AT&T Crippling BlackBerry for iPhone?

0xdeadbeef writes "BlackBerryCool got a tip that not only was AT&T removing GPS functionality from their version of the BlackBerry 8820, they're doing it so it won't show up the iPhone. While carriers crippling phones to stop them from competing with pay-per-use services is nothing new, this might be the first time they've done it to make their other products seem less diminished."

Comments

sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

The new AT&T feels alot like the old AT&T.

Re:sigh...

[DoraLives]

> The new AT&T feels alot like the old AT&T.

Trust me on this one ..... it's worse.

Re:sigh...

[Phu5ion]

fixed that for you. Meet the new AT&T, same as the old AT&T.

Re:sigh...

[PopeRatzo]

The new AT&T feels alot like the old AT&T.

I take your point, but there's something new in this type of behavior that we're seeing in all sorts of corporations. Instead of the traditional "free market" belief that "you give the customer what they want" and "supply and demand", there's a sense that we're the ones who are obliged to give the corporations what they want.

Let's face it, it's been some years now since consumers had anything like the power wielded by corporations. They pay the government and the government works for them. We, in turn, exist to give the corporations what they want, which is profits. Our desires don't enter into the equation.

The "free market", if it ever existed, is a deeply flawed concept. No matter how its done, the story always ends the same way. We are the consumables.

Re:sigh...

[phreakincool]

Actually, that should be:
"The new at&t feels alot like the old AT&T."
They're smaller, but bolder.

Re:sigh...

[networkBoy]

It's much worse than that:
meet the new AT&T, the old SBC.
-nB

SBC's employees refer to the company as Sodomized By Cowboys.

Q: What do you get when you cross Apple and AT&

[SimHacker]

A: AT&T

Yeah, I know: old joke. Used to be IBM instead of AT&T. But this story just proves it again! It's funny because it's true.

-Don

USA - rest of world

[spectrokid]

And in the mean time, in the rest of the world, crippled phones DON'T EXIST. Because the phone you use is independent from the carrier. Welcome to open standards (GSM).

Re:USA - rest of world

[smittyoneeach]

I've found you can find happiness in slavery.--Reznor

Re:USA - rest of world

[Scudsucker]

Threaten cell execs with the chair and maybe they'd shape up....

Re:USA - rest of world

[Espectr0]

It isn't pretty in all of the rest of the world either. In latin america, all phones are locked to the carrier that provides them. While they don't cripple the phones as much as verizon (my v3 came with all features enabled), we can't choose carriers. GSM doesn't mean that the phone is free from carrier lockdown.

Re:USA - rest of world

[AFCArchvile]

Yup, exactly the reason why I bailed on Verizon. Their phones wouldn't do Bluetooth OBEX transfers unless you happened to get a specific phone with an "accidental" firmware revision where they forgot to lock down OBEX. Add to that the mandatory Verizon crippleware UI, which slows down the majority of the baseline phones and sometimes results in confusing menus.

I purchased an unlocked RIZR in December 06 and brought it to a T-Mobile store. They gladly ran the FCC number port on the Verizon number and activated the phone. And it's MINE. It cost a bit more, but I have that knowledge that I can take it to the other US GSM network provider without having to choose an entirely different phone (unless they start putting in strange restrictions, but anyway). I know it's not going to last forever, but I felt burned going from a spartan-but-efficient Nokia 6015i to the scary mish-mash of RAZR flip phone knockoffs, plus the usability abortion that was the first-rev LG Chocolate.

Re:USA - rest of world

[smittyoneeach]

Screw the furniture. Threaten not to use their products, and you've got their attention. Recall, there had been civilization prior to the advent of the cell phone...

Re:USA - rest of world

[Scudsucker]

I think the chair from the Happiness and Slavery music video would be rather intimidating. :)

Re:USA - rest of world

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I live in America. I have an uncrippled phone, because I opted to buy my own. I could either buy an uncrippled phone, or let the telco subsidize my purchase, but they want to cripple the phone so I would end up paying more money in the long term. Ultimately, I decided that to replace my uncrippled phone with one crippled in ways I didn't care about, but that was superior in other ways.

Let's be clear, you can bitch about the loss of rights companies force on you. Just be prepared to pay full-price for those things. Alternatively, you can buy a phone where they cripple the bluetooth, just use USB to move things, and say, "Hey, bluetooth isn't worth $150 to me to buy an uncrippled version."

It's actually more freedom in the US.

Re:USA - rest of world

[Reaperducer]

And in the mean time, in the rest of the world, crippled phones DON'T EXIST. Because the phone you use is independent from the carrier. Welcome to open standards (GSM).

False.

Locked, subsidized, and crippled phones exist on a number of carriers in Europe and Asia. I've seen them in England, France, Belgium, Austria, and Japan.

You sound like someone who's been drinking too much Anti-U.S. Kool-Aid and has never shopped around for mobile phone service outside the United States.

And for the record, I have an UNLOCKED GSM phone that I use on T-Mobile here in the United States. You don't have to buy a locked phone. Just just have to be dumb to do it.

Re:USA - rest of world

[fast penguin]

Here in Portugal its very common practice for cellulars to be locked into a carrier, and, in fact, the only places I see cellulars being sold is in the carrier shops.

Re:USA - rest of world

[MacDork]

Oh wow, looky there... crippled phones on networks outside the United States.

Re:USA - rest of world

[Scruffy Dan]

Up hear in Canada our GSM provider (Rogers, who used to be an AT&T partner) lock down many MP3 phones, by installing their own media player over the default player that comes with the phone. The Rogers player can only use purchased songs for ring tones, and the media buttons (Fast-forward rewind, play/pause...) don't work with the rogers player.

Thankfully phones can be (legally) unlocked/unbranded up here so with a bit of work you can gedt a properly functioning cellphone.

Re:USA - rest of world

[hedwards]

And for the record, I have an UNLOCKED GSM phone that I use on T-Mobile here in the United States. You don't have to buy a locked phone. Just just have to be dumb to do it. Depends, if you're buying one without a contract, then yes that is stupid. If you are taking the subsidized phone, then it really depends upon how much it costs, and how much the ability to bring it over to another carrier is worth it to you.

I personally have no problem with the idea of a phone locked to the carrier that subsidized it. I just wish they could unlock it after the contract period was over.

Re:USA - rest of world

[tompaulco]

I have an uncrippled phone, because I opted to buy my own. I could either buy an uncrippled phone, or let the telco subsidize my purchase, but they want to cripple the phone so I would end up paying more money in the long term.
So is $700 the subsidized price of the iPhone. If so, ouch. If not, then why is AT&T/Apple crippling a full priced device? Maybe people should speak with their wallets and not buy it. I know I have. But that wasn't because it is locked. They've just priced it out of my range.

Re:USA - rest of world

[frusengladje]

And in the mean time, in the rest of the world, crippled phones DON'T EXIST. Because the phone you use is independent from the carrier. Welcome to open standards (GSM). You do realize you can just use pretty much any old GSM phone on AT&T's network don't you? Or Tmobile's for that matter.

Re:USA - rest of world

[G-funk]

They've definitely shot themselves in the foot with all the missing features and lockdown of the iPhone. The price is fine IMO, if it had GPS 3G and could actually do all the "phone stuff" any old nokia could do, I'd have shipped one over from the states the day they went on sale.

Re:USA - rest of world

[arivanov]

Yeah, bollocks.

Tell that to vodafone UK who removed the VOIP from all recent nokias.

Re:USA - rest of world

[arivanov]

"Blackberry user" and "speaking with wallet". This is probably about right. All addicts do speak with their wallets. Giving the crack dealer as much as he wants to get that wonderful fix from a vibrator slotted in the immediate vicinity of their belt buckle.
On a more serious note, the BB is a business product. Nearly all businesses buy the phones unlocked. They can get bulk rates, discounts, etc and the entire "stay in contract to get the phone subsidised" malarkey no longer makes sense.

Re:USA - rest of world

[hughk]

Not quite correct. I have seen functionality (PTT) dropped from menus because the supplying carrier (Vodafone) didn't support it. This is not a SIM thing, it is because the carrier has a customised software image.

Re:USA - rest of world

[stewbacca]

I wish people would quit raggin' on about this. Yes we know the US system sucks. Deal with it. Or don't move here. Or move/stay to/in England (or for even better phone service, Germany).

As much as I hate the US system, you still miss the main point about it: a single US carrier is probably bigger (more money), than every UK carrier combined. It's all about the money, and in this case, the US consumer is the loser. (Sound familiar, cough, Microsoft, cough). However, successfully large monopolistic powerful companies are the backbone of the US economy, so I for one am not going to complain too loudly.

As far as USA vs. the Rest of the World goes...enjoy your 10x cost-of-living and your 50%-ish income taxes (and your 18% VAT on everything you buy). Tp each his own, and I've tried both. I'll gladly trade poor cell phone service for affordable cost-of-living. You know, the one where I can buy a four bedroom house on my own property for less than $250,000 and the same place in the UK would go for at least a million pounds (two million dollars). Or my drum equipment that I bought in the US for roughly $10,000 that easily costs 15,000 pounds ($30,000).

Don't get me wrong, I loved my time in the UK but I just couldn't justify throwing my income away every year to live in an overpriced, crowded town house-quality "flat", just so I could enjoy my choice of mobile phone service providers.

Re:USA - rest of world

[Aceticon]

GSM doesn't mean that the phone is free from carrier lockdown

It is if you buy your own phone and THEN get the SIM card from the carrier.

Make the maths: i bet even there the total cost of the 1 or 2 years subscription you're locked into if you get a phone from the carrier is more than the price of a new phone.

As an added benefict, subscriptions for SIM Only users (those that bring their own phone) are usually cheaper for the same number of minutes/texts/whatever than the equivalent subscriptions with phone. Same thing for pre-pay.

Re:USA - rest of world

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Umm... the point is, if I let the telco turn off bluetooth filesharing (not headsets, they want to sell you those), they give you the phone at a discount, because they assume that you will use their over the air rather than learn how to plug a USB cable into your computer.

And where are your statistics coming from. My telco service is a great deal. I always have full connectivity, my cell phone was dirt cheap even after getting the various necessary add-ons. Granted I don't have GPS and don't use the web, so I cannot speak for it, but I don't really have a need for either of those anyway. I don't want a laptop/phone, as it will then be a crappy version of each (see the iPhone, too large for a phone, too keyboardless for a computer).

Re:USA - rest of world

[CaptainZapp]

It's actually more freedom in the US. Sheeesh! You sound like some 3rd rate AT&T PR flunky, I dare say.

In Europe, at least where I'm located, I can either get a non-crippled phone at full price, or I can get a non-crippled phone subsidized by my carrier.

In addition I can get a subsidized pre-payed phone, which may be sim locked for a specified amount of time, but which is non-crippled.

So let's see: I can chose between non-crippled, non-crippled and non-crippled subsidized or not, while you can chose between crippled and non-crippled; non-crippled at ooutrageous prices, only.

Yeah, you can certainly argue that you have the greater variety of choice. A choice, though about which I couldn't care less.

Re:USA - rest of world

[kalirion]

Last I heard, my service (Virgin Mobile) didn't support any phones aside form its own. Personally I don't care too much, since I only use the phone to, get this, talk to people. But there goes the idea of choosing phones.

