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Turned Off iPhone Gets $4800 Bill from AT&T
Tech.Luver writes "Jay Levy says he has been stung by Apple's iPhone pact with AT&T after he took an iPhone on a Mediterranean cruise.
They didn't use their phones, but when they got back they had a 54-page monthly bill of nearly $4,800 from AT&T Wireless.
The problem was that their three iPhones were racking up a bill for data charges using foreign phone charges. The iPhone regularly updates e-mail, even while it's off, so that all the messages will be available when the user turns it on. ""
but it was off? fucken mac
And you can't even remove the batteries to make sure it stays off. Brilliant strategy Steve!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
because they, and their corporations, treat foreign countries as somewhere alien. Europeans are quite used to the idea that they can go to another country, but, because of reciprocal treaties, all their gadgets work.
The US hates the rest of the world, and always breaks its treaties. The OP is paying the price of American isolationism.
It couldn't happen to a nicer country.
I just wanted to recap some of the more prevalent comments I've read here in this thread:
1) The fact that the iPhone has a sleep/wake button is unacceptable, because it "should" be an on/off button (ignoring the fact that every other smartphone, hell, and every TV & A/V component made in the last 15 years, operates EXACTLY the same way).
2) Users should NOT have to read the manual to fully understand how the iPhone works (despite the fact that "RTFM" would be tossed around with alarming regularity in almost all other situations).
3) The iPhone continues to check e-mail while asleep (does any smartphone NOT check e-mail while asleep, when it is still receptive to incoming calls/text messages?).
4) The fact that the iPhone has a sleep mode that is different than "fully off" is a major design flaw, and its existence is simply unconscionable (as mentioned earlier in this list, sleep mode is pretty standard on electronic devices these days).
5) Calling the setting that turns off all radio transmission/reception "Airplane Mode" is counterintuitive & deceptive because users won't know to use it when they're on a boat (even though "Airplane Mode" has been the standard name for this setting at least for the last 5 years, and using even the smallest amount of common sense would cause one to use this setting in all situations where radio use is to be avoided).
6) Apple & AT&T are basically mugging people, because the iPhone is not laden with warnings to inform users how their wireless service works (I've had phones purchased from Cingular/AT&T & unlocked phones purchased from 3rd parties in the past, when I took them abroad none of them ever told me I was entering an international roaming area...again, with a smidge of common sense one would notice that it no longer says "AT&T" next to the signal strength indicator and would assume that that's financially bad news).
Are you people serious? How can you type this stuff without feeling the least bit silly? Has the anti-Apple, anti-iPhone stance so blinded you to the fact that, behind the big, flashy screen, gee-whiz functionality and prominent Apple logo (and, until last week, the absurd price tag), the iPhone is basically IDENTICAL to just about every other smartphone (and majority of cellphones) out there? I mean, I expect a certain amount of schadenfreude and Jobs-bashing in a thread like this, but some of these comments have crossed right through the Laughable Town and have landed firmly in the Land of Pathetically Grasping At Straws.
Now many of you have called bullshit on those that have used these arguments, and it's admirable that, regardless of how you feel about the iPhone, Apple, Steve Jobs, the city of Cupertino, or anything else that could color your judgement, you've been able to put all that aside and objectively state that, in this case, the user was an idiot and deserved to get hit with the giant phone bill. Sadly, your voices of reason were drowned out by repetitive/redundant crazy talk.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
And you KNOW he did that?
And you KNOW he didn't actually turn it off?
Hmm, you know, you could really make a ton of cash if you turned that mind reading power towards something useful...
Anyways, bottom line: For all you KNOW, as this is all the article STATES: The guy turned his phone OFF and got charged $4800 anyways. The facts may be disputable, but be that as it may, until proven otherwise, those are the only facts one has to use to draw a conclusion. (Despite many peoples desire to introduce anecdotal evidence as fact)
No Comment.
User didn't realize that "Sleep/Wake" doesn't mean "On/Off"
You don't need arcane instructions. You need one active brain cell. It's not a power button; it doesn't say it's a power button; when you push the button, the screen turns off but the phone still rings. How stupid do you have to be?
I personally would like a small status LED of some kind, since there's no way of knowing if the battery died while asleep and suddenly you're wondering why no one's calling and it turns out it's not on at all. Of course, my Windows smartphone did the same thing.