Apps and Gadgets

As my friend Noemi and I were approaching the Globe Tattoo LTE event, we were met by this really fancy orange car. Of course, being a woman who has no idea what models these cars are, I simply ooohed and aaahed at how fancy, sporty and expensive it looked. It was covered all over with Globe's decals announcing the arrival of their Tattoo LTE devices and clearly, on it's door was a brave announcement that LTE speeds go up to 42 MBPS. It was only when I sat down inside it for a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to actually sit inside these thingamajigs that run into cool millions that I saw the model. Yes -- a Lamborghini! I beat my car-loving son to the punch!

If you have held off this long from buying an iPad 4 or an iPad Mini, with wifi and 4G, you may no longer do so once you check out Smart's new LTE plans for both devices. At a press briefing at Smart's Jump Center inside SM Megamall's Cyberzone, the LTE postpaid plans were unveiled. The best thing about all these plans? Smart is slicing off a whopping P8,000 discount on all postpaid plans on Plan 999. The 16GB iPad Mini, for example, is only P13,990 (after discount). The 64GB retina iPad 4 is only P31,990. On the other hand, Plan 499 carries an anti bill shock feature. After the free first 65 hours of internet connection, it defaults to the P10/30minutes charging. But when your bill reaches P999, you will be shifted to unlimited surfing. So no matter how long you surf, you only pay a maximum of P999 a month. Here is a synopsis of the plans (taken from Smart's website): iPad Mini * Plan 999 subscriptions on a 24-month lock-in period come with unlim...

If you have an iPhone 5 and you are on iOS 6.1, then you are ready for blazing fast internet speeds up to 42mbps! Two telcos are now saying that they are offering LTE coverage for iPhone 5 users. When Smart was still testing its LTE coverage as far back as middle of 2011, I was already one of the beta testers who had a chance to use the LTE dongle. It was unlike the usual USB sticks. It was huge and heavy, but fast! With LTE running on your iPhone 5, think of the possibilities: lag-free gaming, ultra fast surfing, buffer-free video streaming and more. Even livestreaming will be lag-free on an LTE connection! Smart seems confident that they can deliver on their LTE speeds as they claim that they have 4 times the fiber optic power of their closest competitor. Read here about my experience beta testing the Smart LTE modem. Of course, being a new offering, there are still many unanswered questions from subscribers so it was also timely for Smart to organize a Question and Answer f...