2015 cell phone news

The week of December 28, 2015: people dropping broadband for LTE, cell phones complicating political polling, and California rethinking prison phone jammers.

The week of December 21, 2015: Apple moves into Chinese mobile payments, Windows 10 Mobile slips to 2016, and Huawei sets its sights on US buyers.

The week of December 14, 2015: Walmart Pay joins the mobile wallet crowd, Microsoft can't quit entry-level phones, and phones carried Black Friday.

The week of November 30, 2015: prosecutors blame phone encryption, retailers court in-store phone use, and what your mobile data reveals about you.

The week of November 23, 2015: China builds its own secure phones, the Paris attacks reopen the encryption fight, and slow EMV readers push shoppers to mobile pay.

The week of November 16, 2015: Verizon adds a $20 activation fee, the Supreme Court passes on a tracking case, and carriers cut Paris calling costs.

The week of November 9, 2015: a Senate inquiry into IRS Stingray use, rising mobile malware, and a bill to repeal the budget deal's robocall provision.

The week of November 2, 2015: senators probe IRS cell phone tracking, nomophobia gets a name, and Congress weighs letting debt collectors robocall cell phones.

Need a smartphone to use while yours is out of commission? Want to make monthly payments for a smartphone but don’t qualify to do so through your phone com...

The week of October 26, 2015: Microsoft earning more from feature phones than smartphones, federal cell phone tracking detailed, and hands-free calling shown no safer.

The week of October 20, 2015: Pepsi launches a phone in China, new CPR guidelines tell bystanders to use their phones, and teen bedtime phone use and insomnia.

The week of October 12, 2015: hackers breach Samsung's LoopPay, Samsung Pay outpaces Apple Pay on volume, and Verizon adds $20 to grandfathered unlimited plans.

The week of October 5, 2015: phones that might run on mushroom power, research tying phone use to lower college GPAs, and identity theft from behind bars.

Nintendo has finally announced the release schedule for the company’s highly anticipated smartphone games. The apps, first rumored in 2014 and confirmed in...

The week of September 28, 2015: Sprint's $1-a-month iPhone deal aimed at T-Mobile, BlackBerry's secure Android Priv, and antitrust scrutiny of Android.

Fiat Chrysler recalled 7,810 more Jeep Renegades over a remote-takeover flaw, on top of 1.4 million vehicles, and mailed owners a USB firmware fix.

The week of September 21, 2015: Samsung plans a leasing program that cuts out carriers, banks test phones for faster transactions, and Apple wins a ruling against Samsung.

The week of September 14, 2015: Android Pay takes on Apple, phones help refugees crossing Europe, and a primer on how the government surveils cell phones.

A smartphone app known as Odysee hit the market last week, providing a new solution for backing up your smartphone pictures and videos. Instead of backing ...

The week of September 8, 2015: phone use linked to boredom, the Justice Department tightens tracking rules, and T-Mobile adds video calling on Samsung handsets.

The week of August 31, 2015: the smartphone market slows on China, how Americans actually use their phones, and Lenovo folds its phone effort into Motorola.

The week of August 24, 2015: police buying cheap cell phone trackers, mobile banking on track to double, and middle-aged drivers admitting to phone use behind the wheel.

Cell Phone Contracts are DeadCell phones may have only hit the mainstream in the late ’90s, but it seems like the two-year contract has been around forever...

Today, Verizon shook up the cell phone industry by eliminating two-year service contracts for new customers. In addition, the nation’s largest wireless com...

Court Rules that Warrants are Required for Searches of Cell Phone Location HistoryIn a decision that could have broad implications for law enforcement sear...

AT&T Requests Android Smartphone Makers To Turn On FM Radio ChipsAT&T will require the activation of FM radio chips for its Android smartphones beg...

Digital Amnesia: Mobile Phones Deprive Users of Memory SkillsA lot of people prefer to store information in their mobile phones instead of keeping it in th...

The week of June 29, 2015: courts rule location records private, T-Mobile opens up free upgrades, and kill switches cut smartphone thefts sharply.

Consumer Reports counted 2.1 million phone thefts in 2014, down a million from 2013, tracking the spread of remote kill switches.

The week of June 22, 2015: 600 million Galaxy phones exposed to hackers, a $100 million FCC fine against AT&T for throttling, and carriers cleared to block robocalls.

The FCC proposed a record $100 million fine against AT&T for failing to tell unlimited customers when their speeds would be throttled and how far.

