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iPhone Forcing Open Wireless Networks?
fermion writes "Wired asserts that the iPhone blew up the wireless industry. This article argues that because Apple demanded the opportunity to control their own phone, and ATT née Cingular agreed, other companies are opening up the networks, and Google now has the opportunity to make Android a reality. There are other tidbits. Allegedly Verizon turned Jobs down without even listening to his pitch, a decision they may well regret now that they are hemorrhaging customers. Also, that Motorola and the networks were responsible for the fiasco dubbed the ROKR, something which I believe given how damaged the American version of the RAZR was compared to international version. It also estimates that the iPhone cost upward of $150 million to design, and earns Apple about $200 profit per phone."
Europe and most of the rest of the world has GSM and GSM alone. You can take a SIM card from any carrier and put it in any phone. It has always been like that.
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iPhone Forcing Open Wireless Networks? No.
Verizon announced that it plans to go GSM in the future, and if they completely phase out CDMA, pretty much only Sprint/Nextel would be the only CDMA provider in the US.
I'm not sure how serious Verizon is about this, although I do know that both AT&T and T-Mobile cross-license their towers, so it doesn't matter what brand of GSM tower is near someone. If Verizon also cross licenses, it wouldn't mean a big expenditure outlay on their part at first (although they would have to build towers to hold up their part of the deal, most likely.)
Maybe this is good -- if the US goes completely GSM, it might allow providers to bring 3G as a standard (instead of EDGE), and perhaps Super3G/4G soon after, but who knows.
many phones are "locked" to a particular network. Officially you need to pay the network to unlock the phone to use it on another network. Unofficially there are plenty of people who will "unlock" your phone for a much smaller fee (£15 compared to £100).
Carriers are learning that the right phone even a pricey one can win customers and bring in revenue - they have known it for a long time. What they have been missing that a POS designed and built by HTC which crashes every time you change a cell is not the right phone despite all the marketing push behind it. Marketing reality distortion cannot compensate for product being crap (which is what the ROKR fiasco proves nicely as well).
Similarly, Nokia has been playing this game all along on this side of the pond though I have to admit - it has never ever been so sadistic in its relationship with the carriers. As far as commercials - jobs is jobs nothing more to be said to this regard. So any changes to this regard in the market are American specific.
Europe has been there, seen it. This also probably explains its lukewarm reception over here. There are plenty of competing devices. They are not as good, but they do the job nicely and most of them are not totally operator bastardized (unless you go for Voda UK or Orange). For example I recently got a new Nokia E65 on O2. It took 3-4 presses of a button to tell the O2 customisation to go fish. 10 minutes later it was running VOIP calls on my home wireless networks, browsing the web and reading emails off my imap server. It may not be as shiny as an iphone, but it does all the jobs it does as well as VOIP and does it well.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Those carries have been open for a long time: I've been using unlocked GSM phones on them for years. The iPhone is a big step backwards: it's carrier-locked and non-programmable. Far from moving the industry forward, Apple has been taking it backwards.
If you want a nice phone, get an unlocked Nokia N95-3; you get 3G speeds, a 5Mpixel camera, stereo speakers, GPS (works with Google maps), a Safari web browser, and lots more. You aren't locked into a contract or carrier, and you can put in a different SIM card when you travel.
...or with the spate of news articles about how revolutionary and paradigm-changing the iphone is, is anyone else expecting to start seeing an "iphone = chuck norris" meme?
"the iphone is so cool, the ISO is creating a new temperature scale based around it."
"the iphone is so powerful, it can cure cancer...once unlocked."
"the iphone is so versatile, it can not just play music, be a phone and browse the web, but imagine a beowulf cluster of them!"
is it just me? i mean, i think the iphone is pretty darned cool, myself, and i don't even own one. but there's been a great deal of fawning over it. not that apple doesn't deserve accolades for it, but jeez guys...haven't we collectively crossed the threshold of justifiable praise into fanboyism?
ed
1. The headline is horrible. iPhone didn't contribute to wireless networks that are open by some means.
2. iPhone won't open the market. Android will. Reason: Android is fully customizable. Soon or later Skype[1] or any other VOIP/instant messenging app will be available. Data traffic will become more important than regular POTS calls. Eventually one carrier might step out of line and get out of the entrenchment by offering reasonable data traffic packages. The game theory for this is a prisoners dilema, and we know that all participating players will lose at end. But that's just good for the customers. Technology will dictate it at the end, and it's Google Android that will take the lead here; not iPhone that is tied to carries by contracts.