Improved services attract consumers

[Technician]

Many carriers think they are a monopoly and don't want to have their low end rob the profit from the high end.

They are forgetting something. There is competition. They should strive to make all of their products and services more valuable to consumers.

Here is what we have so far..
1 An i-phone which is cool who's bill comes in a box shipped by UPS Oh and by the way is has a monopoly carrier.

2 A Blackberry. They are obtainable from several carriers, but AT&T cripples them worse than other carriers.

3 A Blackberry on another carrier.

4.. The rest of the market

If you avoid #1 due to the carrier issues and monster bills, you are now likely to avoid #2 for both the service and carrier reputation. Just what were they thinking? They don't hold a monopoly on Blackberries.

http://www.bbhub.com/2006/09/18/rating-the-major-b lackberry-carrier-retailers-who-gets-it-and/

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[NDPTAL85]

The monster bills come with any phone on AT&T. And they don't equate to the cost of said bill. For example I got a iPhone bill that was 48 double sided pages long but all the charges were free and included in my plan.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[WPIDalamar]

"free" ... on an iPhone bill... cute

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Opportunist]

This is nice and lovley until you realize that everyone cripples the service, so you have no choice.

I do not know if this is the case here, but the market goes that way. Why bother offering something when your competition doesn't offer it either? More importantly, when all the customer cares about is that he pays 0.01 cent less with you than with your competing company.

Look at the ads from the various cell providers. Does anyone mention his services? Or is all they push their "low" price?

Generally, you'll see that they all offer exactly the same. The reason for this is simple: Yes, you might attract maybe 1% of the market with a certain feature, but you'll have to support it for ALL your customers. That costs money. While, when you can lower your cost, and thus you can lower your price, you will invariably attract more than 1% of the market.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Technician]

This is nice and lovley until you realize that everyone cripples the service, so you have no choice.

Actually I do have a choice. In the world of instant gratification many see the glass as half full, ie there are features that don't work.

I look at the package offered, and then move on.

Case in point. I bought a cell phone with the understanding that it is just a phone. We deliberately had the carrier eliminate all web access. They said "text messaging won't work". I said "Good, neither does the company store". I carry a 2 way pager. I don't need anything for a fee in the company store. This has kept our phone bill reasonable. When we get data charges, I call the fraud department, then the billing department. (I know I should just start with the billing department, but it's more fun that way)

I use a Laptop for Web, music, video and e-mail on the go. I have an MP3 player which has no charges to sync. I use a 2 way pager for IM. The phone provider could have offered a competitive package, but failed badly on price.

Don't ever think you have no choice. Look at the glass half full and decide if you want a cordless phone. Add on from there if the offerings are good. If they aren't then look for other glasses.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Reaperducer]

This is nice and lovley until you realize that everyone cripples the service, so you have no choice.

Not every carrier cripples the service. If you believe this, you either haven't done your research or live out in the sticks where there are only one or two carriers.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[PenGun]

"Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night."

  I guess that would be the blackness that's everywhere but the cursor, boot camp indeed. Fear the dark ... we wait for you.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Rytr23]

I believe this was directed at the only 4 "national" carriers Verizon/ATT/Sprint/T-mobile here in the us. Yes, there is alltel(soon to be aquired by one of the aforementioned,) cricket,helio, etc etc, but ask most on the east coast if they have ever heard of them and you will get blank stares. And yes, they all cripple their phones in one way or another, well, maybe not sprint, but I don't know anyone who doesn't have issues with them so they are out for me at least. And if you want gsm(as CDMA phones give you very limited selection) its either ATT or T-mobile.. both cripplers, and T-mobile has by far the smallest network footprint (although I hope this improves with their pending 3g rollout) So no, there really is very little choice in most places, and not just "the sticks"

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Cathbard]

But is GPS in a phone an improved service? I won't buy a phone with any GPS chips. When they have to use triangulation from towers to locate you it requires a converted effort and is only done when they are trying to find a crim or lost hiker etc., With GPS in everybody's phone they could compile a database of everybody's movements. With the increases in data storage capabilities this could get way out of hand. Add that to this new technology that uses your phone as a proxy server to extend coverage so it never actually gets turned off and we are painting a very orwellean scenario indeed. When all cell phones have gps, I'll simply go without.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Opportunist]

Actually, Europe has usually more carriers per country than is healthy. A market of maybe 8 million people shared by 6 providers.

Still, none of them offers a full service portfolio. I was quite amazed when I was in the US to see what my cell could do if it's allowed to. Push to talk? Coupling cell and landline? Unheard of in Europe. Similar things apply to the contracts. Free text messages and/or free minutes with your service fee? Impossible. Ok, this is slowly changing, but for the longest time, none of the providers offered anything with the 20 bucks they charge per month.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[stewbacca]

I think too many people overlook the actual product when considering a "carrier". Frankly, I could care less what carrier my iPhone works on, because the iPhone is great. I didn't buy my phone because of or in spite of the carrier; I bought it because it is a good phone. Seriously, how many people go into a store thinking what carrier they want to buy? No, people go in wanting the product, not the service provider. I blame the US business model because in the UK I had the option to use any carrier with any phone.

Until the US legislators do something meaningful, we have to deal with imposed market monopolies and being stuck with a provider (cell phone, cable tv, usually the phone and electricity too). The Digital Millenium Act or whatever it's called was supposed to free up these markets, but I think all it did was make large market monopolies stronger. Follow the money, and I bet a lot of the cable companies' money will be found in the politicians' campaign funds. I live in San Antonio and there is ONE FREAKING cable provider. ONE provider for the 30th largest metropolitan area in the US. 2 MILLION PEOPLE get to choose from ONE FREAKING provider! The sad thing is they (Time Warner) are worse than my one freaking provider I had in the UK (Sky).

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Technician]

Frankly, I could care less what carrier my iPhone works on, because the iPhone is great. I didn't buy my phone because of or in spite of the carrier; I bought it because it is a good phone.

Many people feel that way. Many people don't. Take for example VOIP adapters. Linksys and many others make very nice adapters. When I walk into my local retailer, I reject them because they are locked to Vontage when my application is to use them on Asterisk with Broadvoice.

In the case of Vontage tied adaptors, each adaptor needs an account for about $30/month each. With Asterisk they can be all extensions on my PBX. The family can share the Landline for local calls, VOIP on Broadvoice, and each have custom voice mailboxes on their own extension.

Neutered hardware and forced choice of carrier is a factor for many services.

Joining the carrier of the rest of your family and extended circle of friends often provides free daytime minutes but only when they are all on the same carrier. Someone switching carriers often means using daytime minutes for both parties that was once free and unlimited. There are plan reasons to prefer a carrier other than just your bottom line. How much does it now cost for your extended family to keep in touch? Do they now feel the meter running when calling you?

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[waynelorentz]

I think this is the root of your problem:

ask most on the east coast

You're assuming that the situation in 12% of the country is the same for the other 88%.

U.S. Cellular has home territory in 26 states (including parts of the east coast), and free roaming nationwide.
Cincinnati Bell's home territory is Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana, but also offers free national roaming.
And there are dozens of other options for people who don't live on the east coast. Don't assume everyone is in your same shit boat.

And as for T-Mobile crippling phones.. why are you buying your phone from T-Mobile in the first place? You just buy whatever handset you want and use it contract-free on T-Mobile's network. I've done that with the last five or six phones in my family.

If you keep going back to the carrier and buying crippled phones, they you shouldn't complain about it. You did it to yourself.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[stewbacca]

I would say most people don't care, and more importantly, they don't KNOW their hardware is crippled by a specific plan. Therefore, I would argue, that it really doesn't matter. The only people who care are those slashdot/open source obsessed people that actually fact-check and look into things. Most people buy a phone because they like how it looks, sadly.

People use phones for different things. I could care less about minutes. Even with the minimum minutes on the AT&T iPhone plan, I'll never use that many in a month, and I will continue to rack up rollover minutes. I use my phone for business contacts, email, surfing the web and as my only home phone. In otherwords, I'm not one of those dweebs who walks around with a thing in their ear, thinking my world would end if I ever missed a single call. No, my phone sits in its charger base connected to my computer about 95% of the time. When I go on the road, I take it with me. When I go to the store, I leave it at home. I'm not as important as I would like to think I am. (True for 99% of you out there too).

I actually see the extended circle of friends plans to be just as manipulative as being tied to AT&T. It is all marketing, and I choose not to care about having the same plan as my family, because most plans offer me plenty of minutes. So, for me at least, the plan is absolutely irrelevant. I like the phone, not the service.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Technician]

I could care less about minutes. Even with the minimum minutes on the AT&T iPhone plan, I'll never use that many in a month, and I will continue to rack up rollover minutes.

In your case.. Single.

In my case .. Married with 2 teens. Family plan minutes rarely roll over. Curbing run-away costs is a prime factor in carrier and plan selection.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[Cathbard]

Yes. They already know where I live and public phones don't know who I am. I think you are missing the point. A cell phone with a GPS chip is a tracking device that pinpoints exactly where you are at any time, not just when you make a call.

Re:Improved services attract consumers

[stewbacca]

In your case.. Single.

And MY case is much more prevalent than is portrayed. Not everyone is a cell-phone junkie. Some of us are successful, working adults, with two teenagers two, yet are able to somehow manage our lives without 5 cell phones and 10000000 minutes per month. The providers LOVE the fact that there are tons of people like you and really don't care about me and the millions of other mes out there, because, surprise, we aren't the ones spending hundreds of dollars a month on minutes. Therefore, we very under-represented in these conversations.

On a side note, can someone seriously, with credibility, explain to me why these people just HAVE to have a bluetooth phone thingy in their ear 24/7? Is it some sorta geek image thing, or am I just getting to the point where I yell at the neighborhood kids to get off of my lawn? \

I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do this

[intx13]

I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do this. Even though I wouldn't think that the iPhone and the Blackberry compete directly, at least prior to this decision AT&T sold one popular device with GPS functionality. Why they would change so that they now sell no devices (at the iPhone/Blackberry level) with GPS capabilities?

I could understand if Apple wanted this to happen... but how does this help AT&T? AT&T doesn't/shouldn't care if people are buying Blackberries over iPhones on the basis of GPS, so long as the Blackberry comes from AT&T. If they believed that GPS was the tipping point, those customers are now buying nothing from AT&T.

Doesn't seem so smart to me.

Re:Wow

[ushering05401]

Someone may be jumping the gun here. Wouldn't an AT&T/Telenav deal make more sense than an Apple/AT&T deal here?

I am going to hold off before taking a blogger's word that this move is iPhone related in the least. Telenav is now the exclusive 3rd party GPS app for the AT&T offering... follow the money.

Regards.

how retarted.

[Lumpy]

The GPS in every cellphone I have ever tried was incredibly crappy anyways. The Blackberry GPs's dont get a fix unless you carefully hold them up in the air in an open field, Nextel GPS phones also suck horribly. The iPhone dies not have a GPS for two very good reasons. 1. it's a metal casing phone. 2. GPS modules in phones simply do not work so they left it out. The cheapie Magellan Gold GPS I got for $89.00 on ebay kicks the crud out of every single GPS enabled phone I have ever seen. and yes I have seen lots of them. They can not get a GPS fix from inside your pocket or on your hip, they never work in newer cars as the glare film and other tratements make the windshield electrically conductive so it blocks RF signals.

