T-Mobile's iPhone 'Test Drive' Program Upgrades: iOS 8 Soon, iPhone 6 Units Later
Several months ago, T-Mobile US launched an iPhone "test drive" program allowing users to test an iPhone 5s on the carrier's network for seven days free of charge. The program helps users decide if T-Mobile's coverage is satisfactory in the areas they frequent, and also gives users unfamiliar with the iPhone a free introduction to the platform.
With Apple ready to release new iPhone hardware and software, T-Mobile has informed Re/code that it will continue offering the program and plans to upgrade the test drive units to iOS 8 within days of its public launch this Wednesday. T-Mobile also has plans to begin offering iPhone 6 units through the testing program, but it will take some time for those to become available as supplies will be tight in the early weeks after release and they will unsurprisingly be prioritized for customer purchases.
“We don’t have a definitive timeline, but we do intend to switch over in future,” a T-Mobile spokesperson said. “There are a variety of factors that affect that timeline, (including) product availability.”
T-Mobile's test drive program is one component of its ongoing "Un-carrier" initiative in which has sought to differentiate itself from the other major U.S. carriers. The latest piece of the program, unveiled last week, includes support for Wi-Fi calling and a partnership with inflight Internet service provider Gogo to allow T-Mobile customers to use text, picture message, and visual voicemail services on Gogo-enabled airplanes free of charge.
Popular Stories
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
Top Rated Comments
in los angeles? they are everywhere!
I live in NYC so T-Mobile service here is pretty flawless. The problem? I do a disproportionate amount of traveling throughout the States and Europe. Service in Europe with T-Mobile is ok and so is the States but I definitely need consistency. I love what T-Mobile is doing. They're forcing carriers to rethink their approach to offering customers the true best they have. John Legere is awesome!!! For now, I'm stuck with AT&T but the second they (T-Mobile) improves their network to my satisfaction, I'm jumping ship.
T-mobile's test drive accomplished what it needed to do in your sister's case. The test drive clarified that T-mobile service is no good for her. This isn't a bad thing.
Tmobile wants happy customers. If test drive doesn't work, than tmobile isn't for that person. That's why it doesn't cost your sister any money to "test the network".
Too bad I already have a large screen phone for a fraction of the price of an iPhone :cool: