After being snubbed by Apple’s LTE friendly new iPad, some of you may be speculating that Sprint won’t be seeing Apple sixth-generation smartphone. But recent words from Sprint’s chief financial officer Joe Euteneuer suggests that Apple’s first LTE entrant in the smartphone arena will be making its way to the Now Network. During an investor conference, Euteneuer stated that like Sprint’s competitors, they’re not required to offer complete nationwide 4G LTE coverage to offer the next-generation of iPhone.

Though some have doubted that Sprint’s LTE network will be ready in time to support what would technically be the iPhone 6 (they better not call it 5!), it’s hard to believe that the company made such a hefty investment to receive any iPhone after its competitors. Not too long ago, Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse went on record saying “the marriage made in heaven is unlimited plus the iPhone.” Call us crazy, but this definitely sounds like Apple’s fruit phone will be playing a pivotal role in Sprint’s LTE game plan. We’re just wondering how many of Sprint’s LTE markets will be up and running by the time Tim Cook and the gang finally decide to bring their “magical” smartphone out of the network Dark Ages.

Source: Dow Jones (Nasdaq)

As Sprint continues to wrestle with financial drama ($1.3 billion net loss in 2011), the Now Network’s commander-in-chief Dan Hesse still managed to see a 31% bump in compensation. A recent regulatory filing spilled the beans revealing that Hesse saw a payout of $11.9 million in 2011, eclipsing his 2010 compensation by a bit over $2 million. In addition to an increase in pay, Hesse also received stock awards of $3.22 million and non-equity incentive plan compensation of $4.84 million. With Sprint’s shares dropping 45% in 2011, odds are that Hesse’s increase in earnings won’t be winning over many investors and financial analysts, as his judgement has already been called into question. Hesse, you’ve got some ’splainin to do!

Source: Bloomberg

After the Samsung Epic 4G’s last software update, word broke of the popular slider being plagued with force closes when receiving phone calls. Learning from past mistakes with sluggish software updates, Sprint and Samsung have teamed up and rolled out software version S:D700.0.5S.FC09, which fixes the call bug and adds Sprint Connection Optimizer. If you haven’t received the update yet, you can try grabbing it through your phone’s settings. If you’ve already got the new software up and running, please feel free to share your experience via the comments below.

Source: Sprint 

It’s been a little while since we’ve had a look at Sprint’s End-of-Life (EOL) listing and its latest edition is a bit of a doozy. Making the cut this time around we have the LG Marquee and Motorola PHOTON 4G. The puzzling thing about this bit is that the PHOTON 4G was one of Sprint’s last heavyweight smartphones before taking a high-end hiatus as the company readies itself for LTE. By shelving such a next-gen device device that is poised to receive Android 4.0, hopefully this is an indication that some major heat is on its way. Both devices are set to near retirement starting in April.

Recently Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s leadership skills have been under fire by investors, customers and critics alike. Many have questioned Sprint’s expensive deal with Apple to carry the iPhone, as well as Sprint’s first 4G venture with WiMAX. The folks from Mobile World Live managed to get some time in with the Now Network’s bossman and we’ve grabbed a few excerpts from their near 11 minute conversation. Check out the play by play action after the break.

Network Vision and Moving From WiMAX

Back in 2009 when we launched the first national 4G in the U.S. there was only for the TDD kinds of frequencies, there was only one kind of 4G available, which was WiMAX. We decided to move first and be a first mover with WiMAX, knowing when the FD spectrum became available that we could add LTE in addition. Actually the Network Vision technology and architecture is perfectly created for multiple frequencies on the same network platform.

Concerns About Being Behind the Competition’s LTE

We think we’ll catch up pretty quickly. One good thing is that we have a large 4G footprint already with WiMAX, as I mentioned we’ll have six major cities in the first half of this year… We intend to be substantially complete with our LTE national rollout by 2013, so we will be playing catch up in 2012, we expect to catch up in the 2013 time frame.