I am sure they are disabling the GPS simply because the GPS sucks. The is the same company that 3 years ago refused to allow phones on it's network that did not have GPS's in them.

Re:how retarted.

[gad_zuki!]

I dont think most cell phones have gps. They have "enhanced gps" or somesuch. They dont ever interact with gps satellites. They just know which cell tower they talked to and perhaps the nearby ones and do something like triangulation. Your cell phone knows the gps coords of the cell tower because the carrier does. So your phone asks "Hey Sprint, what is the gps of tower 581290?" Its not much more complicated than that, so the results are always going to be pretty poor compared to real gps.

Your magellan gold is a real gps device. Adding a real gps device to a phone would raise the price like 50+ dollars (and bulk). Its not worth it to the buyers right now.

Re:how retarted.

[the unbeliever]

I don't know how verizon's vznavigator service works (actual GPS or tower triangulation), but it can get my current location within 10-20 feet when I allow it to locate me.

Re:how retarted.

[Lumpy]

Incorrect, most cellphone Chipsets have GPS built in, even my crappy old nextel candybar phone had a real gps you fire up the program and watch it try over the next 20 minutes to get a lock on 3 or more sattelites. while the magellan has a lock on 6 of them in 1.5 minutes and has another 4 at full strength. The phone's app shows 5 birds only at less than 50% strength. The 3 different models of blackberry I owned all did the same thing incredibly poor GPS signal reception and are typically only 6-8 channel GPS's as well. I never saw a hybrid type phone that would fake the GPS location from the cell tower id, but then I've only dealt with corperate cellphones like the blackberry, nextel and highend phones like the blackjack and other smartphones. But even the entry level $50.00 without a contract phones like the i315 that is popular with the gettho boost mobile crowd has a real GPS that simply cant even recieve a good signal in an open field from the GPS sattelites.

Even the GSM phone chipsets I have played with from resellers like sparkfun have incredibly bad quality GPS's on them. I had to buy a Gps signal strength preamp and wire it to a magnetic mount amplified GPS antenna to get them to get and keep a GPS lock in the one tracker I built. I went through 4 GM862 Evaluation Kit cellular+gps kits before I discovered that the gps performance was normal for cellphone chipsets.

Re:how retarted.

[ynososiduts]

The GPS in my LG VX8500 chocolate can get my location instantly and using VZW navigator has never lead me in the wrong direction. Maybe you just bought phones with crappy GPS, and have never tried other phones.

Re:how retarted.

[Amiga Lover]

Sounds like you just have a habit of buying shitty cellphones, probably just buying them based on looks. All 3 GPS-enabled cells I've used have worked fine, including in-pocket and in car.

Re:how retarted.

[voidy]

I have found that the Blackberry GPS is actually very good. It always shows a birds eye view of pretty much the precise location you're in (in England). Don't know how many Blackberries you've got, but I can't agree with your statement.

Re:how retarted.

[PitaBred]

Wow. Sounds like you had crappy luck. I have a Blackberry 8800 that I got specifically because of the GPS, and it works great. Locks on to 5-8 satellites in 30 seconds or so, every time. Locks on my position, and the map starts following me, in my car. Don't even have to set it on the dashboard or anything, which my brother's Garmin GPS unit almost requires.

Re:how retarted.

[gorfie]

Are you stating that a dedicated device performs a given function better than a multi-purpose device? I think most of us would agree that this is generally true, but there are those in the world who aren't comfortable accessorizing themselves with four or five electronic gadgets.

Re:how retarted.

[Reaperducer]

The GPS-enabled Nextels we have at work routinely locate my co-workers hundreds of miles from where they actually are -- often in the middle of Lake Michigan when they're actually on dry land. Sometimes I can be looking at someone in the office in Chicago and the computer puts their "dot" in the middle of a field in Iowa.

If Apple offered GPS in their phone as crappy as what appears to be the standard, they'd be raked over the coals for it.

Re:how retarted.

[slartibart]

You're making terrible excuses. I have a Sprint BB 8830 (I'm posting from it, btw) and the gps works perfectly fine. It gets a lock in seconds (slightly longer than a pure bluetooth 'puck'), in any car, new or old. I don't know how well it works in my pocket because there are no apps out there that let you transmit your location. And if you only want to see it on the screen, well, it can't be in your pocket.

Is this in any way surprising?

[owlnation]

I have to say that this seems normal behavior for any phone company the world over. I've never had the full features of any phone I've ever owned from many carriers in several countries.

It's what phone companies do. It's usually a question of finding the provider that sucks the least.

Although, in this case it seems a little back-to-front. I would guess that there may be users who end up with a Blackberry because they can't afford one, or their company prefers that system. I would seriously doubt there are many (non-corporation based) users who actually prefer a Blackberry now. Cost aside.

And, can I ask that maybe it's time to have a moratorium on iPhone stories. Yes, I think it's cool too -- but I am sick and tired reading of about it. The Firehose if clogged with iPhone stories. I want to read about something else now. Thanks.

Re:Is this in any way surprising?

[Oldsmobile]

This is infact not normal behaviour, I don't know where you got this from. In countries with functioning mobile phone markets (that would be almost everywhere else except the US) the customers will quickly abandon any company cripling their phones for another one.

Re:Is this in any way surprising?

[Reaperducer]

This is infact not normal behaviour, I don't know where you got this from. In countries with functioning mobile phone markets (that would be almost everywhere else except the US) the customers will quickly abandon any company cripling their phones for another one.

You're absolutely right. Look at how Vodaphone, O2, NTT, KDDI, and other companies have been brought to their knees by crippling and locking their phones.

Oh, wait. They haven't.

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. GSM was free (as in speech) back in the early 90's, but the market has changed greatly since then.

Re:Is this in any way surprising?

[Jack Sombra]

"I have to say that this seems normal behavior for any phone company the world over"
Over in the UK never had a crippled phone and been on most of the major carriers and on various plans from subcription to pay-as-you-go
US is only country i have ever heard of this, just like US is only country i have heard of where incoming calls to mobiles cost (or use up your mins). Rest of the world you only pay for incoming when you are out of the country (aka forwarding on charges) and phone companies are getting forced to reduced those prices all the time

Re:Is this in any way surprising?

[Scannerman]

"I have to say that this seems normal behavior for any phone company the world over. I've never had the full features of any phone I've ever owned from many carriers in several countries."

That is exactly the point, in most countries you don't have to buy the phone from the airtime provider. - You can, and they give financial incentives to do so for consumers [Businesses usually just get a hardware credit to buy whatever they want with or keep] but since its not obligatory there is no way a crippled product would be viable.

Sure, that's exactly it. Yeah.

[jht]

As long as carriers dictate what phones do or don't do, this is no big deal - it's just typical. I suspect the GPS functionality lockdown has nothing to do with iPhone, it's probably just that AT&T wants to sell their Telenav service and make money from it. The iPhone really doesn't compete in the same segment as Blackberries of any stripe, and they sell at a non-subsidized price - GPS or the lack thereof isn't going to make a hell of a lot of difference in the Blackberry/iPhone purchase decision.

It's not like this is rare. Heck, Verizon's locked down the OBEX capabilities on most of their Bluetooth phones so they can sell their wireless sync service. Even Apple had to bite the bullet here - since there's no subsidy on the phone and Apple pockets all the money, don't you think they'd love to sell unlocked iPhones that would work on every GSM carrier? Or sell CDMA models through Verizon or Sprint? Of course they would. But to get AT&T to sell 'em and modify the network (build out EDGE capacity and add the Visual Voicemail system) they had to agree to a multi-year exclusivity deal.

So basically, the 8820 being modified because of Apple? I call BS. And if you want your Blackberry and you want it on AT&T, find yourself an unlocked version and just DIY. It's GSM, you can do that. It'll be unsubsidized, but at least that way it'll be a fair fight with the iPhone.

Wait - even though iPhone is unsubsidized it's still locked. Never mind!

Verizon too!

[dimer0]

Comon, this isn't just AT&T. My *Verizon* 8830 phone has been "crippled" for about 2 weeks before the iPhone came out.

I called Verizon and inquired why my phone doesn't have the GPS turned on, and after getting to some 'data expert', I was told that the reason is Blackberry won't turn over some API or something to allow Verizon to enable this.

Now, I doubt that's really the reason, but again - this isn't some AT&T and/or Apple stunt.

Re:Verizon too!

[ImaLamer]

Fuck Verizon. Not that I've ever had them but they just suck. My buddy and I were in the store for some adapter for him and I said "iPhone". OOPS!

The sales people swarmed on me saying that the reason they didn't have it is because Apple wanted them to do this and that; when the real issue was that Verizon is in the market to sell music at twice the price of iTunes. They didn't want this thing on their network because it would cut their music profits in half. Even more, it let you get video from YouTube and other sources while Verizon has their own. Then they told us that they were bigger than AT&T, in all aspects, and that the food at their brainwashing center was par excellence.

Actually, fuck them all. T-mobile to Verizon, to AT&T to Sprint. They all cripple our phones, then subsidise the phone to lock you in. Sure, my Samsung T509 may cost $300 brand new, but you took out the features that make it worth that. It should now cost about 35 bucks.

And WTF happened to PCS services? The first non-cellular provider I knew of was GTE Wireless. They were going to revolutionize the industry with these sweet Qualcomm phones. And they did for a bit. The phones were yours, no contract. The minutes were around 10 cents or less depending on your plan. At a time when cellular services were finally getting that low (for a huge monthly plan) they were leaving the gates with it. The sound was crystal clear and the reception was everywhere. I could even send e-mail from that phone for no additional costs. Text messaging was possible too! No extra cost! Then the cellular players started getting into the game, and with help from fuck faces like Motorola and Nokia we got these restricted phones that cost ten times more than they should. I only know of one provider today that doesn't make you sign a contract for month to month billing - but who wants to pay top dollar for a phone that they've restricted? Since they all do it, there is no competition to not do it. There seem to be these niche phones, iPhone, Sidekick, Helio, etc, but monthly fees attached that make me wince (data services cost as much as DSL, but don't carry a tenth of the traffic, WTF??!?!?! AT&T's data plans are nuts compared to the Sidekick monthly IMHO.). So again, fuck sprint and ameritech, cellular one, and verizon for buying up GTE.

I want to prank call their CEO's, but I can't afford the minutes.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Where in the story did you come up with the "Apple needs to be" - as far as I can see, Apple has nothing to do with this as it is a carrier decision.

I doubt Apple gives a hoot, they know they can sell with the hype - there are other devices that blow iPhone away in terms of different services - mainly those offerings from Nokia and Samsung for example.

USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, GSM is not universally the same. There are at least 3 GSM bands (frequencies escape me). North America has one, Europe another, and (I think) the Middle East has the third. My AT&T/Cingular GSM phone would not work in Europe.