[1]Skype itself is a total horrible vendor lockin, but hopefully the protocol gets reverse engineered one day and we will all enjoy open clients. Everyone that uses a multi-protocol client with MSN/ICQ/AIM/JABBER knows that suddenly a single protocol becomes quite easy to replace and hence its power to dictate the rules (as it so for skype at the moment) vanishes.
The lock-in to a particular network certainly isn't new, nor is limiting the phones connection to a single network, it is just alot more noticeable to consumer. If you missed on on the Nokia NXX as it was only available on a competing network, partly because you knew the NXX+1 would be available within months (In keeping with the fast pace of the mobile phone industry). Now, if you can't get the iPhone, you know you wont have it for several years. This is like Sony Ericsson limiting its phones to Verizon. This is what is mostly new. Its a low volume, high profit approach, sound familiar for Apple? Its not the features of functionality of the iPhone that the networks are opening up their networks for, they are simply trying to replicate another phone that people actually get excited about. Oh, and one more thing, the best trend that Apple has hopefully brought to the market is to not let the carrier bastardize its UI with logos and links to its online services.
They were the ones that rolled right over for the Bush administration and handed over customer call records without a warrant.
Qwest refused the "request" and ended up losing various government contracts as punishment.
I dropped Verizon when this story broke and now use Qwest for all of my phone services.
When Jobs killed the Newton, he promised that having those engineers available for other products would create innovative and break-through portable computing devices --- all I've seen are iPods, admittedly nice (but traditional form-factor clamshell) laptops and the iPhone. From:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone?currentPage=2
>Apple's hardware engineers had spent about a year working on touchscreen technology for a tablet PC
Where is it?
I'd buy an iPhone today if only it allowed one to use a stylus for handwriting recognition and allowed one to draw and annotate documents, but would prefer something a bit larger, but not quite so large as the Axiotron ModBook, http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook and ideally it would have a nice docking station option and media-oriented features allowing it to work as a remote control, portable music player while hidden away in a laptop bag, ebook reader &c.
I'm definitely getting a Wacom Cintiq 12WX for my next machine at home (and a 20WX at work) --- http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm --- but I need a replacement for the Fujitsu Stylistic which replaced my Newton (which replaced my NCR-3125).
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Don't introduce actual facts about Apple on Slashdot. You'll be moderated into oblivion by the koolaid drinkers.
Verizon is losing customers primarily cuase of it's crappy service and crippled phones. If it weren't for the employer discount I got through my company, I'd dump them in a heart beat, but I've got a budget, right? Still doesn't keep me from lobbying the people repsonsible every chance I get to switch.
Link?
-nick
Close, but not entirely true. Verzion has agreed to use the GSM LTE standard for it's 4G implementations, not 3G, so it doesn't appear they would be running to cross license anything. They are still committed to CDMA EV-DO for 3G. http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/11/pr2007-11-29.html
"the iphone is so nice, but does it run Linux?"
.sig: No such file or directory
I love how Apple has managed to sell the phone at their apple stores, and all you need to do is pick it up, plug it into itunes and fill out a form and you're all setup on at&t very easily.
The setup is a very nice experience. No need to go to some at&t store for anything. If you dont have an apple store, you can order from apple online, have it shipped to your house and you can turn on the at&t service yourself through itunes. Its just a nice way to do things.
The iphone is awesome, but its not everything it could or should be. Apple has created a great platform but they have fallen short in features. It looks as if Apple is going to continue to support the iPhone by adding more applications thanks to the upcoming SDK, and they will be adding new features to existing phones as well as future versions. The iPhone looks like a platform, rather than a phone.
Right now, the iphone is lacking a lot, but it does somethings extremely well. Whats interesting is how people are willing to look past the shortcomings just to have an iPhone. In my case, and in many others, we werent aware of the shortcomings. I mean come on, how can it not have cut and paste?
Apple isnt being aggressive enough in adding features that the iphone lacks. Copycat phones are showing up, they're stealing a lot of ideas from Apple, and they are adding more functionality faster than Apple is. Granted these copycat ui's arent as elaborate or graphical, but they a made by the known players in the cell industry... and they can move very fast.
As much as I hate Verizon Wireless for crippling their phones, if Verizon had 62.1 million subscribers in June 2007 and 63.7 subscribers as of January 8th, 2008, how can they be "hemorrhaging" customers?
