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Apple Can't Afford iPhone's Carrier Exclusivity
WirePosted writes with an ITWire article about the problems that Apple's AT&T exclusivity deal could pose in the coming years. Initially the company needed AT&T's commitment to the project, to ensure features like visual voicemail would work. With the iPhone a hit even at its current high price that no longer seems to be the case. Can Apple afford to stick to an exclusive carrier in the future? If for no other reason than consumer choice? "iPhones are being sold unlocked in the markets of Asia where you can't get them with a carrier plan, but they're also being bought and unlocked in the US and Europe. The message is that many and probably most iPhone buyers would like to be given a choice of carrier when they buy their iPhone. Some would be prepared to pay more as they do with other smartphones and buy their iPhone unattached to any subsidized carrier contract. The point is many consumers feel no loyalty to carriers and resent being forced to choose one."
It's not just visual voicemail, people. Jeez, if I had a dime for every time I heard that used as the only putative reason that Apple is tied to AT&T...
It's also having structured, simple unlimited data plans, which is really what makes the iPhone shine.
It's about doing things like setting your voicemail greeting all through a GUI on the phone, without having to call into some number and follow prompts. (Simple? Sure. Not a big deal? Sure. But still, one little detail among many.)
It's being able to walk out of a retailer with the iPhone sealed in a box (which itself probably has more attention to design than most handsets do), and then the ability to seamlessly activate via iTunes, with a simple selection of choices, in the comfort of one's own home in a fashion fully supported by Apple and the carrier.
It's about expanding the iTunes/iPod/iPhone/iTunes Store ecosystem with a carefully planned strategy.
It's the user experience from end-to-end (peoples' own individual gripes with AT&T or any other carrier aside).
That's the issue, and all of those things take a lot of backend work and cooperation between Apple and the carrier. It's not just a handset; it's a complete end-user experience from purchase, to activation, to use.
And yes, some customers might not "care" about all of these things. The power users, the hackers, the cutting edge geeks. But normal customers are a much larger target, and those are the people reading reviews, and those are the people who will drive to Apple's goal of 10 million iPhones. With wildly varying user experience and differences from carrier to carrier, how will the iPhone be viewed in the eyes of the iPod-buying populace?
And remember, contrary to the article's assertion, since owning an iPhone isn't mandatory, and we presumably have free will, no one is "forced" to do anything.
What about this is so difficult to comprehend?
That, and the fact that AT&T may be giving Apple as much as $200 per activated iPhone, and then 3%/month for existing customers and a staggering 9%/month for new customers on top of it, so that the end-user cost when people buy one in a store is manageable? Yeah, the iPhone might not be "subsidized" in wireless industry parlance, but you bet your ass it's "subsidized".
There's more going on here than "evil Apple" wanting "lock in". Like all products with Apple, it's about more than just buying a commodity...it's getting a pleasant experience along with it, from end-to-end. (Yeah, yeah, insert a billion gripes about how the iPhone sucks for one reason or another here. Go tell that to Google's CEO, who says the iPhone is the first of an entire new generation of products. Yes, this platform really is that special, no matter how much you, personally, might hate Apple, the iPhone, or both.)
Apple has also shown it does these sorts of things -- and going into the mobile handset business is a HUGE foray -- in baby steps. Is it any surprise that the stage we're at now has carrier exclusivity for a variety of reasons, even beyond what I've already articulated above? Just because YOU don't like it or some IT rag pundit waxes philosophic about it doesn't mean it's not the right business decision for Apple at the present juncture. It doesn't matter how many people buy iPhones to unlock them. There is a vibrant unlocking and hacking community for just about any desirable phone, including ones not available in particular markets, etc.
It may be that someday, Apple really can't "afford" carrier exclusivity. And you know what? I'd imagine we'll see a change, then, won't we?
My current carrier doesn't provide many services you can get in other areas, such as video transfer and texting outside the local area. I'm not talking about extra-cost, they simply don't offer it.
On top of all this, cell service is expensive. With these things in mind, I can't imagine how "loyalty" is supposed to even come into the equation. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just looking at which side of the ship to jump off of, knowing that the next ship over isn't likely to be any better anyway.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...has Apple ever given one jot about "consumer choice"? Frankly, they could care less. Their market thrives on supposed "exclusivity".
people hate being forced into hyper expensive contracts with no added benefit to them, news at eleven.
Apple designed a phone that is very good, and found a carrier that was desperate to play ball and risk a new world order. Apple exclusivity, therefore, serves that new world order. When Apple does not have to cripple a phone in order to insure that the carrier will make enough money. The phone is as Apple wants it for it's customers that are willing to pay for good hardware, not for the carrier customers who largely want believe they are getting a good deal by paying for 'services' throughout a long contract.