Also, GSM does not prevent a phone company from crippling service. The company can still filter/block your data. Any node on the network can refuse to play fair.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[dunkelfalke]

there are four bands. gsm 900 and gsm 1800 are used in europe, gsm 850 and gsm 1900 are used in americas (because 900 mhz and 1800 mhz were already used in usa that time).

quad bands gsm cell phones work everywhere.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[Albanach]

No, GSM is not universally the same. There are at least 3 GSM bands (frequencies escape me). North America has one, Europe another, and (I think) the Middle East has the third.

The rest of the world uses 900 and 1800MHz for GSM. The US uses two different frequencies, 850 and 1900.
 
Most phones sold in the Europe are tri band or quad band these days, covering all the frequencies needed to roam internationally. I've happily been using various UK phones in the US since 2002, and roaming in Europe and Africa man times before then.
 
You are right though, that just because you have a compatible phone, networks can still play unfair. Even your home network when you see roaming costs, like Vodafone UK charging $20/Mb for roaming data!

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[digitalchinky]

So your that one single dot on the US chart.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[Albanach]

Geez. That would have added almost $4,500 to my phone bill. Good thing I live in the United States where I get all-I-can-eat data plan from T-Mobile for $19.99/month ... Oh, wait... I'm sorry. I forgot this is Slashdot and we're supposed to be bashing America here. Sorry.

That's on your home network, not roaming.

You're right though, T-Mobile USA do offer a better international data roaming rate, had you been roaming in the UK, or any other country bar Canada, you'd have been charged $15.36 per MB + tax, so for your 223MB the bill would have been just $3425.28 + tax saving you $1,000 from what Vodafone UK would charge me!

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[zippthorne]

Yeah, but his home network is a country with a landmass 90% size of continental Europe.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[arivanov]

Their latest data roaming rate is actually 12 Eu per day for up to 50 MB on partner networks if you are on a dedicated data product. If you use data a lot I suggest you take on that offer, get the card or USB modem coming with it and forget about using data on your normal phone. It comes with 3G monthly within the UK as well for 25 quid. There as similar offers from other vodafone franchises.

The card is probably a better choice (the USB modem is quirky). It is a Huawey (should be probably called HuyHuy as more descriptive) 631 3G-HSDPA/GPRS-Edge 3 band PCMCIA. There is a linux connection manager available from vodafone betavine. Words of warning:

• The connection manager software is total and utter shite. It is worth using only abroad where you need to check that you are locked onto the correct network to use the 12Eu roaming tariff. In the UK just pick up the relevant bits of the dial strings from the debug output and add them to a chat profile.
• The card eats so much off the 3.3V rail that some small form factor laptops become unreliable. For example my HP NC4000 cannot use reliably its second memory slot if it has the card plugged in. Most large bricks like HP NC6xxx and NC8xxx are OK.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[hughk]

Isn't that the new www (port 80) tariff only? I know that Vodafone were trying hard to lock out other protocols because of their fear of VOIP.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[Albanach]

Yeah, but his home network is a country with a landmass 90% size of continental Europe.

and his network covers maybe 10% of it. Vodafone cover 99% of the landmass of the UK - is there even a single US state that can claim 99% coverage from any operator?

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[arivanov]

Nope. They do not seem to be locking out anything deliberately. They are locking out through sheer ineptitude though. I had a chance to compare the network in Bulgaria on Mtel (which is a vodafone partner) and Vodafone UK and frankly Vodafone UK should learn how to do Data networking. "Sucks bricks through a thin straw sidewise" is probably the correct description of the shit they do for data.

• Code sequence allocations and move along the 3G coding tree is not predictive, use a horrid algorithm and you can see when the cell reclaims codes and reallocates them. You initially get allocated a lot and you can see as new codes get allocated how you slip down the code tree and your bandwidth withers away until it reaches practically 0. After that the cell reshuffles the coding tree and you start again on top. This plays marry hell with TCP windows to the point where it becomes totally unusable. Compared to that Mtel actually did fairly smooth ramp-down/ups with some form of "fair share" allocation.
• The DNS-es they supply do not work half of the time so you have to override them and use Level3 or some other useable ISP DNS instead.
• MTel had Edge even in the middle of nowhere on remote cells within the mountains. As a result the network was useable nearly everywhere. Compared to that Vodafone keeps Edge off their network for solely political reasons (no tech reason whatsoever) and once you go out of the 3G coverage into the countryside the network becomes barely useable. Mtel - 200ms average ping to a server in EU when on GPRS. Vodafone - 600ms average ping. 3 times higher latency and considerably slower.

And so on... The truth is that their network and data product royally suck. Unfortunately nobody else has a sensible roaming tariff and a sensibly priced data product so there is no choice for the time being.

Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -...

[hughk]

I understood that they were using APNs to filter. They have their existing wap.vodafone which seems to support everything and now there is a web.vodafone which is associated with the new lower price tarrifs but is supposed to be port limited. I agree with you about VF-UK's DNS though. It seems to be totally screwed up and I can't understand how.

Insult to their customers' common sense?....

[Anonymous Coward]

...it sounds more like a Raspberry than a Blackberry to me!

Sorry :-(

Re:Insult to their customers' common sense?....

[arivanov]

Gooseberry mark V.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T is upset because the vast majority of people couldn't care less about the iPhone. They did costly upgrades to their network in order to be the sole provider of iPhone service in the US, and they honestly thought they were securing a phone that everybody would immediately run out and buy. Now that most of the hype has died down, and it's become clear that most people don't really care about yet another cell phone, they're attempting to make more demand for the iPhone by any means necessary.

but...

[Midnight Thunder]

Many carriers think they are a monopoly and don't want to have their low end rob the profit from the high end.

There is indeed competition in some places and in others they just scare you from leaving with their high service termination fees.

Re:but...

[Technician]

There is indeed competition in some places and in others they just scare you from leaving with their high service termination fees.

Very true,--- until the 2 year contract is up. Consumers have a memory of the problems and pains they have with a carrier. Churn is very real.

2 year contracts may only slow it down to the next contract renewal. Better service would reduce churn.

What you have here ..

[ScrewMaster]

is a classic example of the FISS principle: Foot In Self Shoot.

Not the first time our communications carriers have done that, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Re:What you have here ..

[gujo-odori]

Completely OT to the topic at hand, but I've seen your tagline a number of times and my curiosity was piqued enough to google it this time. That turned out to be a wonderful read. Cheers, mate!

Re:What you have here ..

[ScrewMaster]

You're welcome! It's been many years since I first read The Great Time Machine Hoax but I always thought it was one of Laumer's best stories. In the first chapter, when the computer announces "The mobile speaker you requested is ready" I was hooked.

The New Antitrust?

[aldheorte]

I'm never one for government regulation, but in view of the very existence of these companies in this space being based on regulation (frequency band reservation), I wonder if we need new antitrust legislation for this, a situation that the original writers of antitrust law could not have readily envisioned or comprehended? It's sort of an inverse product tying and is definitely intended to decrease competition (for example, no one can offer a competing navigation product on this device even though it clearly has the capability).

Or perhaps we need to retroactively apply the Google points on open device access to existing as well as new bands? It can be done by Congress under the ethical directive of protecting the public commons. From a business standpoint, is a legitimate intervention when the existing leasholders of those commons are mismanaging it against the interest of overall economic activity and the public good.

Not precisely...

[Junta]

You are correct in that it isn't a pure GPS situation in most all phones, but it doesn't mean it isn't interacting with GPS satellite signals, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS. GPS takes more time and is more picky about quality signal from satellites. aGPS still has some degree of satellite signal being received at the phone, but either sends that data to the tower which uses it's more optimal GPS situation to provide a lock, or receives the extra data from the tower. In other words, it isn't necessarily any less precise, just potentially dependent on communication with a tower and less time needed from the point of being turned on to being able to pinpoint the location.

Re:iPhone is old tech

[OECD]

But this is old tech in fancy wrapping.

Don't fret, I'm sure it suffer the same fate that befell the iPod.

iPhone is the benchmark?

[fermion]

At one time, like when the razr came out, people would just complain that the feature had been disabled so that ATT could charge for the service, or on a positive note, for security reasons. But now with the iPhone, and it's challenge to the safe designs, one has to say that Blackberry is so superior to the iPhone that ATT had to disable features to make the iPhone seem less lame.

Of course this ignores the fact that the phones are targeted to different people. The Blackberry is the corporate phone that allows the IT Gods to exert their divine control and the workers to be be 24 hour push leash. The iPhone, which, as we know from all the bitching, does not even have corporate accounts, is designed for the person who just wants to communicate. I certainly have no desire to pay $3k for a blackberry enterprise server when i can pay $100 for a .mac account. And I don't need data pushed to me to read while I am driving.

Wow

[JamesRose]

Anti-competitive monopolistic behaviour anyone/

Just shows up the fanboys who still claim that apple wouldn't be microsoft even if the could.

Re:Wow

[godawful]

I thought it was AT&T hindering the device not apple, so why do they need to be less paranoid?

Actually this all seems silly to me. Silly if true, I should say. I bought an iphone because I liked it, some other phone having gps isn't going to make me like it less.

Posted from my iPhone

Re:iPhone is old tech

[djh101010]

No 3rd party application availability?

What rock have you been under? 3rd party apps aren't a problem, doesn't even take a l33t haxx0r to install them. I've got apache webserver and a wiki running on mine, a Nintendo emulator (w00t! Haven't played Galaxians in years!), full shell access with ssh, and on and on.

I know it was delayed for long, and it sure looks like it. One year ago this phones feature set might have been more excusable.

OK sure, whatever. I went from a Palm Treo to the iPhone. Most of what the iphone does, the Palm does too. But without exception, the UI on the palm is clunky compared to how the iPhone does it. If you just want to check off items on a feature list, then I'm not surprised that you don't _get it_ when it comes to UI usability. MMS might be in the next release, that's the rumor. But by god, if I can't send text messages that include animated gifs, how ever will I live. GPS? Got one, never use it. Use(d) the iPod more. 3G? Yeah, OK, but to me worrying about the transport mechanism for my cell network isn't important. Can I get signal where I use it? Great. It's interesting to note that a friend of mine just got back from Hungary, where his iPhone worked just fine, but his blackberry with "global coverage", did not. It's a new one, no idea if that's 3G or not or who his carrier is but, doesn't add any value to me.

Much as I'd love to go on, I need to deploy some more content to my webserver on the iPhone.

Q:What do you get when you cross NCR and AT&T?

[sethstorm]

Oh, the irony of those who've seen something too similar with NCR (before/after the trainwreck called AT&T GIS).

Re:Sure, that's exactly it. Yeah.

[tjrw]

Precisely. I doubt that it has anything to do with the iPhone. AT&T has a track record of crippling phones that's almost as bad as Verizon's. If you want a perfect example compare the (crippled) Nokia E62 from Cingular, now AT&T, to the original version of the phone, the E61. Ooh look, no 3G, no Wifi, no SIP client. The only good thing they did was ditch the crappy proprietary Nokia connector and put a mini-usb connector on instead.

So, I have an E61 and am using it with T-Mobile (just swapped my SIM). There's even some chance the T-Mobile may get to use the "normal" UMTS/HSPDA frequencies and that my phone's 3G may actually work when they roll it out - it worked fine in Germany last month :-)

um-- a bit backwords

[way2trivial]

people were MORE civilized prior to the advent of the cellphone.