AT&T may be clobbering them, adding new acquisitions to 67.3 million lines (from 63.7 in June 07), but Verizon has a turnover rate of less than 2% and they've increased the total # of subscribers since the iPhone release.
The fact that the iPhone shookup the wireless industry and forced others to innovate and improve is true, but Verizon isn't dying. They DO need to play catchup with AT&T though; AT&T is widening their lead.
I must say, as a guy who bought his first Mac in the 1980's, I am so proud of Apple. They have shown how finesse and high creativity can beat raw dollars any day. They're a model for the rest of us would-be entrepreneurs.
I own a Nokia N95 *AND* an Iphone (using t-mobile and at&t respectively), so I think I can judge these fairly.
First, I love the iphone in so many ways. The user interface rocks, web is better than the Symbian one (although they both do real web pages, unlike Apple's claims to be first), and the iphone's email app is much, much faster than that crap on Symbian (I have an inbox of several thousand messages so that might be part of it, but the iphone handles it like a breeze, and quickly)
With that said, I really like how I can do what I want with my unlocked Nokia. I use gizmoproject to do VOIP on it, I can pop in a prepaid overseas SIM when I travel, I can even load putty on it for pete's sake. Bluetooth options are endless including tethering with a data plan.
iphone is crippled in many unforgiveable ways, like crappy bluetooth support (what, I can't send a photo over bluetooth or tether my laptop?), no MMS, lack of WPA enterprise WIFI support (horrible), email app "helpfully" scales down the pics for you to VGA, and on and on.
These are all software design issues, which makes it even more intolerable.
Hopefully Nokia learns some lessons and adapts its software and Apple addresses the shortcomings in a future software update. At least let me use the iphone at work on the wifi network there. Sigh...
Android is fully customizable
Are you sure about that? The OpenMoko is fully customisable because it is a fairly standard embedded version of Linux and you are the root user. I'm not sure Android is like that. As far as I know (which is not far), you can customise one layer i.e. what runs inside the Java sandbox but that's it. For me that is no more interesting than Symbian (i.e. not interesting at all really).
I'm waiting for the OpenMoko
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if they did that a lot of the mobile phone networks would go out of business pretty fast
If that is the case then good. They will be replaced by better ones.
I think it is ridiculous that if you go between two EU countries, you either have to swap out the SIM cards every time you cross a border (meaning different phone number) or pay to receive a call. Paying to receive calls is stupid.
However, I think if roaming charges where abolished completely then overall they would make more money, as people would make more phone calls. When I am at home I make several mobile calls a day, when outside of my own country I do not make any at the moment because of the receiving calls problem.
My little Linux and tech blog
Let me know how your web browser works with popups, invalid HTML, bad CSS, and barely-functional JavaScript when compared to WebKit, never mind the ever-helpful resolution-independent interface on Mobile Safari.
Why bother.
Not sure where this data came from because it is completely inaccurate. Verizon took a hit the Qtr that the iphone was released...(they took the smallet hit of any carrier). Now that the initial surge is over, they are back to catching up to Att as the biggest american Carrier. Their churn is lower, and their arpu is higher then AT&T's. In fact, the VZW Voyager was the most researched phone on the internet from the christmas season...
Verizon announced that their 4G technology is going to be LTE. LTE is int he GSM roadmap. So yes, they are going GSM. Its not going to be available for a few years however...
Guys, get over this iphone shit... apple is just another very small player in the mobile market. People in Europe and Asia won't care a damn shit about iphone... In 2008, there will be a wave of new phones from other players with excellent user interface and apple iphone because of the company's (Jobs) perverted attitude will be dead and buried.
ATT talks about cross licensing towers, but I'm not sure I buy that. I have no signal on my iPhone sitting at my desk, but I can see six t-mobile cells using FieldTest (the strongest at -87dbi) -- neither of which my phone will use. I have the same problem at my house -- zero to one bar on an ATT tower, 4-5 on a t-mobile. Phone was unusable until I bought a signal booster for the house.
What does any of that have to do with this article?
The thread about whose phone is open and whose is not has no effect on the point of the article. The impact of the iPhone was that the phone maker got to set the rules instead of the service provider. This is a major change in the behavior of the service provider.
