to be made available on May 1^st, will only be available in “select stores” starting May 8 and in “all stores” on May 15, according to the carrier’s Twitter announcement.

But the Verizon version will arrive only on May 30^th. They might be focussed on another device at the moment.

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The post AT&T Will Not Delay Galaxy S4 Release Unlike Others appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Rumors are already there about an upcoming Nexus 5 from Google, but it appears like there’s more in store for the existing Nexus 4 handset. According to SIDHTech, Google has plans to announce an updated version of its Nexus 4 smartphone at Google I/O next month.

The search giant will introduce the Nexus 4 with 32GB of storage and LTE support, things that customers have wanted in the Nexus 4 after it was released last year. And apparently the device is coming with compatibility for CDMA, so could be launched on Sprint and Verizon in the US.

The Nexus 4 coming in May instead of the Nexus 5 won’t be a surprise since the latter was only launched in November. It would be too soon if a successor arrives in the coming month. Also this wouldn’t be the first time that Google comes out with an updated version of a Nexus product. You might remember the Nexus 7 update that came out last October. But Nexus 5 is expected to come out this year itself, most probably in November.

And Google is also expected to unveil Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie at the May conference.

Are you interested in a 32GB Nexus 4? Let us know in the comments below.

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The post Google 32GB Nexus 4 With LTE Might Arrive In May appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

That’s not all cash, of course, but quite a bit of it actually is. The bid consists of $17.3 billion in cash and $8.2 billion in stock. This is a bigger bid than the $20.5 billion that Softbank announced it would be willing to offer for a 70% stake in Sprint. Based on these figures, Dish would effectively be paying $4.76 per share for Sprint, which is still lower than the $6.22 at which the stock closed on Friday evening.

The goal is to get some cross-promotion action going on. Dish Network only has a customer base of 14.2 million people, but Sprint has 47.5 million subscribers. If Dish is able to convert some of those Sprint customers away from their current TV providers and over to Dish instead, they come out as quite the winner. Of course, they’d have no problem promoting Sprint to their existing Dish subscribers, too. This kind of cross-promotion is nothing new.

What’s interesting is that whether or not Dish is able to successfully acquire Sprint, it will likely still want to get its beak wet in the wireless business. Dish has already expressed interest in merging with T-Mobile USA and it also had a look at Clearwire. And let’s not forget that Dish owns 40MHz of spectrum in the 2GHz band with no network to run it on.

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The post Dish Network Wants to Buy Sprint for $25.5 Billion appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The long awaited Galaxy S4 was introduced a month ago by Samsung, but people are still playing the waiting game as there hasn’t been any confirmation regarding the release date of the device on any carrier. The good news is that we won’t have to wait too long, at least if we are to believe the leaked document from Staples that you see above.

The leak suggests that the S4 will be available from AT&T on April 26, T-Mobile on May 1, and Verizon on May 30. Of course those launch dates are “tentative”. There is no mention about the S4 model on the Now Network and no pricing details for the handsets sold at Staples. As for T-Mobile? The ‘uncarrier‘ earlier confirmed that they will make the Galaxy S4 available on May 1^st.

AT&T recently announced pre-order starting date of April 16 for the S4, and they will be offering both the 32GB and the 16GB models for $249.99 and $199.99 respectively, with a two-year contract. T-Mobile is expected to offer the device for $99.99 down with 24 monthly payments of $20.

Meanwhile, another leak says that Walmart will start taking pre-orders for S4 on April 16th. No hints on which carriers are involved, but Walmart currently offers the S3 on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

In short, the wait for the next big thing is almost over. Are you anxiously awaiting the Galaxy S4? If not, what handset holds your fancy instead?

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The post Samsung Galaxy S4 US Release Date Update appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

“It’s a no-brainer” according to an ad by Virgin Mobile to promote their campaign that is aimed at T-Mobile prepaid customers. The Sprint-owned MVNO is offering $100 in unlimited-plan credit to customers willing to switch their phone number from T-Mobile to Virgin Mobile.

As you can see below, the numbers are certainly attractive. If you make a switch before May 31^st you will save a total of $334 in two years and that includes the $100 credit. There is a $55 per month plan for unlimited data (3G speed after 2.5GB, while T-Mobile offers 2G after that limit), messaging and talk service.

That plan costs $5 less than what T-Mobile is currently asking for its monthly package, but don’t forget the speed difference between Virgin Mobile’s EV-DO / WiMAX service and T-Mobile’s speedier HSPA+ / LTE.

Check out the creepy ad below, completely if possible, and tell us what you think about it. And are you planning to make that switch?

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The post Virgin Mobile Trying To Attract T-Mobile Customers With $100 Prepaid Credit Offer And A Creepy Ad appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is what’s hot at the moment and the device is expected to be launched on several US carriers, including Sprint. But in case the budget has been a bit tight for you to go for the S4 on the Now Network, maybe you can focus on getting a brand new S3 via a great offer.

According to a leaked screenshot, which comes to us courtesy of Engadget, a purple version of the 16GB Samsung Galaxy S3 will be available from Sprint on April 12 with a price tag of $99 on a new two year contract with a $50 mail-in rebate.

The 4.8 inch Galaxy S3, as you might know, has been available in a variety of colors including red, white, grey, brown and black. We have our doubts regarding how the customers will think about the color purple. Other than that color, there is of course nothing new under the hood to make the device better than the S4. But maybe that low price might pull in shoppers.

What do you think about this edition? Find it appealing? Or are you saving to get the S4, which will be available as Black and White versions on Sprint?

The post Purple Samsung Galaxy S3 For Sprint appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

UK customers are lucky that the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 is available for pre-order from Vodafone, EE and O2, and the luckiest 2000 of them will get to play with a free 7 inch Galaxy Tab 2 also, as we reported earlier. For those of you anxious folks in the US, AT&T has announced that the S4 will be available for pre-order starting April 16 priced at $249.99 with a two-year contract.

The carrier hasn’t announced which model they are offering (maybe the 32GB S4), and no hints on exactly when the device will be shipped. If it’s the 16GB model, the announced price is $50 higher than what the iPhone 5 is currently available for. Head to the AT&T website for signing up to be notified when the S4 will be available.

As for other US carriers, T-Mobile will start offering the S4 on May 1^st (no contract of course), and it is also expected to be available from Verizon, Sprint, as well as MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular and Cricket.

Just to remind you, the S4 is coming with a 5-inch 1920×1080 Super AMOLED screen, a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor in the US (1.8GHz Exnyos 5 Octa everywhere else), Android 4.2.2. Jelly Bean, and an amazing 13-megapixel shooter.

Do you have plans to order the S4?

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The post Samsung Galaxy S4 U.S. Pre-Order Details appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The SPH-L720 bound for Sprint and the SCH-R970 enroute to MetroPCS both come equipped with the usual slate of compatible radios, including CDMA and EV-DO, as well as 4G LTE. However, there are some differences between the two. The Sprint model gains HSPA 3G for world roaming compatibility, whereas the MetroPCS model expands its LTE to quad-band support. This is presumably meant to support other US carriers like US Cellular.

With the Galaxy S4 launch just around the corner, it’s curious that we would see the MetroPCS and Sprint versions before the versions destined to even heavier hitters like T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. They’re bound to be coming, of course.

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The post Samsung Galaxy S4 Confirmed for Sprint and MetroPCS? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.