Re:um-- a bit backwords

[smittyoneeach]

Civilization, or lack thereof, has been a constant quite independent of technology.

Summary is Wrong - RTFA

[HumanEmulator]

The summary makes it sound like GPS is being removed from the phone, but the article says in first paragraph "...the US carrier has been successful in their attempts to lockdown the GPS functionality in their upcoming BlackBerry 8820 so that the only functioning 3rd party software will be TeleNav."

Not the same thing. "Only functioning 3rd party software", means you should be able to use TeleNav and any 1st party software (ie. whatever RIM has.)

Note: TMobile.com doesn't advertise (or even list as a feature) the GPS functionality on the BlackBerry 8800 that it is selling.

Of course there's no doubt this unbiased reporting from "BLACKBERRYCOOL" written by someone who admits to interviewing people while drunk (http://www.blackberrycool.com/2007/05/09/004387/) is totally accurate.

Even more great behavior from a cell phone company

[loraksus]

And the great regulators we have who let cell phone companies get away with false advertising and pretty much everything else.

You see, they aren't going to market this as "BlackBerry 8820, GPS crippled edition", they're going to sell it as an 8820.
And then charge you $10 per month to use the GPS.

Just like every other cell phone carrier in the USA has ripped out some features in most of their phones so they can sell some fucking "monthly service" that is vastly inferior to what is built into an uncrippled phone.
In each and every single case, the cell phone companies do not make it clear that you're not actually getting the phone on the cell phone manufacturer's website, but a cripple version.

Not just the blackberry

[Tintivilus]

The rest of the world's version of the RAZR V3xx has GPS as well, but not the AT&T version.

Re:Has Anyone Even Seen An iPhone?

[bwen]

I own one, my brother owns one, my mother has one, my father has one. My boss has one, my 2 best friends each have one. You can't go outside without seeing people using them. Its hardly a marketplace flop; initial sales projections were off, and they are selling quite nicely.

Re:Wow

[Mattintosh]

AT&T is upset because the vast majority of people don't want a crippled iPhone. They did costly upgrades to their network in order to lock people into crippled iPhone service in the US, and they honestly thought people would buy a crippled phone with overpriced, crippled service. Now that most of the hype has died down, and it's become clear that most people aren't as stupid as everyone likes to assume they are, they're attempting to make more demand for the iPhone by crippling everyone else's phones too.

There. Fixed that for you.

Poppycock

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

This is obvious nonsense. AT&T has no financial incentive to steer people away from BlackBerries (quite the opposite, in fact, BlackBerry service plans are more expensive than the standard iPhone plans), and if an agreement with Apple is forcing them to do it, then that agreement would likely be illegal and probably doesn't exist.

Re:Poppycock

[Planesdragon]

Wrong. Doubly wrong, in fact.

1: Gross price does not equal profit. If AT&T has two plans, one $40/mo and one $100/mo, but their profits are $10/mo and $1/mo respectively, they'll push you to the first plan. Why? Because that's where their profit is.

2: AT&T is not a monopoly. Microsoft is restrained from doing certain bundling actions with Windows, because they DO have a monopoly on Windows. AT&T & Apple do not have a monopoly on cell phone service, so if they wanted to they could require the purchase of a ham sandwhich with each monthly fee.

Re:Poppycock

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

Monopolies is not the only law that could apply here. If it is legal to pay a service provider not just to offer your product (which is legal unless you're a monopoly) but to actively cripple a competitor's, I would be very surprised, monopoly or not. I'm not a legal expert, but 'it is not a monopoly' is not the final world. Consider what is being alleged here. It's a hell of a lot more than bundling, and it's not analogous at all to your ham samwich. This would be more like a ham samwich maker paying a deli to intentionally spoil a competitor's meat. If that's legal, then that's fucked. Maybe somebody with more legal knowledge could step in. As to point #1, all else being equal, one would naturally and correctly assume that the pricier plan brings the greater profit, unless you have some evidence that the reverse of the common sense conclusion is true. Do you?

Re:Poppycock

[tgibbs]

1: Gross price does not equal profit. If AT&T has two plans, one $40/mo and one $100/mo, but their profits are $10/mo and $1/mo respectively, they'll push you to the first plan. Why? Because that's where their profit is.

What, do you think that AT&T has no control over their own profit margins? If they want more of a profit margin on the Blackberry plan, all they need to do is increase the price. If they increase the price too much, then people will go to the other plan without any need to "push" them there.

Re:Poppycock

[Vegeta99]

There is a word for what AT&T is part of, and it's called an oligopoly. Very few large players control the market. I cannot go out, buy some antennas, a tower, and a telephone switch and start providing cellular service because, well, for one, the price of the licenses, and for two, the fact that there's only 7 of them. There are 2 900MHz licenses per zone, and one of them originally went automatically to the landline provider. IIRC, there's only 5 PCS (1900MHz) licenses per zone. In my zone, Cingular has licenses in both 900MHz and 1900MHz.

And if we're going to use your terminology for monopoly, Microsoft is not one either. They control most of the market, but there are other viable options.

If Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, and AT&T decided tomorrow that cellular service cost $1 per minute, what would anyone be able to do about it? Use Edge Wireless, use Alltel? Some other local provider? Yeah, right. If the big three decided to do that, they'd also decide all the little guys couldn't roam on their networks (Ask T-Mobile how that agreement with Cingular worked out!)

Re:Wow

[Nixoloco]

Apple need to get less paranoid. You mean AT&T need to get less paranoid.

Re:Wow

[mobby_6kl]

Of course, now that you've drank the koolaid, nothing's gonna make you like the iphone less. Unless... you puke up all that liquid. You might want to consider that option.

Re:doesn't matter

[casualsax3]

Spoken from someone who's never used a blackberry. Call me when your iPhone has:

- IRC

- SSH

- MMS

- Blackberry Messenger (this one is so key)

- integration with Exchange or Zimbra

- A filesystem that lets you save things, like pictures and audio

- a rich e-mail client that lets you send things from said filesystem

- custom backgrounds that display at times other than when the phone is locked

- custom ringtones

- a keyboard with tactile feedback

- a keyboard with an ea easily accessibly period (.)

- COPY AND PASTE

And for record the built in browser, Opera Mini, and Google Maps are all fantastic on the blackberry.

No cellphone carrier understands BB customers

[T5]

Blackberry won't turn over some API or something to allow Verizon to enable this. That's about the fourth different reason I've heard as to why the GPS is disabled in the 8830, but the first to point the finger at RIM. First, I was told by someone at Verizon that only the 911 service used the GPS. Well, I had to explain to the customer service rep that the technology she was referencing was A-GPS, not true GPS like the Verizon marketing literature and the RIM website stated is in the 8830. The second person I spoke with a few days later swore that the GPS worked. The third person, being somewhat cautious as to what was said over the phone, gave me the impression that because VZNavigator, Verizon's turn-by-turn navigation service, has not yet been ported to run on the Blackberry and/or Verizon had not yet worked out a deal with Telenav, that they disabled the GPS until then as to protect another revenue stream, even though Verizon didn't remove Blackberry Maps from the phone beforehand. Also, Google Maps for the Blackberry will work with the GPS too, were it working... (Hint: get a Bluetooth GPS, use one or the other of these apps, and don't waste the money with Verizon when and if they come out with a navigation "pay-per-trip").

It seems as if none of the major carriers are willing to embrace the Blackberry line fully. Verizon, for instance, not only disabled the GPS, but also removed the OBEX Bluetooth profile (for one thing, you can't exchange phone books with in-car phone systems) and locked the SIM slot to work with Vodafone only - all measures I'm sure in some way in Verizon's corporate consciousness make sense to their bottom line. From the users' perspective, however, our bottom line is somewhat different. Some of us purchased the Blackberry 8830 precisely because we were told that it had a functional GPS. Some of the purchases were driven by the fact that this is much more of a business tool than a BREW-enabled plaything ("Get It Now"? Get real...) And some of us were convinced that this would truly be a world phone but came to find out that it's Vodafone's world or nothing (unless we want to cough up the balance of the full retail price for the phone, fill out some paperwork, and wait patiently for the SIM unlock code). One of my destinations, Costa Rica (where, by the way, I was told that the 8830 would work just fine), has a state-run monopoly whose name is not Vodafone. Unless I want to cough up another US$250 or so, I'm once again without phone while on international travel.

So, no, I don't really believe that AT&T crippled the Blackberry to make the iPhone look better. I believe they crippled the Blackberry because they're no more in touch with their users and their needs than any of the other major carriers and they're just after another buck and haven't figured out

Re:No cellphone carrier understands BB customers

[MrZaius]

#3=#4

No API for the hardware, no port of their magicalicious special mapping software.

Re:No cellphone carrier understands BB customers

[technomom]

Hint: get a Bluetooth GPS, use one or the other of these apps, and don't waste the money with Verizon when and if they come out with a navigation "pay-per-trip"

Suggestions? Are there any Bluetooth GPS's out there worth their salt that don't cost almost as much as an 8830 ($199 with the current rebate).

The Who called it first

[One Childish N00b]

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

Re:Bullshit on its face

[Ash-Fox]

It cannot, even if you love your push email you are lacking so much other stuff you need a notebook just to read the Web.

Eh? What's wrong with the opera browser again?

When you consider necessary features, a Web 2.0 browser comes in way ahead of GPS let's be real.

Web 2.0? What are you? Apple marketing?

Even audio/video Podcasts are more important than GPS.

I don't agree, it's important for business users to figure out their location and what's wrong with Movidity or BlackBerry Media Player's support for podcasts?

Never mind that any moment there will be a plug-on GPS for the iPod dock connector and then what?

Oh great so the iPod is going to become the next Universal Business Adapter.

WTH.

[juuri]

Some "guy" who works at at&t told some "blog" something was crippled as to not show up something else.

Fancy pants reporting there!

Re:Or, more generally...

[PenGun]

one hit of good weed will get you higher than a ton of shitty weed

Nothing's really yours...

[dasunst3r]

Well... nothing's really yours until you're able to make it yours. This is why I would bite the bullet and buy an unlocked phone where the carrier cannot sabotage my phone's capabilities. Speaking of unlocked phones, who's looking forward to the Neo1973?

Oh, yeah... the ownership of an iPhone is the equivalent of wearing a shirt that says "SUCKER" in big letters. Have fun with your huge phone bills and a defective by design device! ^^

Re:Nothing's really yours...

[bushelpeck]

Oh, yeah... the ownership of an iPhone is the equivalent of wearing a shirt that says "SUCKER" in big letters. Have fun with your huge phone bills and a defective by design device! ^^

I understand where this is coming from, because the iPhone is a premium device and not everyone can afford one and/or understand why some others want it.

I have an iPhone and it costs me about $20 more/month than my previous Verizon crap-phone and I don't find it expensive. Instead, it's a much better value -- cheaper, for what I get out of it -- because it provides features and capabilities I never had before in one device, or at all in any device when it comes to usability and browsing the web. I have chosen to pay AT&T for service, exactly like I chose previously to pay Verizon, and am free to choose any other provider now or in the future if they offer me something (hardware, software, services) I want. Competition benefits the customer.

