Posts by Rob LeFebvre

Target Brightspot

Retail giant Target confirmed Thursday that it will launch Brightspot, it’s own prepaid mobile service.

The service will use T-Mobile networks and will give customers unlimited talk and texting for $35 per month, with plans that include unlimited data for $50 per month. The unlimited plan will be similar to T-Mobile’s own service, which caps high-speed data use at 1GB per month.

Better yet? After six months of paid service, Target will give you a $25 Target gift card for your loyalty.

No, that was just a mistake. Oops.

No, that was just a mistake. Oops.

Some lucky folks at Verizon were recently able to upgrade to a new phone without losing their unlimited data plan. Color us totally jealous.

This was the result of a glitch, said Verizon, and not a change in policy like some may have mistakenly hoped for.

Verizon told AllThingsD on Monday that it would, however, honor the unlimited plans of customers that were able to upgrade without the dreaded limited data plan of doom.

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Seminal 1990s tabletop role-playing game, Shadowrun, has recently come to the digital domain, originally with a version of Shadowrun Returns for the Mac, PC, and Linux platforms. Cult of Mac gave the game a stellar review, calling it a “fully realized tabletop to digital RPG conversion.” Say that five times fast.

Now the game is finally on tablets, both of the Android and iOS variety, and the buzz is that it’s a note-for-note port of the desktop game, minus the campaign editor. That’s a lot of game to smoosh into a tablet.

Probably a spoofing attempt to get your iTunes ID.

Probably a spoofing attempt to get your iTunes ID.

Good thing you listened to us this morning when we posted about a new Google Play app that seemed to let you send Apple iMessages via an Android app.

When something seems to good to be true, it usually is.

In this instance, Google agrees, and has pulled the app from the Google Play Store for violating its terms of use. A spokesperson emailed ComputerWorld, saying, “We remove apps from Google Play that violate our policies.”

Fairly clear, right? As we pointed out this morning, the iMessage Chat app for Android devices turned out to be sending data, including users’ Apple IDs, through another server in China, which is kind of an easy way to steal people’s sensitive information. Apple IDs and passwords can be used to purchase apps, books, and music from the App Store, as well as connect to iCloud data, which can have addresses and more personal info.

This is your Android phone on iOS 7. Any questions?

This is your Android phone on iOS 7. Any questions?

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while Apple has tested this assumption in court against Samsung and other mobile device manufacturers, Android users and developers might have a different opinion.

Because, as you can see from the screenshot above, a whole bunch of apps have appeared in the Google Play store with the express purpose of making your Android handset look just like…well, an iPhone running iOS 7.

Of course, the argument could be made that only Android is open enough to actually allow its users to change the look and feel of their devices to a competing system’s visual system, but the result is still clear: Android developers, at least, think that you should be able to have a mobile phone that looks like the latest iOS devices on the screen as well as in the design of the handset itself.

There are lock screen apps for Android that mimic the parallax of the new iOS 7, apps that call themselves iOS 7 wallpaper, when they really aren’t, and apps that are just plain honest, titled iOS 7 Fake iPhone.

Hit some of those links above to try these out on your own, because we all know it’d be cool to have an Android phone that looks like an iPhone running iOS 7.

Right?

Discuss.

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