Sprint today at Mobile World Congress announced that its commercial 5G network will launch in May, starting in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Kansas City. The carrier plans to expand service to Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix, and Washington D.C. in the first half of 2019.
5G coverage will initially be limited to select areas of each city:
At launch, Sprint's highly mobile, on-the-go customers can expect mobile 5G coverage ranging from nearly 30 square miles covering Midtown and lower Manhattan, to approximately 230 square miles spanning the greater Dallas Fort Worth area, for a total initial 5G coverage footprint of more than 1,000 square miles across all nine cities.
Sprint said its first 5G smartphone will be the new dual-screen LG V50 ThinQ 5G unveiled at Mobile World Congress this week, followed by the HTC 5G Hub hotspot in the spring and the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G in the summer.
Sprint also announced that it will offer 5G service to Google Fi customers with a compatible device, but there is no timeframe for the rollout.
Sprint's network will operate on the 2.5GHz spectrum and use Massive MIMO radio equipment supplied by Samsung, rather than use millimeter wave technology. Sprint chief technology officer John Saw said the carrier saw speeds of 430 Mbps in one demo, according to The Verge, significantly faster than LTE.
Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps.
More features and changes will follow in future ...
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec).
The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Juli Clover
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass.
The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released by the end of next week.
Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings.
iOS 26.4 will...
Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more.
With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year.
Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump.
First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
with 5G having a more limited range than LTE and a good LTE signal is already faster than most home internet/cable/DSL wired internet connections, I can't see the average cell phone user being able to utilize or notice any of the supposed faster speeds of 5G when most stuff that requires a lot of bandwidth gets throttled by the carriers anyway (unless you purchase their most expensive plan).
My guess is 5G will be nothing but a marketing blitz for 99% of the end users on cell phones because they won't be able to tell the difference except when running an artificial speed test