Does that make me a "SUCKER"? Nope. Just an informed consumer who realizes that the cellphone/smartphone market is a big one with plenty of room for everybody.

Re:Nothing's really yours...

[walter_f]

This is why I would bite the bullet and buy an unlocked phone where the carrier cannot sabotage my phone's capabilities. Speaking of unlocked phones, who's looking forward to the Neo1973?

I am (and some of my friends are, too).

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973

Availability of GTA02 version scheduled for October ;-)

RTFA

[Afecks]

Apparently - and remember, this is coming from someone inside AT&T - the carrier didn't want to launch a device that would seem superior (or be competitive) to the iPhone. Suggesting that someone is lying is no small accusation. If you have some evidence then post it, otherwise you're just spreading FUD.

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, where I come from, the one making the claim is the one who should provide the evidence. Whoever has heard a prosecutor asking the jury to prove his case for him? In this case, Blackberrycool makes the claim, so they should provide the evidence that AT&T cripples the phone to benefit the iPhone. As the reader, we have every right to be skeptical.

But it's an insider info, you say. Fine, stay hidden if you must, but don't expect me to believe the report without a second source confirmation. I am with ushering05401 on this. AT&T/TeleNav deal as the cause makes a whole lot more sense than AT&T doing Apple a favor.

Jobs

[thebonafortuna]

I wonder...is Steve Jobs running at&t wireless now too? You can't help but admire how far his reach has expanded, especially given the relatively short time it has taken. Assuming, of course, he had anything to do with this. But I wouldn't be surprised if he flat out told them to cripple the Blackberry. I wonder if GPS capabilities will make a miraculous comeback after iPhone 2.0...

Re:Jobs

[Weedlekin]

"I wonder...is Steve Jobs running at&t wireless now too? You can't help but admire how far his reach has expanded, especially given the relatively short time it has taken."

Steve's reach is incredible. I heard that he's also responsible for Britain's plans to pull it's troops out of Iraq because he wants to maximise the market for the XMas 1997 UK iPhone launch. But there's more: could rumours of the forthcoming iHouse and the problems with the US sub-prime mortgage market completely coincidental? Was the suckiness of Windows Vista really Microsoft's fault, or could Jobs have replaced all Microsoft's departmental heads with iReplicants who ensured that the project went in all the wrong directions, and dedicated vast amounts of resources and time to designing shutdown dialogs? And that asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs, thereby ensuring that man would evolve, and eventually buy Macs, iPods, and iPhones was just a little bit too convenient for comfort, if you ask me.

Of course, none of the above could be true if Steve was a mere human instead of a near immortal alien who hides his vile form beneath black turtle-neck sweaters to disguise the fact that the human-like mask he wears only covers his head.

Any who doubt this should consider the following:

1. Many current Apple products are prefixed by "i".
2. "i" sounds incredibly like "eye", as in "eye of Horus", and also the eye in the Illuminati pyramid that's "concidentally" also on US currency.
3. It also sounds like "aye", an English word of considerable antiquity which indicates blind obedience.
4. The word "conspire" has an "i" in it that sounds uncannily like the "i" in iPod, iPhone, etc.
5. Idol also begins with "i". Could this be because they were originally called "iDolls", and be behind the Old Testament prohibition on worshipping them?

The ancients knew, and tried to tell us, but we didn't listen, and still aren't listening, leaving Jobs free to complete his hundred million year plan of populating an entire planet with mindless ambulent wallets who are genetically compelled to buy and love anything Apple produce, and defend them to the death against criticism by the few valiant geeks whose mighty brains and iron wills have made them immune to the terrible buy rays emanating from a complex hidden in the Earth's core.

Re:iPhone is old tech

[MacDork]

>> But this is old tech in fancy wrapping.

Don't fret, I'm sure it suffer the same fate that befell the iPod.

WTF!? The original iPod was cutting edge hardware. The 5GB firefly drive was awarded "Best of Show" at MacWorld Expo in July '01. The original 5GB iPod debuted just months later in October. You could load OS X on it and use it as a pocket sized boot drive. It was jaw dropping awesome in '01.

The iPhone on the other hand ... is pretty. Maybe when they open it to developers I'll care. In the meantime, feature phones suck. So do locked phones and glass screens that break. These aren't minor nitpicks to me. They're deal breakers. I've dropped my $800 phone *hard* on average once a month since I received it in May. I can afford a high end phone. I can't afford a new one once a month though.

[Interestingly enough, while searching Google with filtering on, looking for images with iphone broken produces no pictures of iPhones with smashed glass screens, but result #19 (NSFW) is a naked guy spanking his monkey. With image filtering off, an image of an iPhone with a smashed screen is the number one result. I assume the totally unrelated NSFW picture of a guy jacking his cock is moved down the list a bit, because it doesn't make the first page of results. Hmmm.... I though image filtering was to protect children from sexual imagery, not to protect consumers from negative product imagery. It seems I learn something new every day about censorship in Amerika.]

Re:doesn't matter

[packslash]

Spoken like someone who has never used an Iphone -the average person doesn't give a shit about exchange or Zimbra. -irc bitchx (not that the average person gives a rats ass about irc) Check! -ssh I'm using it now to change an icon on the home screen Check! -A filesystem that lets you save things Check! -a Rich email client that lets you send things from the filesystem check! - Custom ringtones check! mine is Wilco Can't stand it - a keyboard with out tactile feedback that isn't a bunch of small retarded keys Check! I much prefer the big touchscreen keys that change based on the app for convenience - built in browser rofl you can't be serious I'm surprised you mentioned that safari mobile owns my Blackberry's browser hands down. Most would agree web browsing is the iphones strongest feature besides wait an ipod!. It has a better web browsing interface/experience than any other phone I've ever used period. You got me on copy and paste! I'm sure it's coming in an update. It's not an issue tho if you are familiar with the iphone's interface.

Re:iPhone is old tech

[Jace of Fuse!]

With image filtering off, an image of an iPhone with a smashed screen is the number one result.

It's also totally fake.

There are a lot of complaints you could make about the iPhone, but the screen breaking or scratching isn't in that list.

Re:Wow

[intheshelter]

The Apple iPhone sure is love it or hate it, isn't it? I see you're in the "hate it" crowd.

Aside from my general pro Apple attitude (based on actually using their products) I could point you to countless surveys that have shown overwhelming interest in the iPhone from "most people." No phone has ever generated this much interest before it's launch, no phone has ever sold so many at launch, and no phone has garnered the customer satisfaction numbers from owners. You spin your anger any way you want, but your argument doesn't hold water.

If you hate Apple or the iPhone then just say it rather than making things up.

Re:Has Anyone Even Seen An iPhone?

[Jaime2]

So.... nearly everyone has one?

I have yet to see an iPhone in the wild. I work in IT with 20 geeks that have well paying jobs. I have a lot of gadget freaks in my family and there are many blackberries at family events. Yet somehow, none of them have iPhones.

BTW, my personal observations are just as representative as yours. That is to say, neither of our observation reflect the market penetration of the iPhone.

No, that's not it.

[mpaque]

From the article:

We've just received word from one of our friends inside AT&T that the US carrier has been successful in their attempts to lockdown the GPS functionality in their upcoming BlackBerry 8820 so that the only functioning 3rd party software will be TeleNav.

TeleNav. That would be the mapping service that AT&T will allow, rather than one of the third party ones that one can get for free or at minimal cost, often using Google Maps.

I wonder if there is a reason AT&T might prefer TeleNav? Perhaps because it is a product that AT&T sells?

http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/popup/t elenav-pricing-options.jsp

TeleNav GPS Navigator
TeleNav GPS Navigator Basic: $5.99 per month per device for 10 routes*
TeleNav GPS Navigator Premium: $9.99 per month per device for unlimited routes*

*A route is determined when a user types in the address of their destination in the TeleNav GPS Navigator application. The route would be from their starting location to the address/destination they originally entered into the application. That would be considered 1 route. If you miss a turn, re-routes are automatically sent to your device and are still considered part of the original route.

TeleNav Track (Mobile Workforce Management)
TeleNav Track Basic: $12.99 a month per device
TeleNav Track Premium: $21.99 a month per device

Please note: There is a one-time set up fee of $19.99 per device and eligible data plan.

I don't know. Does anyone here think that there might be a profit motive involved, instead of this whole 'won't show up the iPhone' wankage? Probably not. I can't see a company as altruistic as AT&T doing something for profits. Can you?

Re:No, that's not it.

[tomstdenis]

Anyone that worried about routing should just buy a Garmin GPS and be done with. Sure they're expensive, but over the long run it'll probably pay for itself. Especially at $1.20 per route :-)

Tom

Re:No, that's not it.

[Gigglepus]

Bingo you nailed it. I actually have an 8820 (Our shop is considering them for a good sized deployment) and I can say that if AT&T does anything to the GPS in this device it's because they think they can get money for location services. My device came with RIM's map service - which is pretty good as long as you know where you are going (I imagine it's well understood for 8800 users - and by the way if they were going to disable it why did they miss the boat on the 8800?? which will ship in far greater quantities) BTW - I've also loaded Google Maps on it and so far it works great, to limit the GPS to a single app is possible, but dumb especially since there are business apps other than telenav that could use the GPS functionality.

If fact the only difference between the 8800 and the 8820 is the wi-fi. And you shouldn't think of wi-fi on the 8820 the same way as wi-fi on the iPhone with it's spiffy browser. It's more for UMA enabled services like t-mobile's new wifi voice service or for accessing the blackberry service from any internet connection so you can deal with poor reception areas or *avoid paying roaming fees when traveling internationally* Speedy Gonzales web surfing it's not.

a post about a blog about a rumor about an unknown

[Columcille]

Yet another rumor dissing AT&T and the iPhone. I'm just going to wait for this one to prove false like all the others, but I won't hold my breath for Slashdot to post a follow-up story saying, "Hey, that previous blog rumor was wrong! Just like all the others!"

Re:iPhone is old tech

[MacDork]

Magic Apple iPhone glass never breaks.

$250 is an expensive repair job. It's half the price of the 4GB phone. Plus another $30 for a loaner. Break it twice and you've bought a new phone. AT&T isn't dumb enough to be offering insurance on the thing either. If it were a rare occurrence, I'm sure AT&T would be happy to take your $5 a month. As it is, you break it, you're f#cked.

Re:I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do t

[tgibbs]

Apple probably insisted that AT&T do this. No other explanation makes sense. It's not evil, it's just business. The iPhone is supposed to be the ultimate phone with maximum flexibility. I'm sure to many people, it actually seems that way. No reason to hate Apple for this. It's the way this industry works.

If Apple is actually pressuring a retailer to cripple a competitor's product, they could end up in serious hot water legally.

But it doesn't make sense, because it doesn't benefit Apple and it doesn't benefit AT&T. AT&T is not the only game in town. People don't choose the iPhone because they prefer AT&T, they are going to AT&T to get the iPhone.; if AT&T is crippling a product that customers prefer at Apple's behest, the customers can just go elsewhere. Driving customers away from their retailer is hardly in Apple's interest. And of course, it is even less in AT&T's interest.

Re:iPhone is old tech

[Jace of Fuse!]

Who said anything about never?