And this is where Apple may have blundered, at least in the US. The two year contract. We don't want it, we don't need it. Apple could charge half of what it made with the two year extension, $60, and still likely come out ahead in the long run.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Why can't we have all phones free as in freedom? When I buy a computer I can hook it up to any TCP/IP network and access the internet. Some I pay for and some I don't. When I buy a land line phone, it isn't locked into any phone company. I can plug it into any jack and it works. All I want from my cell provider is a data pipe to get to the internet or the voice network. Period.
Apple is trying to upset the traditional business model for handset makers in that they wish to get a cut of recurring subscriber revenues, not just a one-time equipment sale. Apple is able to get this revenue (which in the long term means more than the phone sale!) precisely because it has granted exclusivity to a single carrier. If AT&T was no longer guaranteed to capture the vast majority of iPhone subscribers, it would neither have (a) implemented the needed Voicemail and EGDE network upgrades and the billing system+iTunes interface, or (b) agreed to give a cut of subscriber MRC to Apple.
The simple calculus here is that carriers will do special things that Apple asks for (changing the way they bill and provision customers, plus handing over a cut of service revenue) in return for Apple doing something the carriers ask for (exclusivity). I don't think anyone would sensibly argue that carrier exclusivity is in the best interest of all customers, but that doesn't mean you're really tied to it. Those with the means and technical knowledge will continue to purchase and unlock phones to their hearts' content - that's the beauty of a GSM ecosystem (well at least for 2 of the 4 main US carriers). Apple and all the carriers internationally that it deals with - plus all the cellphone users who just want all of their cool Apple features to work with a minimum of hassle - will continue to pursue the exclusivity model for the foreseeable future.
"95% of all Slashdot
Steve Jobs wanted to change the way cell phones are bought but ended up just making so many annoying restrictions, even for customers that want to use AT&T/T-mobile/Orange that he ended up destroying the "simple" experience he so desired. He wanted people to be able to buy the phones directly from Apple without having to sign anything in store and/or online. However, when people started to unlock the phones Apple put in place tons of walls even for buyers that plan to use Apple's carrier. For example, you cannot buy iPhones with cash or Apple gift cards(in the states anyway). They announced this right before Christmas and many potential iPhone buyers already let it be known that they wanted Apple gift cards for Christmas so they could buy the iPhone. Instead, Apple just kicked them in the teeth.
What I don't understand is why, when Apple dropped the price, they didn't just make the price drop a subsidy for AT&T customers instead. They could have offered $200 off AT&T service after the first month that wasn't applicible to cancellation fees, and could have extended it to early adopters so they wouldn't have felt burned. Would have allowed Apple to drop the price to AT&T users(well, it would take a few months to see all the savings I suppose), and would have given Apple 50% more revenue from unlockers. But I think Steve was just so set against "subsidies" that he decided to take the "I'll do anything to prevent you from getting an unlocked iPhone" route instead. I think that costed Apple not only customers and revenue, but a LOT of goodwill too.....
Monstar L
The whole point of the iPhone business model for Apple is to offer it exclusively so they can get part of the revenue. The idea is that iPhone as single product is so desirable that it will get people to switch from competitors (which is very expensive to achieve by traditional campaigns). And the real revolution of Iphone is that Apple managed to get this from the carriers. If there's no exclusivity, there's no revenue sharing.
This idea of Apple being "forced to exclusivity" is ludicrous; they've worked very hard to achieve the exact opposite!
In a free market it is only right that there is a choice of carrier.
However, the mobile phone industry is one where to all intents and purposes the choices are "rock" and "hard place". Which makes me wonder if it really matters in this case.
Phone companies are not your friends. They are not out to give you a good, nor fair, deal. Not one of them. Every transaction with them is one of compromise. Regardless of whatever your contract says you'll be paying the same amount of money either way, with any provider. The contract serves only to confuse and confound you into believe you are getting what you are looking for.
I'm really not convinced it makes any difference whatsoever which one you sign up with. You will be screwed one way or the other.
Stop Complaining - Steve Says It's OK!!!
Can Apple afford to stick to an exclusive carrier in the future? If for no other reason than consumer choice?"
Can Apple leave its five year exclusive contract with AT&T? If for no other reason that to heed the cautionary woes of a Computerworld writer with tenuous grasp of business and markets?
The problem with wags is that they talk about Apple, Microsoft, AT&T, etc as if they were characters in a play they were writing, apparently unaware of the real world constrains of money, technology, personnel, opportunity cost, and other resources. They write like they're genus for printing ignorant wishful thinking that sounds good only if you don't know what else is involved.
Video Game Consoles 2007: Wii, PS3 and the Death of Microsoft's Xbox 360
The call center drone could have transferred you to the Chinese embassy for all he cared. He couldn't answer your question, so he got you out of his hair. In likely record time. Problem Solved. Bet you won't call them for tech support in the near future - a bonus! (from AT&T's point of view anyway).
Sheesh, you'd think you would have figured out this tech support stuff by now. You may return your Geek card at the door.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The iPhone is revolutionary because it just works.