Verizon, conversely, expects that everything you would do with your phone should include a network service function. They own services for pictures, video, music, even your calendar and address book. As a result, they have disabled many of the features provided by phone equipment providers. Furthermore, you cannot buy a phone from an equipment provider and then sign up for Verizon service. This is a really terrible situation for the customer and not likely to last once the market starts to gravitate to separate smart phones and configurable services.
Lastly, don't assume that GSM is the solution to all phone service problems. The sim card is a good idea so that phone service is portable. It is a difficult standard to adjust to higher data rates where CDMA is easier. I suspect the GSM folks will get it figured out, but the phone you have today might not be the one you need in a few years. The battle is not yet fully played.
"If all the American people want is security, let them live in prisons." Eisenhower
Most of us know that.
But if Apple can knock down Microsoft's market share a notch or two, it means they can attract more software vendors for their platforms, and ultimately more choice for customers. It is called "competition". So even without any noble motives, Apple could be the "saviour" in the desktop OS/application market. Of course, I'd like to see Linux as third, equally strong force there (it already is in the server world).
Things are somewhat different in the market for mobile music players. Here Apple is dominating and if anyone needs be cut down to size, it is Apple. But even so, I think iPod dominance is less of a problem than the almost-monopoly of Windows on the desktop/laptop.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Is this supposed to be a joke, or are you really that dumb?
I live in Switzerland. Every phone I've ever bought (from different carriers) has been sim-unlocked. I think it's possible to get SIM-locked phones, but you can easily get them unlocked. When I leave the country for any significant amount of time (which is often, as you can't spit in Switzerland without hitting three other countries), I buy a local pre-paid SIM card. A few months ago, I went to Cuba for two weeks, and my Swisscom SIM card actually worked, including Internet access (which is kind of a joke - my phone had faster Internet than the local, foreigners-only Internet cafés).
that everybody who attempts to unlock the ipod keeps getting punched by this little arm that appears from under the display.
The feds had full access to the network. What they did not have was WHO was on the line. IOW, Qwest denied unfettered access to the CRIS system.
But there were other ways to get that info. It just took longer. Did you at least notice that a recent 100 billion contract was won? Who by? ATT, Verizon, and Qwest.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Really? That never stopped him from using FreeBSD or Mach in OS X.
My guess is that it was the GPL that kept Linux out of the iPhone and OS X. This is not meant as a flame against the GPL or Apple, but I am curious if OS X or the iPhone would be based on Linux if they could have gotten it with a BSD license.
http://scottbournefacts.com/
Like the iPod, the iPhone is useless without a PC. Synchronization, backup, music, podcasts, videos and so on all require a PC.
I'd argue the "lacking" features are what makes the iPhone good. The copycat phones which look like iPhones b ut offer all the features of Windows Mobile are missing the whole freaking point of the iPhone: It's simple and easy to use.
Aside from geeks who frequent Slashdot and those with an anti-corporate bent, nearly everyone already has iTunes on their computer. The actual "downloading" part would probably be limited to those who have been serving on the Atlantis outpost for the past 2 years in the Pegasus galaxy fighting off the Wraith and Replicators and could only make it home for shoreleave 4 months after the iPhone was released.
Shit even the Asgaard use iTunes.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
... if what you say is true. Here's the part that makes OpenMoko flawed (again assuming it is accurate) ....
"you are the root user"
This makes it a great "GEEK" thing, but normal users (bless their hearts) will screw it up.
What most geeks forget is that they are geeks, not normal people (bless their hearts). Being a geek is seriously not "normal". Being a geek, there are things I like to do that my wife would never do. She is not a geek. She doesn't even know what root is, or what that really means. I can assure you that if my wife had anything with root, she'd either wouldn't use it (too hard, complex, not user friendly etc) or really screw it up.
This has been the long term problem with Linux, and many other Geek toys. And unlike other people, I don't look down upon non-geeks because they don't understand that one can buy an MP3 player for less than iPOD that has more of everything. They don't care if they don't want to use it, because it is too complex.
And the geek market is much much smaller than the market for "normal" people(bless their hearts).
OpenMoko may end up being a geek's best friend. Normal people (bless their hearts) just want a _____ that works, easily. We as geeks tend to look down upon anything that isn't a bitch to get working, and thus establishing our geek cred when we finially get it to work.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It'd be more like talking about the United States and meaning "contiguous United States" ignoring Alaska (which is roughly 1.7M sq. km.) and other assorted states and territories.