Considering how few reports I've heard of the screen actually breaking though, I'd say it is a rare occurrence. Also, I remember that AT&T wasn't insuring several other phones when they first came out, so the screen probably had little to do with that.

Considering most iPhone owners are supposedly "very happy" (to quote headlines) I would say that it is somewhat uncommon that any are, as you say "f#cked", by a broken screen.

It is glass, though. Common sense care does apply.

Faulty Consumers

[residents_parking]

I agree, but the problem is not the market - the problem is the average US consumer is too brand-oriented, and will happily pay out (and upgrade) again and again without thinking what s/he is buying and without shopping around. These people allow monopolies to develop by not playing their part in the market. I used to think it's an excess of disposable income, but after seeing the iPhone phenomenon, I changed my mind.

Here in Europe there's no stigma about not buying brands. We'll buy what works well enough for the least money, which is why you'll see way fewer Apple products, not to mention the other "major" brands.

Of course we're still locked into MS like everyone else, but Eastern Europe is famous for it's pirate "industry" which provides competition, driving down prices. It's interesting to note that Windows is generally cheaper to buy anywhere in the world you can get a cheap copy.

Re:Faulty Consumers

[foniksonik]

As a person who uses Apple products... I'd gladly purchase a non-Apple product if I could find one which was worth my money. I've tried buying other brands, non-brands, etc. and always end up with buyer's remorse... Apple just makes good products.

Regarding TFA... AT&T is free to do what they want with their products, though I don't understand why they'd choose this option. iPhone is a consumer product, Blackberry is a Business User product. They are targeted at two separate and distinct markets. Who cares if they have different features, it's expected.

Re:Faulty Consumers

[PopeRatzo]

But look at how readily Apple, now experiencing some measure of success, can ignore the desires of their own customers. Do you know how many consumers want to buy OSX to run on their own custom-built hardware?

How about how many iPod users want to be able to listen to FLAC files, or be able to use their iPods the way that they want them without violating the end user license. Speaking of end-user licenses, those are some of the best examples of the way the free market has betrayed consumers. Now, we buy a product and we have to sign a quasi-legal document that tells us how we are allowed to use the product, which we NOW OWN.

I'm sorry, fans. Apple make some very cool products, but as a corporation they are just as uncaring about what their customers want as any HMO or oil company. We're supposed to buy the products they want us to buy instead of the ones we want to buy, and we're supposed to be grateful.

It really is the free market itself that failed. No matter how you shake it, the free market is always going to coalesce around powerful entities, who will increase their power and limit our choices. All free markets are doomed to end in commercial authoritarianism, with a few rich people and lots and lots of sub-middle class workers. That's exactly what's happening now.

Re:Faulty Consumers

[Dog-Cow]

You are a typical slash-idiot. You think that just because Apple doesn't make a product that you want that Apple has somehow failed its customers. The Free Market works both ways. A producer creates a product for sale and consumers decide if they want it. Just because Apple isn't producing the product you want does not mean that they have failed the Free Market. A monoply fails the Free Market by forcing consumers to use their product. Apple is not in this position. And Mac OS X is NOT a product. Just because you can't run it on a non-Apple PC out of the box does not mean Apple has failed in any way. They don't sell OS X as a product. They sell Macs. And they sell upgrades to their Macs. OS X is just another upgrade, much like iLife and iWorks.

Ironically, the only company that could afford to give every single potential consumer what they want is a monopoly.

Re:Faulty Consumers

[illumin8]

But look at how readily Apple, now experiencing some measure of success, can ignore the desires of their own customers. Do you know how many consumers want to buy OSX to run on their own custom-built hardware?

Cry me a fucking river. If you don't like Apple's products, here's a novel thought: Don't buy them. All I see is people lined up around the block to buy Apple's products because they work better than the competition . Sounds like the free market is working just fine.

Re:Faulty Consumers

[foniksonik]

Hey buddy... you always have a choice. You want to build your own hardware? Go for it. You want to build your own operating system? Go for it. You want to listen to music in FLAC? Go for it. It's not Apple's responsibility to provide you with any of those things. Nor is it any corporations responsibility to provide you with what you WANT.

Apple doesn't try to deceive you into thinking that you can buy OS X and run it on non-Apple hardware. They put the specs right there on the box. Same thing with the iPod. You know what formats it supports.

What's next? You buy a toaster and a copy of OS X and then complain that your brand new toaster won't run the operating system?

How about if you buy Mac and a couple of PS3 games? Will you complain that you can't run the games on your Mac?

Trustful source?

[Udo Schmitz]

A Blackberry-fanpage "received word from one of our friends inside AT&T"? Come on ...

Re:Wow

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

AT&T is upset because the vast majority of people couldn't care less about the iPhone

Are you kidding?

Clueless

[swisswuff]

If it is possible to even STAY in the market by wilfully switching on or off cell phone functions, it means one thing and one thing alone: Cell phones nowadays have no real killer application. There is no clear benefit on one over another phone. Were there a clear benefit, it would not be optional to switch it off. For example, no one would even remotely dream of stripping a cell phone of its telephone functionality. Or a car of its steering wheel. So basically this is showing them up as somewhat lost, somewhat clueless.

So, what do you really want your cell phone to do? That is the question to ask. And the answer will easily tell you what phone to get.

I do not require any web browsing functionality, and GPS is also no requirement. I do need the occasional free board game for short waits. Otherwise I am fine with the lower end of the current cell phone models, and I enjoy them for what they are: very affordable, lightweight, and no object for battles between phone companies.

Re:Wow

[stewbacca]

Yeah, these slashdotters will come to any conclusion, as long as they get to call somebody a fanboy. I think his post highlights just how irrational the anti-Apple crowd will always be and how they are only growing angrier correlating to the market share growth of Mac OS X/iPods/iPhone.

As for the discussion at hand, at least for me (and I assume hundreds of thousands of others), the BlackBerry was never an option for me. I don't want to be THAT guy walking around with his 3 pound belt-brick, trying to look as important as I think I am. I doubt AT&T thinks they have to cripple other products to make the iPhone look better. I bought an iPhone because it is the first phone that was acceptable to me and the first phone that I actually wanted. Every other phone in the past 10 years has been a big steamy pile of dung. After a month with my iPhone, I made the right choice *FOR ME*; a phone that is easy to use, has email and fast wireless. Everything is else is just bonus. (Now if they could just keep Safari from crashing every 10 minutes...) Other phones may do more, but none do it as elegantly or simply. The manual for the iPhone contains no technical instructions at all and I've never had to look up anything online on how to use it. This is how EVERY consumer eletronic product should be.

Not so much the UK

[Nursie]

When the UK government caught on that we were going that way they made it illegal for phones to be permanently locked, your provider has to unlock them on demand at the end of the contract. Possibly before, I'm not sure.

As for being crippled, not to my knowledge. I've been able to do things like transfer music back and forth freely over cable/IR/BlueTooth for many years/phones.

But my phone works anywhere

[Nursie]

Most UK/euro mobile phones are now quad band.

Many are using 3G now as well (another thing the iPhone missed), the US really is a ways behind on this due to mistaking a cornered market with a high entry boundary (national network) for a free market.

Sometimes regulation is good.

HTC

[AnyThingButWindows]

They did this with the HTC 8125 claiming that in only had WiFi 802.11b, when in fact, the hardware was 802.11G. AT&T didn't want people to know that WM6 enabled G, so that they could sell the next generation model, which isn't that much more advanced.

iPhone vs BlackBerry

[sufijazz]

The iPhone is great, but there are a lot of features in my Sprint PDA (Windows Mobile) that make me look at the iPhone and say "So what?"

It reminds me of when Windows was released and people were going gaga over a Graphical User Interface but those of us who had been using Apple Macs went "So what?"

OpenMoko

[g4sy]

Hi, you forgot option #5:

• 5. Buy a non-broken phone, such as OpenMoko's Neo1973, and then use it with any carrier (AT&T included!)

That's what I did and now I'm using a CellOne (soon to be AT&T) SIM card in my Neo1973, great phone, nothing is broken on purpose, I have full control over the phone and I in addition to having full access to all the hardware on the phone (nothing is disabled) I can in ease issue AT commands over my local network to the phone. That's what I call convenient!

Re:They are oligopolies

[PopeRatzo]

Phone carriers are oligopolies. They price accordingly. It's not a free market -- legislators know that, the industry knows that, everyone seems to know that except slashdot readers. (Not a flame, its just true.)

Of course phone carriers are not free markets. But notice what those carriers start to cry when people ask for some assurance that access will remain open to these strategic resources: "We don't need Net Neutrality laws because The Free Market will sort out all the problems.

We're supposed to trust them to behave the laws of free markets when it suits them, but when we point out that they're not serving us as consumers, we hear your nonsense about how they aren't really bound by the laws of free markets because they aren't really corporations, but "industrial organizations".

A half-literate sixth grader can see that's all so much bullshit, but the free market radicals that write the economics articles and show up on television telling us that the current economy is "booming" don't have a clue.

We are the consumables, and it's only getting worse. There have been times in our nation's past when we've taken big business to the woodshed and taught them some lessons. My great grandfather was one of the iron-headed union guys that helped workers organize to a point where they could even out the field a bit, and he had the scars across his skull to prove it. It's long past overdue for us to do it again. Ronald Reagan started the most recent spate of hatred of the working class in America, and George Bush has put in the most recent knives. It'll take a Democratic administration or two before we get back to anything like balance, but it will happen.

Remember, it's the decades that there was a balance and mutual respect between big business and labor when our economy was doing the best. Nowadays, we hear about what a great economy we have, but it's really only good if you're a member of the owner class. If you're a worker, you have been repeatedly and brutally violated over the last 6 years.

Re:They are oligopolies

[anthonybjr1]

You are incorrect. The United States does not have a free market economy. We have a mixed economy where the few top corporations pay the politicians off, and the rest of the people get screwed.

As far as monopolies go, The only way that you can have a monopoly is with the help of the government. In a free market there would not be any monopolies because a business would not be able to get that big without competition... There are going to be companies that provide services better, faster, and cheaper than a large company.

In a true free market, there would be no corporations, just businesses that do NOT have the protection that the fiction of a corporation provides... Just think of it... Big companies that are liable for what they do because the people responsible for the businesses would be held responsible for their actions. They would be treated similar to a sole proprietorship (Which is what I am).

As far as net neutrality goes, it is pretty much a chance for the government to get in and control it... When that happens, all the corporations, ATT, Comacast, etc. , will just pay bribes to the politicians, who in turn will start passing laws controlling what people can and cannot do... Net Neutrality probably has the politicians salivating at the damage that they can...

Folks, The internet is the last great hope we have to be free, to speak, to express ourselves.... Why would anyone in their right mind want to vote for the lies that make up net neutrality?

Workers Rights.... How shall I put this.... It is BS. The only reasons that these corporations are doing what they do is because the US government imposes so many laws and regulations on businesses that in order to compete, they have to outsource to places where there are fewer regulations and more economic freedoms....

