AT&T

Intuitively you know that SMS pricing is a rip off of epic proportions. You can download gigabytes of data using your iPhone and it is covered in the data plan but go over your monthly allotment of texts and you’re paying a quarter a pop. Even at the rate of $5.00 for two hundred texts you are paying a ton of dough for the data. Sure, there are workarounds (you can send texts using email or the web and save your messages) but it is still a galling situation.

Prepare to be even more upset. In an excellent bit of analysis Sam at gthing.net has taken the time to calculate how much that data is really costing you. The calculations reveal that the cost to transfer one .mp3 via text messaging would be $5,991.00. Ye gods. A great conclusion but you’ll be much better off reading the entire article, it is a great pice of work.
Link: The True Price of SMS Messages

Oh, the real reason it costs so much? Because people are willing to pay, and pay, and pay, and pay. Oligopolies and all.

The good news (as pointed out by seeking alpha) is that Apple is going to blow up even the more optimistic analysts predictions for units sold. If they blow those numbers away then, predictably, Apple is blowing away the company’s goal of 10 million phones in 2008. How does Seeking Alpha know all this? Turns out a lot of people have been putting work in tracking the IMEI numbers of newly sold iphones on this google spreadsheet. Scroll through that brightly colored sheet and you’ll discovery that ~ 9 million seem to have been sold. Add in the iPhones sold before the 3G and you get (insert drumroll) 11.5 million iPhones sold in 2008. With time left to go.

Good news for people who want Apple to sell a lot of iPhones (stock holders, Apple employees, Steve Jobs) but also great news for AT&T. Why is such great news for AT&T? Because for every four people with an iPhone three of them switched from another carrier according to CNET. That gives AT&T a net gain of 8.4 million subscribers. T/hat beats the hell out of the numbers dredged… more...

You remember the Blackberry Storm right? Verizon’s answer to the iPhone. Coming this fall. Fisrt touch screen Blackberry. For all the blah, blah, blah on the storm check out the video in this post. The Storm seems pretty cool to those stuck on Verizon but AT&T doesn’t sell it so the company has come up with a flier explaining why the iPhone is better (see the flier at BoyBeniusReport).
What are some of the advantages of the iPhone over the Storm (update: THe Storm actually has these things but looking at the flier you’d never know)?
No multitouch!
No 3G!
No Wi-Fi!
Good lord, is the storm a phone or a brick painted to look shiny? Geeze what a piece. You know what else the Storm doesn’t have? GPS. That’s right, you get lost in a canyon and you won’t know where you are with a Storm. You’ll wander for days and finally starve to death. Can you believe it, Verizon is selling a phone that could kill you!

Well, it isn’t that serious. The Storm actually… more...

I’m not quite sure how some people managed to slip pass AT&T’s iPhone 3G plan, however, they have found you…or will find you, so if you are paying the $15 iPhone media plan, enjoy it while it last.

AT&T is going after iPhone 3G owners that have managed to end up with the wrong data plan:

“Our service records indicate that you are using an iPhone 3G with a data plan designed for other devices.
To avoid unexpected data overage charges and enable Visual Voicemail, please contact your telecom manager, or an AT&T representative at 1-800-331-0500.
Thank you for choosing wireless from AT&T. We appreciate your business.”

Any thoughts?

Via: BGR

You’ve seen iPhone commercials and you’ve seen how quickly and smoothly the iPhone navigates the web in those commercials. If you have an iPhone you’ll likely agree that your iPhone doesn’t seem quite as snappy as the iPhone in the commercial. (On a personal note: sometimes my iPhone does seem as snappy as the one on the commercial, most of the time though…) Check out this awesome advertising versus reality bit:

Man, if we could do that to politicians… never mind. Anyway does this constitute deceptive advertising? Are customers being mislead by ads like these? Or is Apple compressing the normal amount of time it takes to do something on the iPhone just to get everything in the ad?
via: silicon alley insider

If you’re reading this you’re probably not after a Blackberry Bold but maybe you have a friend or relative with a bad jones for the Blackberry. You need to spend a few moments consoling and explaining that the reason they can’t have a Blackberry Bold in the US is because your iPhone is eating up all the bandwidth available.

