T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 U.S. mobile phone service, said yesterday it is offering a $50 per month service plan to long-time customers in San Francisco.

Under the promotion the company is also offering customers a $135 credit if they switch from a rival service to T-Mobile USA.

The test promotion comes after Boost Mobile launched an all-in mobile plan for $50 a month in January. T-Mobile USA is seen by analysts as the carrier most vulnerable to losing customers to Boost.

A T-Mobile USA representative said the plan would only be available to customers who have used its service for 22 months or more and that as the company has “additional details regarding a national plan it would provide” them.

UBS analyst John Hodulik said in a research note that he expects the plan to be available nationwide in coming weeks.

With 85% + consumer penetration here in the US, it makes sense that the price wars would start to heat up. This can only be good for US consumers who need all the help they can get reducing their monthly expenses.

Late last week Google announced that Android Market is now accepting priced applications from US and UK developers. Developers from these countries can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps.

The announcement said that priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid this week and that they will add end user support for additional countries in the coming months.

Well, it’s Thursday and I have not seen any announcement that the premium market has gone “live”.

I did read, however, that Google released its Android Market Business and Program Policies, with some interesting elements. One of the most interesting is an application money-back guarantee – buyers of applications from Google’s Android Market will have 24 hours to claim a full refund. I don’t believe Apple has a similar policy so it will be interesting to see if this changes over time.

As for the rest of the policies, pretty standard stuff regarding what type of content is allowed, etc. One other interesting control mechanism is that Google “retains the right at its sole discretion to remotely remove applications from your Device that violate the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies.”

We will be bringing our first premium Android Application to market soon so I’ll let you know how that process compares/contrasts to the Apple App Store process as soon as we’re done.

Late last week Google announced that Android Market is now accepting priced applications from US and UK developers. Developers from these countries can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps.

The announcement said that priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid this week and that they will add end user support for additional countries in the coming months.

Well, it’s Thursday and I have not seen any announcement that the premium market has gone “live”.

I did read, however, that Google released its Android Market Business and Program Policies, with some interesting elements. One of the most interesting is an application money-back guarantee – buyers of applications from Google’s Android Market will have 24 hours to claim a full refund. I don’t believe Apple has a similar policy so it will be interesting to see if this changes over time.

As for the rest of the policies, pretty standard stuff regarding what type of content is allowed, etc. One other interesting control mechanism is that Google “retains the right at its sole discretion to remotely remove applications from your Device that violate the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies.”

We will be bringing our first premium Android Application to market soon so I’ll let you know how that process compares/contrasts to the Apple App Store process as soon as we’re done.

Cameraphone pictures suck, generally speaking. It’s because the lenses are tiny and garbage. But this Jabil cameraphone module with a physical shutter could change things.

The module measures 10 x 10 x 8mm and has a moving blade-style shutter that prevents light from entering the lens until you’ve press the shot button. It also has an autofocus feature.

Of course, problems may very well arise when you try to stick moving parts like that onto a phone that’s going to be sharing pocket space with your keychain, but it’s good news that they’ve shrunk a physical shutter module down to a size that would be reasonable on a smartphone. It’s advancements like this that are going to kill the point-and-shoot market. [Reg Hardware]

Guitar Hero has been available on other cellphones for a while now, but far be it from Activision to pass up an opportunity to cash in on a big platform like Android.

The game will be a port of Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile with touchscreen gameplay and 15 tracks (mostly classic rock). An exact date of the release has not been announced, but it is expected to hit the Android Market soon. [The Guardian via Kotaku]

It’s a quarterly ritual for Sprint at this point: Another 1.3 million subscribers have fled, another $1.6 billion down the tube. You have to wonder if this spiral’s ever gonna stop spinning. [Yahoo]