About the iPhone

iPhone sales exceeded our expectations, but what’s particularly unique about Sprint’s number of iPhone sales, is that four out of every ten iPhones we’ve sold is to a new customer. That’s roughly double the rate of either of our competitors, so we’re pulling a lot of customers away from our competitors because of the marriage made in heaven is unlimited plus the iPhone and as a result it’s bringing in a lot of new customers to Sprint and that’s a good thing.

Keeping Unlimited Data

We certainly hope so, my plans are to continue with it as long as we possibly can, hopefully forever. We’ll see, you never say always, you never say never, but I think for some time to come. What’s important to be able to maintain, is to really focus on what it takes to maintain it, the customers have spoken very clearly, I talked on the panel earlier today about our customer satisfaction rankings, how much they’ve increased because of the simplicity and customers really do like unlimited.

For a broader look at what Hesse had to say about Sprint’s future, including his thoughts on wireless carriers merging due to investment demands, visit the source link for the interview in its entirety.

Source: Mobile World Live

After almost a day of darkness, Virgin mobile customer’s data and texting services are back in motion. The prepaid carrier once again took to their Facebook account to update its eager customers about the status of their services. Sprint’s MVNO advised if you’re still experiencing issues to pull your device’s battery and perform a reset. If all else fails, look at heavens and start screaming. It won’t fix anything, but it might make you feel better.

Source: Virgin Mobile (Facebook)

It seemed so cool when Google Wallet made its debut on Sprint’s Nexus S 4G last year, but who knew that using your smartphone to pay for things would get so complicated? Due to security concerns a few weeks back, El Goog’s hands were forced to disable the ability to load Google prepaid cards to a Wallet account, if they were previously removed. This safety precaution ruffled more than a few feathers and has since been restored via a software update. Seeing the error of their ways, the search giant has added $5 to every prepaid card as a way to say sorry for the inconvenience. So, if you’re a Google Wallet user, be sure to check out your account or inbox, a digital five bones should be waiting on you.

Source: Droid Life

Looking at Sprint and HTC’s rich history, it’s all but obvious that they’ll be announcing a new EVO on April 4th. The question is, what can you expect? Our sources are in agreement that Sprint and HTC will be introducing the first LTE EVO-branded smartphone, which will be based off of HTC’s One X. It’s uncertain what the device’s retail name will be, but we know that you can expect the new EVO to be packing Qualcomm’s 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8960 Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, 4.7-inch Super LCD (1280×720), 1,800 mAh battery (possibly embedded), Beats Audio and of course Android 4.0. We’re also hearing that the new EVO’s LTE will come with an on/off switch, which should help maintain the device’s battery life.

Will an LTE EVO be enough to make you bypass the highly anticipated Galaxy Nexus, or will you jump on whichever device releases first? Be sure to share your thoughts on what you think is going to happen on April 4th and don’t be afraid to kick around some of your favorite new EVO names, we’re kinda partial to “LT-EVO” ourselves. Be sure to join us on this faithful day as we’ll be holding one of our live chats and would love for you to stop by.

We’ve been getting slammed with a variety of messages from Virgin Mobile customers in regards to a national text and data outage. We’ve heard your cries and it appears that Virgin has gotten wind of the situation. Taking things to the house that Zuckerberg built, Sprint’s beloved MVNO acknowledged the issue, apologizing for the inconvenience and promised to provide updates on this outage as they receive them. If you’re among Sprint’s prepaid posse and you’ve been feeling the burn of this outage today, please let us know what you’re experiencing and where you’re experiencing it at.

Source: Virgin Mobile (Facebook)

Well what do we have here? It looks like Sprint and HTC are starting to send out invites to detail their next “collaboration.” With talk of a new EVO device based off the HTC One X’s hardware, we can’t help but wonder with these two longtime friends have up their sleeves. With April 4th a fortnight away, we won’t have to wait too long. But we received a little tip from a fella by the name of Captain Obvious and he says that this one has got EVO written all over it!