Please realize that a super majority of these low wage/low skill jobs are meant for just that... People with very few skills to learn what they need to get a better job... Think about it. When you were a teenage, you had no skills... You had to learn what it was to work, how to get to work on time, how to deal with customers, etc... Eventually, as your skills grew, you got better pay, eventually, you moved to a different job that pays better, and so on and so forth. It's not my fault if you are a teenager, knock up your girlfriend and have a kid, then have to drop out of school to raise it.... It's all about personal responsibility... People need to learn from their mistakes in order to grow. We are now in an age where the government has made it so that people don't have to take responsibility for their actions.

The real world is hard, and the only people that are going to succeed in it are those that take personal responsibility and better themselves and their situation. NOT by saying that I Have a right... In this country the only rights that we wave are those that were given to us by our creator(whomever that may be). These rights are outlined in the Bill Of Rights. Government does not give us rights, it can only take them away. Workers rights are a marxist/socialist lie.

anthony

Who is the real "Sucker"?

[DECS]

When you buy an iPhone, you get $600 worth of hardware and make a commitment to use AT&T. You also get a commitment from Apple to deliver you regular security updates and new applications for it.

When you buy a New1973, you pay for the hardware from a Chinese company called FIC, and have no commitment to anyone but the GSM provider "of your choice," which in the US means AT&T. The only other GSM provider is T-Mobile, which doesn't have GSM coverage on standard frequencies; they may be able to resell AT&T GSM service to you on slightly different terms. That's the extent of your real "freedom."

The other "freedom from commitment" you have is the freedom to write your own software. In fact, you have no choice, as FIC doesn't want to bother to write it, they insist you do. You are entirely dependent upon the community to deliver your phone software, because FIC isn't going to do anything for you.

The FIC phone also lacks significant features, including functional WiFi and the ability to place calls. Who's the "sucker":

- Those who buy a functional phone that works from Apple, which will continue to work and get better over its lifespan
or
- Those who buy a non-functional phone from FIC and are stuck having to fiddle with crap that doesn't work?

To complicate this connumdrum, there is another complicating fact: one can also write their own software for the iPhone.

There are already more people working on (and interested in) hacking software for the iPhone than for OpenMoki. There is a development toolchain available, and people are writing apps on Apple's foundation. If you had the time and inclination, you could even start from scratch and port Linux, or DOS or whatever floats your boat. Of course, you have to choose between whether you want to have a slick phone that just works, or a hobbiest hacked iPhone that might have problems related to your own hacking.

That's a freedom you don't have with FIC's phone. The only choice you get is crap that doesn't work. That's the same reason Linux for the desktop will never get past $300 WalMart PCs. Good luck dicking around with a lame Chinese knockoff with "software you can write yourself!" Just don't be so arrogantly dismissive of those who chose to use things that actually work.

Re:Has Anyone Even Seen An iPhone?

[ppp]

I own one, my brother owns one, my mother has one, my father has one. My boss has one, my 2 best friends each have one. You can't go outside without seeing people using them. Its hardly a marketplace flop; initial sales projections were off, and they are selling quite nicely.

I don't have one, niether of my brothers has one, my mother doesn't have one. My boss doesn't have one, none of my best friends have one. In fact, I have yet to see *anyone* using one while outside. However, I realize that this is strictly empirical data, so I'm not going to judge its sales success that way that you seem to have done.

AT&T charge per *route*?

[simong]

That's nuts. I got Co-Pilot for free when I got my Nokia E61 through T-Mobile in the UK. It really does seem like big business is crippling the use of technology in the US.

Re:They are oligopolies

[PopeRatzo]

The United States does not have a free market economy.

Of course it doesn't. That's my point. There IS no such thing as a "free market". There is only putting profits before people. That's what we have.

The real world is hard, and the only people that are going to succeed in it are those that take personal responsibility and better themselves and their situation. NOT by saying that I Have a right

Now you are really absolutely right. It's not enough to SAY "I have a right", you have to stand up and TAKE those rights. Because the people who have power will never give you any rights or freedom willingly. When people stand up, organize, and say that it's more important that people have dignity in their lives than for some huge corporation's board to get big raises, that is the very definition of taking personal responsibility.

The ultimate form of personal responsibility is when we take responsibility for one another.

Re:They are oligopolies

[anthonybjr1]

Of course it doesn't. That's my point. There IS no such thing as a "free market". There is only putting profits before people. That's what we have.

--- Well, the way that I look at it, profits are not bad at all... businesses (and I mean businesses, not corporations) should be allowed to make as many profits as they can get away with.... As long as they do not gain these profits due to governmental controls/regulations/whatever.... The way I look at it is that we need to get the federal government out of EVERYTHING except what is stated in the constitution of this country, including all the foregn wars, Federal government programs, subsidies, regulations, osha, FDA, Homeland insecurity, and all of the alphabet soup government agencies, etc.... Then, and only then will the people of this country will be free enough to take care of themselves and their families... Until that point, things are just going to get worse and worse for people in the middle to lower classes in this country.

The ultimate form of personal responsibility is when we take responsibility for one another.

-- I disagree... The only person that is responsible for yourself, is yourself. The only responsibility that you have to your fellow man is to no initiate any force or fraud against him. Personally, I am having this problem with my mother... for the past 15 years or so, I have been telling her to stop her reckless fiscal ways... She ignored me, kept spending all her money, not saving, now she is without a job, and broke, doesn't want to get a job, and now she is demanding that I, along with my brother and sister take care of her. I have told her that I would help her when I can, but there is no way in hell that I am going to ruin my life because of the stupid decisions that she has made...

looks like I touched a nerve

[G Fab]

No need to censor me. I wasn't criticizing Apple, but pointing out its conventional business practice. By allowing one provider only to have the elite iphone, Apple expected to receive some special treatment to maximize sales.

Too bad that some people view Apple as the "good guy' rather than as a company whose products they prefer.

Re:I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do t

[G Fab]

And companies end up in hot water all the time. Saying that Apple could get in trouble is not a very good piece of evidence that I'm wrong. And you never made clear exactly how Apple could get into trouble.

AT&T is the largest provider because it is more competitive on a cost basis and service basis in the United States. By making the iphone superior to other products, I can absolutely guarantee that iphone sales are enhanced. YOu claim that customers can go elsehwere is also true. Some will, some won't. So you're obviously wrong that this doesn't help Apple. And does it help AT&T? AT&T thinks it does, or they wouldn't have done it. How does it help them? Because they get to sell the most interesting phone on the market, and no one else gets to. All this stuff is obvious. Change Apple to Sony or Microsoft and many more would admit I have a point.

The practice of crippling phones is standard trade practice, and it's extremely unlikely that AT&T or Apple is going to get into any trouble over this instance of it. For one thing, it's just product differentiation. You can't have too many products at the same level. If you spread out the quality and price, you attract more sales.

Again, of course this helps Apple. Just as much as it helps BMW not to be next to a Mercedes dealership, or if it is, if that Mercedes dealership doesn't offer repairs but the BMW dealership does.

Anyway, I find it amusing that people don't accept the obvious. It's not even that big of a sin.

Re:They are oligopolies

[PopeRatzo]

The only person that is responsible for yourself, is yourself.

This is the belief of someone who is very young.

Your story about your mother is heartbreaking, but much more complicated than just "not letting her ruin my life". Good luck with that, seriously. The decision you think is the best might not seem so later on down the road.

Re:I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do t

[tgibbs]

AT&T is the largest provider because it is more competitive on a cost basis and service basis in the United States. By making the iphone superior to other products, I can absolutely guarantee that iphone sales are enhanced. YOu claim that customers can go elsehwere is also true. Some will, some won't.

AT&T is not that popular. The biggest complaint people have had about the iPhone is that you have to deal with AT&T. If this is a feature that people want, they would go elsewhere to get it. Except that it turns out that some other cell companies--companies without iPhones to push--are also disabling this feature. Which suggests that there are other reasons to do that besides selling the iPhone.

And does it help AT&T? AT&T thinks it does, or they wouldn't have done it. How does it help them?

I can certainly think of a lot of reasons why AT&T and other companies might think that disabling this feature helps them, reasons that have nothing to do with trying to influence customers to buy one of their cell phones and not another (which they could easily do simply by adjusting prices, if they wanted to). Every feature is going to generate some overhead in the form of customer service calls, so the only reason why a company would enable a particular feature is if they think the amount of revenue that it will generate in the form of additional customers is greater than its customer service cost. Or they could be working on a plan to charge for GPS, and they don't want to roll out service until they have the details worked out, because people are a lot more annoyed if you start charging them for something that they formerly had for free than they are if you offer them something additional, and by the way there's a small charge.

The practice of crippling phones is standard trade practice, and it's extremely unlikely that AT&T or Apple is going to get into any trouble over this instance of it.

Not if AT&T is doing it for good business reasons (of which, as we see, there are several) and not to hurt one particular company in order to help their competitor.

For one thing, it's just product differentiation. You can't have too many products at the same level. If you spread out the quality and price, you attract more sales.

Produce differentiation makes sense for a manufacturer, because each additional product has costs associated with it, so redundant products that offer no unique appeal to the buyer end up costing the company money, and adding features to a cheap product can make your high-end product redundant, which is not a good thing for the bottom line. But AT&T is not the manufacturer here, they are a retailer, and retailers gain by offering customers what they want, and charging accordingly. They don't gain by driving customers away from any product that they do offer--unless Apple is directly or indirectly bribing them to do so. Which would be illegal.

Re:They are oligopolies

[anthonybjr1]

I'm not that young at all... it's a libertarian belief... 1'm 37. I'll help her when I can, but I am not going to hurt my financial future and my future happiness for it... It's very unfair to be financially reckless, not save money, and depend on others to take care of you? Hey don't get me wrong... If I had the room, I would put her up in my home, rent free, but I can't... Anthony

Re:I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do t

[G Fab]

Such a long comment. But you're wrong, pal. AT&T is that popular. You're just being obnoxious to deny it. They dominate the industry.

You are twisting your thinking around radically. Why? It's ridiculous.

Apple didn't just give the iphone to AT&T and say "Hey! do whatever you think is best here!" Not at all. They spent weeks or months contracting out every detail. Apple knew this would happen. It's absurd to assert they don't have some responsibility for the actions of AT&T that affect the iphone. If Apple didn't act this way, they would be in utter breach as fiduciary. Why assert that this action was only AT&T's doing?

I don't care that Apple did this, but obviously Apple sees the blackberry as a competitor and used its power to cripple its functions. Of course they would do this. It's important to be the largest providers best product in this category. You will never see an Aston Martin sold next to a BMW M6. Aston Martin will refuse to sell inventory to a dealer that does this. Normal everyday common sense business.

You keep throwing the word "Illegal" around. What the hell law are you talking about? Say Apple demanded that no other device be as well supported. That's totally ok. If Apple says that AT&T can either cripple the Blackberry or not have the iphone, that's not illegal in any way. You're just making stuff up. And if it were illegal, that's not proof that Apple didn't do it, as companies break laws and settle cases all the time. You seem to be attaching some kind of virtue trait to Apple. Why?

You gonna fisk me again? Why not actually say things that are true this time. Apple is a great company because they aren't retarded. Not dealing with the blackberry or carefully contracting the major aspects of its relationship with AT&T would be retarded. And insofar as it is clearly foreseeable and a fiduciary breach, illegal (since you seem to think that's an argument).