2degrees innovate with shared data plans

A few months back, NZ's newest and most innovative mobile carrier, 2degrees, asked for suggestions for plans and products on their Facebook page. I tend to avoid service providers' major social media avenues simply because the average user comment in such places tends to be loud, uninformed, unaware of basic business practices, and thus annoying to read. I braved these murky waters and gave them a lengthy tongue-in-cheek comment about how great shared data bundles would be. They told me to wait and see. I have, and from today's reports, that was well worth doing.

[App Review] Trade Me for Android

It's finally here, for better or worse.

After a lengthy period as an iOS exclusive, New Zealand’s popular auction site has finally seen fit to push a dedicated application to the Android Market. In a sense, this marks the coming of age of Android as a viable second platform in this country – Trade Me is the second most visited page in NZ, only losing top spot to Google itself. Yet it has only now released its own app for Froyo and above, despite the Android platform meriting a dedicated application quite some time ago (I would argue around the end of 2010, when local carriers finally began making an advertising push for Android devices). Many major NZ services such as banks have offered Android support for months if not over a year, notably including the news site Stuff.co.nz, which is owned by Fairfax media who also own Trade Me .

What’s to blame, here? Fragmentation? Real usage stats by useragent showing a lack of Android uptake? Lack of development support, or revenue for the project? Or was the mobile version of Trade Me’s website simply deemed ‘good enough’? While I don’t have the answers to the above, there is one pertinent question I intend to explore: Having waited so long, is the app worthwhile?

Download the app here, and read on for the full review.

Spotify streaming music service coming to New Zealand next year

Streaming music services have become incredibly popular in the US and UK, with the likes of Pandora, Microsoft's Zune (Which recently launched in Australia), and of course Google's own Google Music service showing the potential of data-enabled devices to use 'the cloud' to overcome their limited local storage. Here in little ol' NZ, however, we've been largely left behind, with only Sony's Qriocity "Music Unlimited" service available to date.

Thankfully, that looks ready to change as early as February next year. With a well-reviewed Android app, this looks like it could be worthwhile, although I have reservations about the potential data cost, not to mention the monthly costs. Sony has set the bar at $5.99 NZD for its basic service, and $13.99 NZD for premium content, so one can only imagine pricing will be similar for Spotify. Will you be giving it a try? Hit up the comments after the jump and let us know.

[Homegrown] Telecom NZ finally release HTC Sensation firmware update

This is our first piece featuring some content relevant specifically to developments here in our home market in New Zealand. If you're part of our growing overseas readership you'll be able to recognise this content by the [Homegrown] tag in the title, that way you don't have to waste any of your precious time reading content that is related only to New Zealand.

Some of you might know that I have an HTC Sensation handset that I was testing for Telecom NZ. What you might not know is that my Fiancée also has an HTC Sensation - and she won't let me root/ROM it. This means that it's stuck with whatever updates Telecom deems reliable enough to deploy.

I have been checking for updates nearly daily (much to my Fiancee's dismay) and today I finally got lucky! Yes, that's right there is a new version of official HTC Sensation firmware for Telecom XT handsets.