Most Americans (this is anecdotal) seem to live in a 50's world where "Europe" means the western portion of Europe that was never part of the communist block. Basically, England, France, Germany, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Scandinavia. We generally don't consider Poland, Ukraine, or other Slavic/Eastern Block countries part of "Europe" even though I'm sure most Europeans do. And probably most Europeans who talk about "America" are talking about the contiguous U.S, forgetting Alaska, etc.
Anyway, leaving aside what exactly we think about when we're thinking about the "other" place, it's pretty hard to get a grip on just how large the contiguous U.S. is without actually driving across it. From Los Angeles California to Portland, Maine is a drive of almost 5,000 km.
None of which makes the U.S. better or less backward in any of the ways we're backward. It's just amazingly vast.
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... they did exactly what they were designed to do. They paved the way for the iPhone by acting as the product Apple intended for consumers to want, only designed with specifications far lower than most other stand alone MP3 players on the market. This ensured the phones would not harm the iPod market or endure long enough to interfere with the iPhone once it was introduced.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I doubt if most consumers watch a two minute movie to figure out how their phone works. Maybe Jobs' innovation is not the iPhone itself, but some ability to get consumers to watch a 15 minute movie describing the operation of his devices.
Just look at the coverage map of Verizon and ATT in my area (zip code 58318) and you'll see why. Even if I could get an ATT phone and plan, I'd get my contract canceled after a short while because of 'excessive use of 3rd party networks'. Plus Verizon is rolling out EVDO across ND, so they offer 3G, where GSM gives me zero.
LRN 2 SWM
For many if not most Europeans, "America" means "the Americas." Most Europeans consider all of Europe to be Europe. It wouldn't occur to any European to invite a Serb, Swiss, Norwegian or Ukranian to come visit "Europe".
BTW, the area of all of the U.S. is 9 Mm^2, while the area of all of Europe is 10 Mm^2.
I had the problem when I was with T-Mobile. I could see the AT&T towers, had good signal through field test, etc. I was told by T-Mobile that "we have coverage in that area.....I know it's not very strong, but it's there, so you can't roam on those AT&T towers there. Only in places where we have no coverage at all can you use an AT&T tower."
So it appears that it's not as simple as grabbing whichever tower is closest....it's pretty much contractual by area.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
If other vendors cared as much about usability as Apple, they wouldn't be so embarrassed having (potentially) new customers watch 15 straight minutes of their product's operation.
Not having used a cell phone in Europe, I'm a bit curious about this.
The ability to take a phone from one carrier to the next isn't as important to me as the ability to take my phone from one area to the next.
I have a T-Mobile branded Razr. T-Mobile provided the unlock code for me with no fuss or bother at all. The phone works great just as it is all over Europe. As noted, international calling back to the US is a bit high, but it works really well and anyone can just call your regular number, which is important for business use. Be careful of voice mail, because it hits you twice on charges.
What I prefer to using my regular number is to buy a local SIM chip. On my recent trip to Italy, I went into a phone shop and purchased a prepaid SIM for TIM, one of the two main Italian options. This gave me an Italian phone number, a rate for calls within Italy about a third of the T-M rate and calls to the US at a rate about 80% of the T-M rate. A stop at an internet cafe let me email the number to my office and my kids and it's all good. When you need more minutes, you purchase a phone card at any Tabac shop, punch in the code and recharge your minutes. I've done the same in France and Germany.
If your trip is taking you to more than one country, this might not work as well, since TIM roaming in France would kill you, for example. There are multiple country SIM cards to be had, but I have no experience with them. You might be better off just using you US carrier card. Same if you are not making a lot of local calls. When I travel, I find I need to make or change hotel reservations, make restaurant reservations, etc. and having a local number saves time and money. If you don't make a bunch of local calls, it might not be worth the bother.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
While the iPhone is pretty cool, it makes me think about the one thing that Apple pretty much dominates the technology field in. That would be "technology MARKETING", specifically making people believe that they desperately NEED their own little iWorld to be happy! While there's no doubt that they often do build some great stuff, this little bit of marketing "Karma" often covers up a host of techno-Sin they have committed in the past, such as the Apple III computer and the Lisa (with its "borrowed" GUI design courtesy of Xerox labs), just to name some of the high-profile ones. But still, they seem to "repent" and move forward into better days, such as the Macintosh and OSX.
So, we issue them forgiveness and contribute to the Empire anyways....
