Frequently Asked Questions

1. PARTICIPATION IN THE MOBILE PERCEPTIONS PANEL PROGRAM

Q. What is the purpose of the Mobile Perceptions Panel?

A. The Mobile Perceptions Panel is designed to help marketers understand how consumers use their mobile devices, services and content. The panel produces anonymous, aggregate usage information that the industry uses to build, plan and manage their mobile offerings to consumers. The panel gathers this information through Meter software that runs silently and transparently in the background of your mobile phone. This software allows us to measure the applications you use and the websites you visit for the purpose of anonymous, aggregate measurement. We will never report your individual usage and will never release your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. (For complete details on the "Terms of Use", please go here. For the complete privacy policy, click here.)

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Q. How does the panel work?

A. Once you have downloaded the meter software, the majority of your participation is complete! We may occasionally email you an invitation to complete a brief survey regarding your mobile phone usage. Your input will not only help to improve the future of smartphones and their related applications.

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Q. What rewards do I get for participating in your program?

A. The full details of our rewards program are here. In summary, here is how the program works.

You install the meter on your smartphone or tablet
After an initial 14 day test period to make sure the meter works fine on your device, you will earn a $5 Amazon gift card after every 30 days of keeping the meter working.
We will notify you after the test period is complete (2 weeks after install), and every time you earn a reward (every 30 days thereafter) just so you know. We will send you the gift card within 10 days of earning your reward.

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Q. Those rewards sound cool. Do you have a referral program?

A. YES! See here and enter your friend's email. When they earn their first $5 reward per the program, you'll earn an extra reward as well. We'll send you $5 if they are on an Android device, $10 if they are on an iPhone or iPad, and $15 if they are on an iPhone or iPad that is on a carrier other than AT&T such as Verizon or Sprint. This referral reward is in addition to whatever rewards you might be earning for your own devices. At this time, this referral program is unlimited — you can refer as many friends as you'd like!

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Q. I also have another smartphone or tablet. Do I get a bonus for adding another one of my devices?

A. YES! If you add another device, we’ll send you a special additional one-time $5 reward when the new device earns its first $5 award. When you register your new device, just be sure to use the same email you used when you registered your primary device.

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Q. What will happen to the personal information I provide you — will you try to sell me something?

A. Participating in this panel is absolutely voluntary and free. We will never try to sell you anything as a result of your participation. We will also never sell any of your contact information to marketers.

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Q. How long do I have to participate?

A. There is no set length of time required for participation. You can opt out of the panel whenever you desire by simply uninstalling the application from your device. However, once you've uninstalled, you will no longer be eligible to participate in the panel's rewards program. Complete uninstall instructions can be found in step 1 for iOS, Android, and RIM.

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Q. I've never received any email notification (welcome email or otherwise), how can I verify I enteredmy email correctly?

A. When you first signed up you should have received a welcome email. If you never received this or any other email from us, you might have entered your email incorrectly when you registered. Please full reinstall by following these instructions for iOS, Android, and RIM.

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2. MOBILE PERCEPTIONS METER

Q. What is the Meter software?

A. The meter is a software application that runs silently and transparently in the background of your phone. It collects data on your use of applications, mobile web and other services for the sole purpose of market research. Every few hours, the software will automatically upload encrypted log files from the meter application on your phone to a server via secure data connection (https).

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Q. What type of data is being collected?

A. The Meter software measures general usage of your phone. For example, we collect information on:

The name, time, and duration of applications
The time and address (URL) of the websites visited

We do not listen to or record any of your phone calls. We also do not examine, store or record any of the content of text or picture messages you send or receive. In addition, we cannot and do not read any of the contents of your other files or email messages.

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Q. What are you going to do with this data?

A. The collected data will be used to produce research that will build, plan and manage the next generation of smart phone products and services. None of your personal information or individual usage information will be shared with third parties for marketing purposes.

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Q. Will the application interfere with my phone's performance?

A. No. The application runs transparently on your phone and will not interfere with your phone's performance. In the future, you may receive an email request to reboot your phone, or uninstall/re-install the meter software. If this did happen though, it would only be on the rare occasion of data not being passed through the software.

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Q. On iPhone / iPad, do I have to have location services on? Will this run down my battery?

A. Yes. On iPhone and iPad only, the meter requires location services to run in the background. Most users experience minor additional battery drain relative to normal use.

