As our readers know, we have always been a fully Android shop when it came to our phones. Now, recently, we had the opportunity to put the iPhone 4S to the test and, in fact, have been using the iPhone 4S ever since. Because I (Anne) do a lot of work while on the road, on my phone, this means that I do a lot of voice dictation, which in turn means that I have had the opportunity to put both versions of the software for dictation (the Android phone dictation software, and the iPhone speech dictation program) to the test. To be clear, we are talking about the free dictation apps that come native as software dictation services on each phone, not a separate dictation app.

Ok, first, yes, I admit it. In the form of the newish iPhone 4S, the iPhone finally had enough chops to lure me to try one out, to even consider abandoning my beloved Android. The voice control and dictation features blow Android’s away, for both accuracy and usability. And Siri’s ability to create location-based reminders, and generally how powerful it is, were pretty compelling. But, now there was a new dilemma: which is better? The ATT iPhone or the Verizon iPhone? Which has the better iPhone service – ATT or Verizon? Fewer dropped calls? Faster network?

If you have the new iPhone 4S, you may find that Siri has her hand in your pocket. According to new research, using Siri can as much as double how much data your iPhone uses, which can be costly indeed. Sure, Siri is fun – but is she worth it?

If you have a Verizon mobile phone, and want to use a credit card or debit card to pay your Verizon phone bill over the phone with Verizon wireless customer service, or online through their online Verizon customer care portal, Verizon is going to charge you a $2.00 “convenience fee” for the privilege. The only way to pay your Verizon wireless bill with a credit or debit card and not get charged the $2.00 convenience fee is if you do it in person, such as at a Verizon store. (Note: This does not apply to autopayments, only to one-time payments. Autopayments do not incur the $2.00 convenience fee.)

Sprint and ATT have provided their official responses to Senator Al Franken’s inquiry about Carrier IQ, (also known as CIQ) the commercial customer tracking software included on the sly on their customers’ cell phones, and their response is, essentially, “our customers agreed to it.” ATT admits that they have CIQ installed on “900,000 devices, with 575,000 of those collecting and reporting wireless and service performance information to ATT.” They also admit that they were capturing the content of SMS text messages sent and received while a voice call was in progress. This they blame on a “programming error”, and that may be, but it illustrates the capabilities and danger of Carrier IQ. But one of the biggest bombshells may be that through Carrier IQ, they can – and do – remotely turn on your wifi! Think about that for a minute.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week called for a complete, total ban on both talking on cell phones (even hands-free), and texting, by drivers. The recommendation, intended to reduce accidents resulting from “distracted driving” followed the Federal agency’s review of accidents resulting from a distracted driver – a problem so serious that the NTSB says that at any moment during any day, approximately 13.5 million drivers are using a cellphone. Last year alone, nearly 3100 fatal accidents were known to be the result of distracted drivers, and the number of accidents attributable to talking or texting drivers is undoubtedly far higher when you include non-fatal accidents, and consider that few drivers will admit that they were texting or on the phone behind the wheel.

Cell phone companies are scrambling amid growing concerns over the Carrier IQ (or “CIQ”) software that has shipped preinstalled (and undisclosed) on many, many smartphones across several carriers, as demands for full disclosure and accountability increase, Federal representatives demand answers, and some suggest that the use of the software, which is alleged to log keystrokes, websites visited, and location, violates Federal wiretapping law. Trevor Eckhart, who first discovered and outed what Carrier IQ was doing, went so far as to call it a “rootkit”.

In a lovely “we told you so” moment, we can report that two key Federal agencies – both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) – are opposing the planned merger of AT and T and T-Mobile. We predicted Federal opposition to the merge when AT and T first announced their plans to takeover T-Mobile, and the Feds are opposing the merging for much the same reasons that we said that they would.

Two U.S. malls were all set to use a new technology from U.K.-based FootPath Technology over the Black Friday weekend which would have allowed them to track each shopper’s movement throughout the mall, from store to store, using a unique mobile phone signal from each shopper’s cell phone – without their knowledge or consent! JC Penny and Home Depot are also said to be looking at adopting the FootPath technology.

iPhones are hot. Everybody knows that. But the crew and passengers of an Australian plane belonging to Australia’s Regional Express airline learned just how hot they are first-hand today, when a passenger’s iPhone began emitting clouds of smoke, and glowing red-hot.

VIPSafeToday.com is an outfit that claims to want to give you a loan – or even a payday loan – and they are letting people know by spamming their cell phones with a text message that reads “You qualify to get up to 1200 DOLLARS instantly at WWW.VIPSAFETODAY.COM – It takes only mins for approval. ‘NO’ to unsubscribe” This message is dastardly for several reasons – read on for the full information, and don’t text them “no” (or anything else) to ‘unsubscribe’!

You know those annoying automated calls that result in a robotic voice saying “Please hold for an important message”? Well, new legislation, if passed, would allow them to your cell phone! A concerted effort by several legislators and large businesses has resulted in Federal bill HR3035, which would allow businesses to initiate automated calls (so called “robo calls”) to cell phones whose owners have ‘given permission’ for the robocalls. “Permission” for robodialing is defined as providing your cell number to the business at any time (even years ago), and in just about any context – just having provided your cell number at any time past or present is enough, you don’t have to say “and please robo dial me.” It’s kind of the “they asked for it” theory of automated dialing phone spam. (Note: This article includes links to make it very easy for you to write to your representative to register your displeasure with this assault on your privacy.)

Blackberry users around the world found that their Blackberrys were simply not working as they should. Both messaging and web-browsing were impacted, leaving many users high and dry in a day when millions depend on their Blackberries for business use. Europe, Africa, and the Middle East were hit with the Blackberry outage at the beginning of the week, with the U.S. joining the misery mid-week.

If the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has its way, the proposed merger between AT and T and T-Mobile will be vetoed, because it will create a monopoly in violation of antitrust law. According to papers filed by the DOJ in Federal court, “AT and T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low-priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market.”

If you suddenly have random stripes going up and down or across on your Android camera (the camera on your Android phone), you are not alone. The colored stripes (in our case green and pink stripes) across the camera are a known issue that occurs suddenly on the camera of some Android phones – most particularly HTC phones, such as the Sensation and the MyTouch 4G Slide. Here’s what these stripes on the Android camera look like – again, in our case they were green and pink stripes on our Android camera, and on the pictures taken with the camera – and what to do about it.