Why don't they make the hardware service agnostic like they do televisions? I can go to a store, buy a television, and it won't care if I have Cable, satellite, DVD, etc. My service provider provides the stream, I display it where I want. Phones should do the same. POTS does, why does cellular need to be different?
Nonsense. Verizon's subscriber growth is very healthy right now. Sprint, on the other hand... (Click the link below)
Sprint's Losing Ways Linger
Apple demanded? Apple gave up potential iPhone sales to people who may have wanted an iPhone but didn't want AT&T. Apple is bricking phones that have been modded to work with different providers or attempt to use 3rd party apps instead of AT&T services. Apple is taking all the heat for this nonsense while AT&T sits back and collects the revenue. From where I sit, it appears that Apple's lips are firmly affixed to AT&T's backside.
The whole "we're opening up out networks" crap is just that. Cingular/AT&T's network has always been 'open' so long as you are willing to supply your own unlocked phone. I know. I've been doing that for years. The iPhone is a move in the other direction. Once you spend big bucks on one, you are much less likely to switch away from AT&T. In my case, when I travel abroad, I re-chip my phone (a RAZR) with a local account. An iPhone would be useless to me. I wonder how many other sales to people who travel a lot and want such features (typically higher income) Apple lost.
Have gnu, will travel.
Nobody talks about Helio, but they did most of the iPhone things before the iPhone, and better.
-
3G networking - Helio has it, Apple doesn't.
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Social networking integration - Helio has it ("Myspace integration"), Apple doesn't.
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GPS/map/social networking Helio has it ("Buddy Beacon"), Apple doesn't even have GPS.
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Video camera Helio has it, Apple doesn't.
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Music downloads Helio does them over the air, Apple doesn't.
They both have music, video, phone, camera, etc.Helio also has much more Web integration (IM, POP email, RSS, etc.) than the iPhone. The problem is that they had to put a pop-out QWERTY keyboard in the thing to deal with all the web stuff.
Soon or later Skype[1] or any other VOIP/instant messenging app will be available.
Skype Mobile runs fine on my Windows phone (Sprint Mogul / HTC Titan). Microsoft Portrait (video VOIP) also rules. 3G necessary here though, wifi connection better.
Da Blog
I did find this amusing (emphasis mine): Funny choice of words because you have to crack the iPhone to unlock it for use on other networks.
I think my Portland to L.A. figure is based on driving distance, not straight-line.
:-)
I think the furthest I ever drove in Europe was from Stockholm to Oslo. I've been by train from Milan to Frankfurt, but that's not the same thing, as I slept through most of the trip. I made several car trips the length of Italy (almost) and once went by bus from around Venice to Lourdes in France (a trip that SEEMED interminable). But for some reason Europe never gave me that "vastness" feeling--though the scenery in the Alps and Southern France was beautiful. Maybe it's because the Midwestern states are flat and empty?
It is interesting that the north-south of extent of Europe is so close to the east-west extent of the U.S. Thanks for the informative tidbit
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God damn, we can't have a single article on this site that some whiner doesn't complain is "America-centric." And if the article IS about a non-American country, then y'all bitch about how we don't understand your country and the article is crap.
Here's a hint: If it's from wired.com or any other AMERICAN news source, expect it to be America-centric.
Christ, Brits would throw a fit if I commented on every news.bbc.co.uk article and said it was slanted with a pro-UK angle. Fortunately, I'm not stupid, so I don't do that.
Allegedly Verizon turned Jobs down without even listening to his pitch, a decision they may well regret now that they are hemorrhaging customers.
Anyone remember when the IBM folk came frst to CP/M developer Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc.? He was out for the day, so they left, and went to visit Bill Gates.
Bill became (for a while) the richest man on earth, and Kildall died after a fight in a Monterey, Calif., restaurant.
The interesting Wikipedia article found here gives a slightly sanitized version of the story; it seems there's nowhere to get attributions of any of the juicy details.
The fact is: baldass_newbie tried to arrogantly deflect the factoid that USofAns don't know Geography onto EUans... but failed spectacularly and embarassed himself in the process.
Disclaimer: my country -- which, at 8,511,000 km2, is bigger than the continental USofA -- also got the CDMA/GSM dichotomy... but... it seems that last big CDMA is trying to convert their network to GSM because of market pressures (people _really_ like the convenience of switching operators without having to buy another phone).
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048