Ever feel overwhelmed with text messages, email alerts, Facebook updates, and all the other distractions on your smartphone? If so, the Light Phone may be ...

The week of June 15, 2015: the industry sues Berkeley over warning labels, phone thefts fall as kill switches spread, and South Korea tracks phones to fight MERS.

A Harbortouch survey found diners want to pay by phone and most restaurants still can't take it, unlike retail.

The week of May 18, 2015: Berkeley's cell phone tumor warning, earthquake-resistant towers, and a $158 million cramming settlement from Verizon and Sprint.

OlloCase was an iPhone 6 case cut to work with OlloClip's 4-in-1 fisheye, wide-angle and macro lens, which most cases block.

Kantar found phones with 5.5-inch screens and up took 21% of US sales in Q1 2015, more than triple the 6% a year earlier.

TracFone added reload cards that buy text messages on their own, so prepaid users stop burning general airtime credits on incoming texts.

The OSOMBOX was a Kickstarter leather box for parking phones during dinner or family time. Why a purpose-built box beats a drawer.

Apple patented a phone camera that splits light through a prism cube onto three sensors, aimed at accurate color in dim rooms.

UK Transport Research Laboratory tests found drivers reading a message on a smartwatch reacted more slowly than drivers reading a phone.

Samsung patented a phone built from linked segments that bend inward or outward like a snake while keeping every part powered.

An Apple SIM in the iPhone, like the one in the iPad Air 2, would let you change carriers in seconds. What that would do to carrier pricing.

Nielsen measured daily phone use rising from 53 minutes to 1 hour 25 minutes in two years, a 60% jump, with video driving much of it.

A University of Waterloo study of 660 people found intuitive thinkers lean on their phones instead of working problems out, and think less as a result.

BlackBerry's Leap, unveiled at Mobile World Congress, replaced the Z3 at about $275 and targeted the emerging markets where BlackBerry still sold.

comScore put US smartphone penetration at 75.8% in January 2015, roughly 184 million owners, with Apple at 41.3% of handsets and Android at 53.2% of the OS market.

The week of March 9, 2015: Google confirms it will sell wireless service, Apple passes Samsung as the biggest phone maker, and flame retardants come under scrutiny.

Siena found only 21% of New York households were wireless-only, against 41% nationally, and the age and income splits behind the gap.

The Neptune Hub inverted the smartwatch idea: the watch was the computer, and the phone-sized screen was a dumb display you carried when you needed it.

Strategy Analytics put Apple at 89% of industry profit in Q4 2014, $18.8 billion against $2.4 billion for every Android maker combined.

The week of March 2, 2015: 911's missing location data, our growing dependence on smartphones, and a fight between consumer advocates and debt collectors.

Japan's flip phone shipments rose 5.7% to 10.58 million in 2014, the first increase in seven years, against the global smartphone trend.

Sesame Enable shipped the first fully hands-free phone, using front-camera head tracking so people with spinal injuries or ALS can operate it.

Phone theft fell by half in London, 40% in San Francisco and 25% in New York in the year after kill switches became standard.

Washington, the first state to ban texting behind the wheel, proposed extending the law to any handheld phone use in a moving car.

Microsoft's Terry Myerson said a flagship Windows 10 phone would arrive later in 2015, with Mobile World Congress and Build as the likely stages.

Boston Consulting Group found nearly a third of Americans would give up sex for a year before giving up their phone, and 55% would give up restaurants.

Ericsson projected 9.5 billion mobile subscriptions by 2020, 6.1 billion of them smartphones, with phones passing basic handsets by 2016.

The week of February 2, 2015: Google and Cablevision take aim at the carrier business model, the FCC moves to auto-locate 911 callers, and T-Mobile drops credit checks.

Maryland's federally funded ENDUI app estimates blood alcohol from your weight, drinks and time, then offers to call you a cab if you are over.

Pew found only 24% of working adults call their phone very important to the job, behind email at 61%, the internet at 54% and even the landline at 35%.

Three months into Apple Pay, security questions centered on fingerprint spoofing and card-provisioning fraud rather than the payment system itself.

WhiteAlbum hid your phone photos until the next day, recreating the wait that came with a roll of disposable-camera film.

GlobalWebIndex surveyed 42,000 adults in 32 markets: 80% of internet users own a smartphone and use it 1.85 hours a day, up 40 minutes since 2012.

Iowa planned free digital driver's licenses in a PIN-protected app, one of the first states to try replacing the plastic card with a phone.