Technologies

T-Mobile Leads US Carriers With Over 900,000 Added Phone Customers

The carrier’s positive holiday quarter continued its growth streak.

T-Mobile grew its customer base over the holiday period, finishing the year with another strong quarter that saw it bring in 927,000 postpaid phone additions over the quarter, the metric used by the industry as an indicator of success.

This capped off a year of growth for phones that resulted in 3.1 million more that signed up for monthly plans over 2022. All told, it had 6.4 million net additions over 2022, half of which had signed up for phone plans.

«We’re winning the highest share of switching decisions in the industry,» T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. He didn’t say if the carrier would be changing its promotional strategy, standing in contrast with AT&T’s and Verizon’s recently declared intent to wind down their aggressive phone deals, which had been used to lure customers.

Sievert addressed the recent cybersecurity breach that affected 37 million T-Mobile customers, voicing regret that any information was exposed but noting that the carrier’s systems prevented the «most sensitive kinds» of data from being accessed. The hack was the fifth breach in five years, prompting concern over the carrier’s security.

T-Mobile continued slowly growing its 5G network and announced that it is now covering 265 million people with its faster midband and millimeter-wave «Ultra Capacity» 5G flavors, which offer significantly improved speeds and capacity compared to 4G LTE and its low-band 5G network (what T-Mobile calls «Extended Range 5G»). That marks an increase of 15 million over the last quarter, with the carrier planning to expand this faster network to 300 million people by the end of 2023.

Sievert said that of its 150 MHz of spectrum, 130 MHz is dedicated to midband 5G, which it aims to grow to 200 MHz by the end of 2023.

T-Mobile reported a more modest 25,000 prepaid net additions due to customers switching providers, though the carrier noted that it was the only one with positive gains — Verizon lost 175,000 and AT&T lost 13,000 prepaid customers over the holiday period. Sievert took this as a healthy sign for the industry as customers continued to shift from prepaid to postpaid contracts.

T-Mobile’s internet customer base grew with 524,000 net additions in the quarter, slightly lower than the 578,000 added last quarter as the carrier adjusts to increased deactivations from a customer base that grew to 2.6 million by the end of the year. Most of these are using T-Mobile’s fixed wireless running on its mobile 5G network, which Sievert acknowledged on the call has less overall bandwidth capacity than wired fiber internet but which is cheaper and available to tens of millions of households without needing to go through the trouble of laying cable, making it attractive to customers.

«Most of our [fixed wireless] customers are coming directly from cable, not just from rural areas or unconnected places or DSL,» Sievert said.

T-Mobile reported $15.5 billion in service revenue, a growth of 4% year over year, which resulted in a diluted earnings per share of $1.18, an increase of 71% from the same period in 2021. That was above the $1.10 earnings per share expected by analysts polled by Yahoo Finance.

Shares of T-Mobile rose 0.5% in early morning trading.

T-Mobile said it’s on track to meet expectations for 2023, which includes finalizing its integration with Sprint’s network by the end of the year. The carrier had «substantially completed» decommissioning of Sprint’s network in the third quarter of 2022. T-Mobile expects postpaid net customer additions of between 5 million and 5.5 million, half of which will be on phones.

The company capped off its quarterly report by committing to a sustainability goal of zero emissions across its entire carbon footprint by 2040, though it didn’t offer any specifics on how it would meet that goal.

Technologies

Apple Launches Creator Studio Package as $13 a Month Subscription

Mac users can still buy the apps individually, but subscribers get access to Final Cut Pro and other Studio tools.

Apple is bundling its pro filmmaking and audio tools including Final Cut Pro with its productivity apps Keynote, Pages and Numbers into a subscription software suite called Apple Creator Studio.

The package, which includes apps for Mac, iPad and iPhone, includes Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage and the whiteboard app Freeform. Creator Studio will be available starting Jan. 28 at a cost of $13 per month or $129 per year, or $3 per month or $30 per year for students and educators. Mac users will still have the option to purchase software like Final Cut Pro for a one-time free. The current price for Final Cut Pro in the Mac App Store is $300.

