InventHelp is promoting a smartphone design for the visually impaired for license or sale to manufacturers or marketers, it said Friday. The design was developed by an inventor moved by a story about a blind individual who was robbed by someone claiming to be a police officer. "I wanted to use GPS technology to help people who are blind or visually impaired stay safe by keeping them oriented to their surroundings and enabling them to communicate easily via cell phone," said the inventor. The design is said to prevent visually impaired people from stumbling over obstacles, includes voice activation and features a tracking device if the phone is lost.

The iPhone XR had 32 percent of total U.S. iPhone sales in the 30 days after its October launch, said a Wednesday Consumer Intelligence Research Partners report. The higher-priced XS and XS Max, released a month earlier, together had 35 percent of U.S. iPhone sales during the period. Among iPhone buyers for the period, 82 percent upgraded from an iPhone and 16 percent from an Android phone, CIRP said, vs. the period after the November 2017 launch of iPhone X, when 86 percent of customers upgraded from an iPhone and 11 percent from an Android model. Noting that Apple doesn’t state its launch strategy, analyst Mike Levin inferred from pricing and features that the company positioned the XR “to appeal to potential operating systems switchers from Android.” Apple didn't comment. Findings are based on a survey of 165 U.S. iPhone buyers in the U.S. in the 30 days after Oct. 26.

Cellular and data service reaches more than half of Metrorail tunnels in the District of Columbia area, said the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Wednesday. Cellular service from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless is available in all Metro stations and more than 50 of 100 track miles covering parts of all six lines, said WMATA, announcing three new “wireless ready” tunnel segments: 5.6 track miles between Ballston and Rosslyn, 4.8 miles between Rosslyn and Metro Center, and 7.4 miles between College Park and Fort Totten. WMATA expects total coverage by mid-2020. It’s an “important milestone,” but “there is much work left to do to eliminate rider and employee risk for those using the other 50 percent not connected,” FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a statement. “We have to do this quicker and the new year must bring new ways to do just that.” O’Rielly last summer lightly praised a WMATA update (see 1808020005) after earlier slamming the organization as incompetent (see 1802220026).

Global smartphone unit shipments are expected to decline 3 percent this year to 1.42 billion before returning to low-single-digit growth in 2019 and through 2022, said IDC Tuesday. It’s forecasting 2.6 percent year-over-year shipment growth in 2019: “Shipments are forecast to reach 1.57 billion units in 2022.” In China, the largest smartphone market, shipments are expected to decline 8.8 percent this year. Chinese growth will be flat in 2019 before returning to “positive territory” through 2022, the researcher said. The U.S. also is forecast to return to positive growth in 2019 with a 2.1 percent year-over-year increase, after experiencing a decline in 2018. "With many of the large global companies focusing on high-end product launches, hoping to draw in consumers looking to upgrade based on specifications and premium devices, we can expect head-to-head competition within this segment during the holiday quarter and into 2019 to be exceptionally high," said IDC.

T-Mobile supported the FCC’s draft ruling clarifying wireless messaging as a Communications Act Title I information service, set for a commissioner vote Wednesday (see 1812050019). Other carriers also supported the ruling, while Free Press raised concerns. T-Mobile reported on a call with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai in docket 08-7. The ruling “will remove regulatory uncertainty and allow T-Mobile and other wireless messaging providers to continue to incorporate robotext-blocking, anti-spoofing measures, and other anti-spam features into their service,” T-Mobile said. “It will allow industry to continue to protect the messaging ecosystem and spare [consumers] from receiving unlawful and unwanted spam.” “This classification ensures greater consistency in the regulatory treatment of these services across the messaging ecosystem,” AT&T said in meetings with aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel. “The Draft Declaratory Ruling empowers wireless providers to continue protecting consumers from unwanted text messages thereby keeping messaging services relatively spam-free.” Verizon also endorsed the ruling in meetings with commissioner aides. The action would "stand firm with millions of wireless consumers in the battle to safeguard messaging from unscrupulous robotexters,” said CTIA President Meredith Baker in a letter. Free Press slammed the ruling, saying it's “full of the same kinds of mistakes, errors, and lies that Pai and his team have made their specialty, all delivered with the knowing smirk and feigned concern that serves as the facade for their every utterance.” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and eight other senators opposed the declaratory ruling, writing Pai to “classify text messaging as a telecommunications service” to provide such communications “protections that promote innovation and support freedom of speech.”

