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’

Chargecomm

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

Mobile

Questions to Carriers: Will You Unlock My Phone?

As Americans, we are accustomed to the notion of a two-year mobile phone contract. When cell phones emerged as a new standard of communication, contracts locking you to a carrier were accepted as the norm. Fast forward to today and many people are still using the same carrier that sold

GIF

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

Share Funny Videos With Charge Messenger

Round up the fireworks, spark up the grills and track down your "vintage" Old Navy flag t-shirt, the 4th of July is upon us! It's the one day of the year we trade in our imported beer for a watered-down domestic brew, play country music and cross the

iOS

Questions to Carriers: How do you estimate data usage?

Last week, Questions to Carriers asked “Why aren’t data usage calculators more helpful?” We broke down how the data estimation “tools” US carriers provide are convoluted, while also discovering a clear disparity in data estimates between carriers for the same tasks. This week, we want to help you rely

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

GIF

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.

Charge

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

paperless

Living the Dream of the Paperless Office

I hate paper. It gets wet. It burns easily. It gets lost. It cuts your hands. It's great for taking quick notes, but terrible for anything important. So at Bolt we try to run a completely paperless office. The first step towards avoiding paper is getting rid of your printer.

Charge

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

Phone Number

Reports of the Death of Phone Numbers Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

It’s become somewhat fashionable in the tech community to hate on phone numbers. In fact their impending death has been predicted for years. In 2010, a guest post in TechCrunch proclaimed that phone numbers are dead, they just don’t know it yet. The Verge published a survey of

Chargecomm

Bolt Version 1.0

Today we are very excited to publicly release Bolt version 1.0, the first version of Bolt to include free calls between Bolt users. After updating to Bolt 1.0, a new "Bolt" phone number will appear in the details view of any contact in your address book

password

Passwordless Products

High-profile password heists are now depressingly common. And as we continue to entrust more of our personal information to password-protected online services, the payoff from a successful attack is only increasing. Attacks on Adobe, Zappos, and Sony’s PlayStation Network each netted tens of millions of user passwords. These were

Chargecomm

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

Cutting the Telecom Cord

Look at your smartphone. That amazing device that’s always with you. It’s on the table while you eat. It’s on your nightstand while you sleep. It’s what you reach for when awkwardly sharing an elevator with strangers. You can use it to send email, watch cat