While apps such as Keynote and Pages are already free on Apple platforms, it appears that new versions of those apps will receive access to beta features that will roll out first to Creator Studio subscribers. The announcement by Apple alludes to «new AI features and premium content» in some of the apps it otherwise makes available to use for free.

What the Creator Studio bundle comes with

The star of the show in Creator Studio is Final Cut Pro, the video editing software that will now include Transcript Search on both Mac and iPad. There is also a new Beat Detection feature Apple says uses an AI model to analyze a music track and display a beat grid, making it easier to cut video to music rhythms. The software also will include a new Montage Maker on iPad for quick social video creation.

Motion, the 2D and 3D graphics tool, and Compressor also integrate with Final Cut Pro. Apple touted Motion’s Magnetic Mask feature for isolating objects or people without the need for a green screen.

Logic Pro has new features for musicians, including a Synth Player addition to AI Session Players. Chord ID, a new AI feature, can create chord progressions from audio or MIDI recordings. A new Sound Library will have hundreds of royalty-free clips, samples and loops.

A revamped MainStage app gives subscribers access to instrument, voice-professing and guitar rig tools. Pixelmator Pro arrives with new tools and filters, and there will be an iPad version in addition to the Mac tool.

Freeform in the Creator Studio package will add premium content, including curated photos, graphics and illustrations. It will also get new AI features that include image creation.

Technologies

Reddit Outage Resolved: Here’s What Happened

Did you have trouble reading your favorite subreddits today? You weren’t alone.

If you had trouble accessing the news and discussion forum Reddit on Tuesday, you weren’t the only one. However, as of 10:15 a.m. PT, the site appears to be back up and running normally. Reddit’s status monitoring page, RedditStatus.com, notes that «all systems (are) operational» after the brief outage.

But earlier, at 9:30 a.m. PT, RedditStatus.com said the company was «investigating elevated errors across reddit.com and native apps.» RedditStatus.com reported degraded site performance for both desktop web use and native mobile apps.

Earlier on Tuesday, the site-monitoring service DownDetector also reported issues at Reddit, providing additional details. At one point on Tuesday, DownDetector received over 100,000 reports that the site was having problems. At 10:25 am PT, the report numbers fell to under 600. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

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«Reddit is currently experiencing a significant internal outage causing widespread service disruptions,» the site said earlier Tuesday. «The impact is categorized as Very High, primarily affecting mobile app access (55%) and website connectivity (39%). While reports are heavily concentrated in major hubs like New York City and Chicago, the lack of ISP correlation suggests a broad, nationwide issue stemming from Reddit’s internal servers rather than external network providers.»

A representative for Reddit did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Another social media site, X, formerly Twitter, also showed problems on Tuesday, according to DownDetector. Those problems seemed to spike around 6:30 a.m. PT and improve after.

Technologies

This 3-in-1 Charger Is a Must-Have for Travelers, and It Just Hit a Record-Low of $95

Snag it for $45 off and charge your iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at the same time.

If you’re a frequent traveler, then you know that outlets are a precious commodity in places like airports and coffee shops. So why waste one on a single device when you can charge up to three at once? Right now, you can grab this seriously sleek Ugreen Magflow three-in-one foldable charger for just $95 at Amazon. That’s a $45 discount and the all-time lowest price we’ve seen. Just don’t wait too long, as this deal could expire at any time.

At just 7.4 ounces, this compact charging station is designed to be taken on the go. But despite its size, it still supports 25-watt MagSafe charging for iPhones, as well as 5-watt wireless charging for AirPods and Apple Watches. The charging stand also tilts up to double as a stand, and it’s equipped with 16 magnets to keep your phone aligned and securely in place. Plus, it’s got built-in protections against overheating, overcharging, short-circuiting and more to prevent damage to your devices.

Why this deal matters

This folding Ugreen charger is great for juicing up your devices on the go, and it’s never been more affordable. Plus, Ugreen makes some of the best MagSafe chargers on the market right now, so don’t miss your chance to grab one at a record-low price.