Qtek 9100 No Longer Available

The Qtek 9100 is no longer being offered for sale from i wireless.

Top Ten Mobile Websites Visited in October

According to NPD, the following were the top mobile websites visited in October:

1. Yahoo! Mail
2. ESPN
3. The Weather Channel
4. Yahoo!
5. MapQuest
6. Google
7. CNN
8. MSN Hotmail
9. AOL Mail
10. eBay

No surprise there really. News, sports, weather and e-mail...and shopping.

Local/Regional Mobile-Friendly Sites

There are plenty of national- and global-oriented mobile news, sports and entertainment sites out there, but what if you want to find out about a more local news story? There are a few area media outlets who offer mobile-friendly websites. They include the following:

• WHBF, Davenport, IA
• WQAD, Davenport, IA
  
• WOI, Des Moines, IA
• KCAU, Sioux City, IA
• KTIV, Sioux City, IA
• KWWL, Waterloo, IA

If you know of any others, please post them in a comment. They must be based in and/or about the i wireless market area (Iowa and parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota).

Another Portal Option

In a previous post, I suggested Mobileplay as a great choice for your homepage if you want easy and quick access to mobile-friendly websites. I knew there had to be something bigger and better out there. I was right: PDAportal.com, "The Portal for the Small Screen." PDAportal is a directory of PDA (or phone) friendly websites. There are a lot of links here. You can browse these sites by category and by language, then sort them by last name, popularity (hits), newest additions, or recent access. What's really neat is that you can create your own personalized portal ("My Portal") where you can choose which sites you want to have easy access to. It also tells you the weather in your hometown and the local time, among other things. Granted, you can get all that info pretty early, but it makes for a nice homepage portal.

Lull

I have a whole list of topics I would like to blog about here, but many of them involve evaluating available Java applications and their compatibility with the i wireless network and various handsets. Unfortunately, I have lost all desire to do so. The reason? I started carrying the HTC S620 a couple of weeks ago and it really serves all of my needs. So the last thing I want to do is stick my SIM card into a lesser handset and suffer.

In all seriousness, the S620 with i wireless Mobile Web PLUS allows me to do everything I want to do on a mobile device: I can check my work or personal e-mail whenever I want, I have access to my Outlook calendar without messing around with synchronizing, and I don't have to maintain my contacts separately on both my SIM card and my Outlook -- all my Outlook contacts are accessible.

I do have a few complaints:

• I'm disappointed in the JOGGR. I really thought that I was going to like this feature, but I just haven't gotten used to it. I liken it to the iPod clickwheel which -- though neat -- just doesn't seem as easy and natural as as a directional pad that you click. My other beef with it is that I am always bumping it and inadvertently scrolling up or down or back or activating some other feature that I really didn't want. I haven't found a natural place to rest my thumb without touching the JOGGR.
• The volume control doesn't seem to work with the Bluetooth headsets I've tried. If I adjust the volume on the S620, the volume in my ear does not change at all. I am able to change the volume on the headset.
• The Gmail app. looks like crap on it. I have to use the mobile web site in order to read the type.
• The alarm does not allow you to select which days of the week you want a recurrent alarm to go off on. This feature has become pretty much standard in mid-to-high-end cell phones. I suppose I could set up an alarm through my Outlook calendar, by that's not as quick and easy as it needs to be.
  

I don't want to go on, or it will seem like I really hate the S620. That's not true at all. I'm just picky. :) The S620 is a really nice device and I hope that I won't have to part with mine for a long time.

Great Deals on the Web

I know the stated purpose of this blog is to help i wireless customers make the most of the expanded data offerings, but I couldn't resist mentioning some great deals that are available now only on the web. The Motorola V235, Motorola V361, Motorola PEBL U6 (black), and the Nokia 6103 are all now just a penny on the i wireless website (with a two-year agreement). The Motorola V361, Motorola PEBL U6 (black), and the Nokia 6103 require a mail-in rebate to get to the penny price.

If you are a fan of great deals and carry an older handset, you may want to bookmark this link. That is where you will find surplus, discontinued and open-box items from i wireless (mostly accessories).

Web 2 Homepage

The default homepage for Web 2 is i wireless' website, which you will probably want to change, if you haven't already. The one thing I miss after switching from Web 1 is the easy access to some of the more popular mobile websites that you could get to with just a few clicks from the Web 1 homepage (http://pwr.iwireless.com). Unfortunately, you can't access that page from Web 2. I was going to recreate a page designed for the small screen with all the same links for your (and my benefit), but it turns out that Mobileplay (see photo) already has something similar, and it offers much more than the "walled garden" of pwr.iwireless.com. I only have two complaints about Mobileplay so far: No ESPN and no links to the big web-based e-mail services (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.).

You can access Mobileplay with one click from Opera Mini's homepage, or you can enter http://mobileplay.com as your homepage in your Web 2 settings.

i wireless GPRS & MMS Settings

So you bought your phone on eBay and you want to use it with i wireless' data services, but Customer First can't help you because it's not a phone that i wireless sells?

I might be able to help you. Below you will find the settings that you need to send and receive MMS messages, download content, browse the internet, and use mobile internet applications. Please note that you will need to have the appropriate features enabled on your account. You cannot access the data services by simply entering these settings on your phone. Also -- Different phone models use different names for some of these fields. You may need to use a bit of trial and error. I cannot provide settings or support for every phone out there, so please don't ask. If you have success with a particular model, please go ahead and post a comment here with the settings so that others may benefit.

CONTENT DOWNLOAD ONLY
Name: POWERsupplize
Data Bearer: GPRS
Access Point Name (APN): wap9.iwireless.com
User Name: (blank)
Password: (none)
IP Address: 209.004.229.032
Port: (default)
Homepage: http://pwr.iwireless.com

CONTENT DOWNLOAD AND WAP ACCESS (LIMITED INTERNET)
Name: Web 1
Data Bearer: GPRS
Access Point Name (APN): wap1.iwireless.com
User Name: (blank)
Password: (none)
IP Address: 209.004.229.031
Port: (default)
Homepage: http://pwr.iwireless.com

FULL INTERNET ACCESS
Name: Web 2
Data Bearer: GPRS
Access Point Name (APN): i2.iwireless.com
User Name: (blank)
Password: (none)
Port: (default)
Homepage: (Your choice. How about http://iwireless.blogspot.com?)

MMS FOR PIA MEGATALK CUSTOMERS
Name: PIA Picture Messaging
Data Bearer: GPRS
Access Point Name (APN): wap9.iwireless.com
User Name: (blank)
Password: (none)
IP Address: 209.004.229.032
Port: (default)
Homepage: http://mmsc.iwireless.dataonair.net:6672

MMS FOR MONTHLY-BILLED CUSTOMERS
Name: Picture Messaging
Data Bearer: GPRS
Access Point Name (APN): wap1.iwireless.com
User Name: (blank)
Password: (none)
IP Address: 209.004.229.031
Port: (default)
Homepage: http://mmsc.iwireless.dataonair.net:6672