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Q. Will I get charged when I download the Meter software or enroll in the panel? How much data traffic does the Meter software cause?

A. The Meter software works by collecting usage information and sending the encrypted logs over a secure connection (https). For the average smartphone user, the meter generates about 600 kb – 1024 kb (1MB) of usage data in a month. The same will reflect as data usage in your mobile billings. For heavy users, usage data may be higher depending upon actual usage.
The use of the wireless network may results in billable charges from your mobile operator depending on your rate plan. If your device has access to a wifi connection, the upload will happen over wifi and not use cellular data.

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Q. I received an email that says my meter isn't working. What do I do?

A. The application tries to upload every two hours. If your device is off or there is no data connection, it will try again later. Because we know people often turn their phone off, travel out of internet range, or have other circumstances that don't allow for an upload, we will consider you active on our meter if we receive an upload within a 4 day window. We will notify you if we don't receive updates in the following manner:

If we don't hear from you for an entire day, we'll send you an email to let you know.
We'll do the same thing again if we don't hear from you after 2 and again after 3 days.
At the fourth day of no upload, we'll assume you no longer want to participate and remove you from our panel. If you 'rejoin' later, your participation will restart.
If we do see an upload in day 2 or 3, we'll send you another note to let you know your device is still in the panel and your rewards will continue to accumulate.
Typically, most problems can be solved by simply restarting your phone and opening the application. You should also check that you're on the latest version by opening the app. You should see text that says “You are running the most current version of the application”. If not, please go here from your device to upgrade.

If you've followed all these steps and are still receiving these emails, please contact mobileperceptions@mobileperceptions.net for more support.

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Q. What phone or tablet models do you support?

A. On iOS, we support iPhone 3GS and above, all iPads, and iPod Touch as well. The device must be running iOS4 or iOS5.

On Android, we support all OS versions above 1.x

On RIM, we support all OS versions above 4.x

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Q. How do I install the meter?

A. Go to www.mobileperceptions.net from your device or tablet and click the "Install" button.

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Q. How do I uninstall the meter?

A. Simply uninstall the application from your device. If you need instructions on how to do this, please follow step 1 below for either iOS, Android, and RIM.

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Q. I have a new device (I upgraded, my old device broke, etc.) and I'd like to continue my participation using my new device

A. If you have a new device please:

Go to www.mobileperceptions.net from the new device to install the application. Please DO NOT 'transfer' the app from your old device using solutions such as iTunes restore. The application must be installed directly from the web site to function correctly. If you have accidentally transferred the application from your old device, please see here to do a fresh install on your new device.

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How do I uninstall and reinstall on my iOS (iPhone/iPad) device?

A. Follow these steps:

1.FULLY uninstall the old version by holding the app icon until it 'wiggles' and then press the 'x'.

2.Go to www.mobileperceptions.net from your iPhone or iPad and click the install button.

3.Install, open, and fill out the registration page again using the same information for the app.

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How do I uninstall and reinstall on my Android device?

A. Follow these steps:

1. Uninstall the existing application:

Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Mobile Perceptions
Select Mobile Perceptions
Click "Uninstall" button, then click "OK" button

2. Remove earlier registration flag

You will need some File explorer application such as "File Browser"
From the explorer application, go to the folder: sdcard/MP
Delete the MP folder
Restart the device

3. Install the new version

Go to www.mobileperceptions.net from your iPhone or iPad and click the install button.
Install, open, and fill out the registration page again using the same information for the app. (If you do not see the registration page and directly see a welcome message, then it means you have missed step 2. In such case you will have to repeat all steps)

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How do I uninstall and reinstall on my RIM device?

A. Follow these steps:

1: Uninstall the existing application

Go to Options > Advanced options > Applications > Mobile Perceptions app
Press Menu button (Blackberry icon)
Select "Delete"
The device will ask for Restart after uninstallation

2: Remove earlier registration flag

You will need some File explorer application such as "Beam Explorer"
From the explorer application, go to the folder: Device Memory > home > user > MP
Delete this MP folder

3: Install the new version

Go to www.mobileperceptions.net from your iPhone or iPad and click the install button.
Install, open, and fill out the registration page again using the same information for the app. (If you do not see the registration page and directly see a welcome message, then it means you have missed step 2. In such case you will have to repeat all steps)

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Q. What if I have more questions?

A. Feel free to contact us at mobileperceptions@mobileperceptions.net with any questions you may have.