The problem arises because both devices rely on the 3G network and AT&T can barely handle the amount of volume generated by the iPhone so adding the Bold won’t be possible until AT&T can manage the data used by the iPhone. It turns out that one iPhone uses as much data as twenty blackberrys not because iPhone users are surfing or texting more but because Apple uses a scheme where the iPhone is constantly accessing the AT&T network whereas RIM routes things through the companies servers, saving AT&T from managing the network.

Those are the boring techie reasons but who cares about accuracy? Those wannabe Bold owners just want a shoulder to cry on, so be a good person and help them out.
Via: Globe and Mail

Good news: on Sunday Best Buy started selling iPhones.
Bad News: Best Buy sucks at customer service
Good News: You can get an iPhone three different places.
Bad news: Two of the three places have horrible customer service (AT&T, Best Buy)
Good news: One place has great customer service (Apple stores)
Bad news: You’re likely much closer to an AT&T or a Best Buy than an Apple store.
Good news: The price remains unchanged ($199.00 and $299.00)
Bad news: still no insurance option.

Well, there is more to it to that. If you remember the ascension of the iPod to the market making and dominating device it has become the trail closely parallels the number of different places the iPod was available at. First, it was just the Apple online store, then Target came on board followed by Dell and now the things are everywhere. More stores mean more exposure and more exposure means a growing market share. If you’re a fan of the iPhone this is unqualified good news.

Jailbreaking your iPhone was the first thing a lot of users did before the 2.0 revision and App store rolled out. It was a little bit of hassle, but the payoff was huge: Your iPhone could run a variety of cool apps. Once the App store was revealed the impetuous to jailbreak the iPhone dwindled. Why even bother with the warranty voiding hassle of jailbreaking your iPhone when there are a bajillion (give or take) applications you can buy (or download for free) in the App store?

Personal reasons vary. There’s the “just because they made it hard for me” reason. Which is great, it is the same reason people climb mountains. There’s the “it’s my hardware I should be able to do whatever I want one it is mine” reason. Also great, once you buy something it is yours (or it should be). There’s the “I’m writing a book so I have to” reason which is really just a lame excuse, no one believes you. Finally there is the “I want my phone to do more” reason. Also great, who can freakin blame you for wanting… more...

Cell phones are a confusing business in the United States. You can get something pretty cheaply if you’re willing to sign a contract but that and the fact you’re going to end paying for stuff you don’t use or don’t want are the only certain things. If you find yourself in that hazy area between the time you want a new iPhone but before your old contract is history getting an iPhone can be a b**** because AT&T might just refuse to sell you one… At any price. To the average person that seems like the brink of lunacy. You have money, you want an iPhone and AT&T says: Sorry, we’re not here to sell things for money.

Once AT&T says “no” are you hopelessly screwed? Nope, thanks to the efforts of Mike Elgan at Computerworld. It turns out AT&T will sell you an iPhone. You just have to be prepared to jump through some hoops. The chances are that your local AT&T doesn’t know the entire skinny about getting an iPhone so you may have to resort to more drastic measures. If this is you, read what Mike wen through to get an… more...

Everyone knows iPhone users demand the best, hey they’re using an iPhone after all. But might they be the neediest users around? You surely remember when they howled about the iPhone price drop and now iPhone users are up in arms over the outage that left iPhone users without service in the Northeast recently.

According to Fortune the only people who really seemed miffed about the outage were iPhone users. From the article:

“But by all accounts, it was mostly iPhone users who complained — vociferously — in e-mail messages, in Twitter postings, on Apple and AT&T forums.”

via Fortune