New York City asked the FCC to modify its draft ruling clarifying wireless messaging as a Communications Act Title I information service to account for emergency texts. The item is set for a vote Wednesday (see 1812050019). The city would have the FCC require message providers work with public safety agencies on texts. New York warned of the potential for unintended consequences. “As there are many emergency mass notification providers which often rely on the same downstream aggregators, the City is concerned that, absent a carefully considered regulatory framework, efforts by commercial mobile service providers to curtail spam have the potential to prevent the delivery of critical messages to recipients that need them and have either opted in to the system … or have been imported into the system as part of a sanctioned program,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 8-02. Software company Zipwhip said the FCC is right to provide clarity. The ruling would "remove uncertainty on the matter and enable companies like Zipwhip to continue their efforts to protect consumers by adopting blocking protocols that eliminate spam,” Zipwhip said.

T-Mobile Name ID app for iOS and an update for Android will give customers more control over who can reach them on their mobile phone, said the carrier Monday. Citing the increasing annoyance of robocalls -- said to reach 5.1 billion during October -- T-Mobile said Name ID allows users to block and unblock callers from the call log, set number blocklists and manage calls by category: calls tagged as telemarketers; numbers tagged as nuisance calls; political, survey and individual calls can be sent directly to voicemail, it said. The feature identifies who’s calling and their organization, including those not in a customer’s address book, for more than 600 million numbers, it said. It’s included with T-Mobile ONE Plus and can be added to T-Mobile postpaid customers’ accounts for $4 per month per line.

The FCC issued a wireless handset hearing-aid compatibility order that contains tweaks to a draft, some of which weren't flagged Thursday when commissioners unanimously adopted the item (see 1811150033). Noting the agency separately is considering broader HAC rule changes that may be appropriate if it requires 100 percent of covered handsets to be HAC-compatible, the order added language in paragraph 15 that said: "Per the schedule established in that proceeding, which we have no current plan to deviate from, the process through which the Commission would make a determination whether a 100 percent requirement is achievable would conclude at the end of 2022." The order in docket 17-228 and Monday's Daily Digest replaces annual service provider reporting with certification and enhanced website disclosure duties.

Three Democratic senators pressed CEOs of the top four U.S. wireless carriers Thursday on data throttling practices, citing a recent study using an measurement app developed by Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. It determined the carriers were slowing data from Amazon Prime, NBC Sports, Netflix, YouTube and other services. “Such practices would violate the principles of net neutrality and unfairly treat consumers who are unaware that their carriers are selecting which services receive faster or slower treatment,” wrote Richard Blumemthal, Conn.; Ed Markey, Mass.; and Ron Wyden, Ore., in letters to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. “All online traffic should be treated equally, and internet service providers should not discriminate against particular content or applications for competitive advantage purposes or otherwise.” The legislators were supporters of the FCC 2015 net neutrality order, with Markey leading a Senate-passed Congressional Review Act resolution aimed at restoring the rules (see 1811140055). The senators said the carriers should give them information on how they “put into practice” any “policies to throttle or prioritize internet traffic for consumers.” They want to know by Dec. 6 whether the carriers allow their customers to “opt-in or opt-out of traffic differentiation,” and whether a customer’s choice would “change the price or affect their service, such as data allocation or requiring a different plan.” An AT&T spokesperson questioned the accuracy of the study, citing an earlier CTIA response that "thoroughly debunked" the app. CTIA said the app “failed to account for basic wireless network engineering, consumer preference, and how mobile content is distributed over the internet.” Sprint is reviewing the letter. T-Mobile and Verizon didn't comment.

The installed base of iPhones in the U.S. reached 181 million units in Q3, a 3 percent increase from Q2 and a 14 percent increase from Q3 a year earlier, said Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Thursday. The installed base is “leveling off,” it said. It estimates more than four in every 10 iPhones in circulation are at least 3 years old: “These phones reflect the huge impact of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which at the time represented the first new form factor in four years.”