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A collection of 23 posts

Charge

Questions to Carriers: Why do You Charge to Share Data Between Devices?

The number of connected devices in the world overtook the number of people on earth in 2014. The same year, nearly half a billion new connected devices were activated. Among those device activations were smartphones, tablets, mobile hotspots and wearables to name a few. And all those newly-connected devices helped

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Questions to Carriers: Why does mobile data expire?

By now most of us are accustomed to the way mobile carriers price their data plans. We typically drop $20 to $50 each month on a few gigabytes. If we use more than our monthly data allotment we’re hit with inflated overage fees, but if we don’t use

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Stages of Thanksgiving 2015 in GIFs

Yay, Turkey Day has finally arrived! It is only the first of a series of eating events (aka family gatherings) that mark the official holiday season in the US. Unbuckle your belts, exercise your bellies and prepare for extended family exposure, Thanksgiving is officially upon us. We would like to

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Why can't I have a data-only plan for my smartphone?

Today 68% of American adults own a smartphone. That is approximately 216,852,000 of us. But have you really ever thought about how much time you spend using that device? According to recent studies, we spend anywhere from 3.3 hours (pdf) to 4.7 hours per day on

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Questions to Carriers: What are prepaid, postpaid and no contract plans?

Over the last year, US consumers have seen some major shifts in the mobile carrier market. From rolling data options to doing away with contracts, carriers seem to continually attempt to one-up one another to convince consumers to switch providers. The most recent transition in the four-carrier power struggle is

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Is AppleCare+ really worth it? Apple's Coverage vs. Carrier Phone Insurance Compared

Last week, we discovered most phone upgrade programs are contracts in disguise. If consumers opt for one of the financing/upgrade plans from Sprint, Verizon or AT&T, they are forced to use service provided by that carrier as well. Meaning, these programs are a lot more like the

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Charge Messenger 101: How to Invite Contacts

Charge Messenger is a cross-platform messaging app that keeps your conversations synchronized across all devices. Now you'll never miss a message when you can stay connected on Android, iOS and the web. We know you want to GIF-roulette already, but first things first, you gotta learn how to invite your

GIF

Introducing Charge Messenger for the Web

Today we are excited to announce the rollout of Charge Messenger for web, as well as a significant version upgrade to our mobile apps on iOS and Android! With this update, contacts and messages seamlessly sync across all your signed-in devices, including web. So you can continue to "+gif&

Chargecomm

How Cloud Services Work With Contacts

Remember when you got your first smartphone? For me, it was Christmas Day 2007. I saw that perfectly-shaped patented box, dressed up in Santa Claus wrapping paper, sitting under the tree and I couldn’t wait to tear the baby open. I recall going back to school so vividly, mostly

Chargecomm

Location Sharing: 5 Mishaps You Don't Want to Miss

We recently updated Charge Messenger with a location-sharing feature. Yay! Now users can easily drop their location within messages using the paperclip icon.  Finally!!!! A feature that makes meeting at a new happy hour spot far easier when you’

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Questions to Carriers: What is a MVNO?

This week, rumors flooded Twitter with talk about Apple starting its own MVNO. The iPhone creator partnered with mobile carriers back in 2007, but now it seems Apple may have an interest in entering the carrier game itself. While journalists pondered whether Apple is just following Google’s lead into

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How to use +GIF in Charge Messenger

Recently we updated Charge Messenger with our amazingly fun +GIF button. The +GIF button gives typical textual conversations character and emotion when emojis just can’t do the job. Isn’t having Michael Cera awkwardly say “Hey, what’s up” via a GIF, sooo much better than typing “what’s

Chargecomm

Questions to Carriers: What is Throttling?

Throttling has been a hot topic in the news as of late. Thanks to the announcement of a major fine by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against AT&T, throttling, a word we previously associated with our car engines, has taken on a new meaning that impacts our

Chargecomm

Which Apps Use the Most Data?

App usage on mobile devices has been on the rise since their inception. Consequently, the amount of data used for said apps continues to soar to record highs as well. From communication to entertainment to navigation, we depend on applications and the data they consume to make our lives easier.

Chargecomm

Charge Bot Arrives In Messenger

Remember the short-lived days of PDAs, or better yet, the Apple Newton? The notion of a personal digital assistant never fully came to fruition as a standalone device. Rather, PDAs opened innovators' eyes to the idea of 2-in-1 devices now known as smartphones. Siri and Google Now provide smartphone users

Chargecomm

Questions to Carriers: Why aren't data usage calculators helpful?

As more and more of us transition to internet-capable mobile devices, we look for mobile plans that transition with us too. Rather than worrying about voice minute and SMS message allotments, we are worried about understanding our data usage. While carriers move away from unlimited data plans, as consumers, we

Chargecomm

Communicate Without Your Phone

Hasn’t everyone felt the pain of forgetting their mobile phone at home? Or, even worse, losing it? Whether it be the FOMO that ensues from missing group texts or lack of connection to loved ones, we feel crippled by the fact we can’t communicate. But even on the

Chargecomm

Questions to Carriers : Why are contracts so expensive?

Understanding the nuances of your mobile “plan”, “pack”, “bundle” or whatever other cute all-in-one name your carrier deems fit, is a tedious undertaking regardless of your locale. As Americans, we typically find ourselves with two-year contracts which lock us into high prices. Conversely, most mobile users around the world have

GIF

GIF Sharing via Social Media

ALERT THE MEDIA: Social media juggernauts, Facebook and Tumblr announced GIF updates to their platforms this week. Now users can share GIFs via FB and search for previously used GIFs on Tumblr. Giving further credence to fact that your friends acccctually don’t want to read what you have to

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Introducing GIF Sharing in Charge Messenger

Everyone knows GIFs make conversations better. That’s why we’re excited to introduce super-simple GIF sharing in the latest release of Charge Messenger. In addition to sending photo messages, you can now attach GIFs to your messages on iOS, Android and web. ![OMG GIFs](https://i.giphy.com/OfkGZ5H2H3f8Y.

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Our New Name

You may remember that we were recently involved in a dispute with Facebook concerning the name of a one-touch photo-sharing app that Instagram released by the name of Bolt. Well, we’re happy to announce that we've amicably resolved our differences and have transferred our rights to the Bolt name

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Dear Instagram

Dear Instagram, We've seen the rumors. You're about to launch a one-touch photo messaging app to rival Snapchat. And we sincerely hope it's a spectacular success. There's just one problem: you're going to name it Bolt. We know it's a great name, because we chose it last year when we

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Building the Bolt Blog

The Bolt Blog was built over the course of a few days with the help of some interesting and, more importantly, powerful software (specifically Jekyll). In this post we'll review how this blog was built, and which tools were used to build it. Requirements & Constraints When we set out