I've looked at smartphones in the past, and play with them whenever I'm paynig my wireless bill at the store instead of the mail.
Other smartphones don't have web browsers that just works, they don't have email that just works, they don't connect to the computer in a way that just works they don't have a user interface so simple my mom can use it but so powerful I'd love to use it.
I don't have one yet, because I don't NEED a smartphone. But if I wanted a smartphone, rather than just a cellphone, the "It Just Works" factor make it the iPhone or nothing.
Test your net with Netalyzr
"The point is many consumers feel no loyalty to carriers and resent being forced to choose one."
I would phrase it differently.
I am loyal to my carrier, that's why I prefer not to change just because I buy a new phone.
Why I would need to switch to a new carrier just because I want use a certain phone make little or no sense to me.
Also, my employer pays my mobil phone bills but only as long as I use SIM-card they provide. The SIM-card is tied to a certain carrier using a company deal. So selecting what company should provide phone services isn't always something done by the individual.
This menas no iPhones at work as for now. Sad...
Bikers.....The only people that understand why a dog hangs his head out a car window.
You own exactly 0 Apple products.
"and then the ability to seamlessly activate via iTunes"
"Seamlessly"? You have to have a computer connected to the Internet just to activate your phone? That is so lame. There's a huge population of people, especially outside the US, who have mobile phones but not computers. I wonder what percentage of those un-activated iPhones were bought by people who didn't realize they had to mess with a PC just to turn the phone on.
And you still can't download music over the air link, can you?
How does a speculative article on what Apple may or may not do and what their relationship with AT&T may or not be in the future turn in to the hit whore headline "Apple Can't Afford iPhone's Carrier Exclusivity"?
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
This said - I'm still not willing to pay an outrageous sum of money to get good service, but a sensible. If a certain phone has what it takes to satisfy my needs/requirements then I select that phone and uses it with the carrier of my choice. But if the phone is locked to an operator I'm not willing to switch carrier just because I want that phone. In that case it's either an unlocked version or skipping that phone and selecting one with equal capabilities that can be used instead.
One thing that I really try to avoid is the operator-lobotomized versions of the phones (branded phones) since that means that I almost certainly will get some kind of problem with them when using them with a different operator.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I've read a lot of articles, and at least seen mention of a lot more, that spout off about how Apple screwed up it's iPhone licensing deal by tying themselves to a single carrier. However, a lot of the time within the same article, or another article on the same site will often rave about how it is an example of one of the greatest product launches of all time. If Apple screwed up so bad, how did they do so well? It all strikes me as fanboy baiting. Write an article praising Apple, their products, or their tactics to bring in the apple hater, then write one denigrating Apple, their products, or their tactics (often implying that Apple is the new Microsoft) to bring in the Apple fanboy's (of which I'm arguably one). Each article is carefully crafted to miss obvious points and make glaring mistakes so as to ensure that it's attacked in the message boards driving up the hit counters and making more ad revenue than any other article that day.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
No one *needs* the iPhone. It is simply something that people desire.
But that's besides the point.
The article is about going global. No one is saying that Apple really plans to go exclusive around the world for the long term. They'll sign some agreements to get traction with the big carriers, and when 3G arrives, they'll adjust. They'll probably go for less than 5 years exclusive.
Technology changes so fast that this is really a moot point. I'm not even sure why people are getting excited or worried.
How to Download YouTube Videos
Apple products Just Work except for when they Just Don't and then you are Just Fucked.
You won't find anywhere on your iPhone to configure the applications because you shouldn't need to.. but if you do, call tech support cause there aint no way to fix it self and the same goes for everything else made by Apple. It's proprietary technology and that's nothing but a disgrace in this day and age.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You misunderstand what a free market is, a free market is an unregulated market where businesses and consumers are free to do whatever they want to sell/buy products. This includes vendor lock-in, package deal requirements, purchasing groups, etc. It also includes no gov't mandated IP. /ramble
/endoframble
What you are actually implying is that you want a specific market regulation--choice of carrier for your phone. I think that IS reasonable (it's amusing too, because we used to have to rent phones from AT&T back before AT&T was broken up...oh wait...). And considering yesterday's politics article this should probably be tagged Ron Paul, because he and those like him are _against_ all market regulation protecting consumers from vendor lock-in and lock down of features--whether phone features or digital rights restrictions or filtering internet communications or net neutrality. Ron Paul's ideological stance is that regulation itself is bad and the private sector is good, and thus doesn't even match an economist's understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of "free markets."
My basic premise would be that since each of us are individuals with limited resources, we need regulation to reduce swindling (especially in financial services and insurance areas), reduce monopolistic control by large corporations (improve consumer product choices), and require standards of safety across the market (businesses cannot always agree on their own or defend against unsafe imports).
As it is, most of our services cost more and have fewer features than other 1st world countries because we are either too lazy to choose, have too little choices, or are too weak to regulate. I.e. Japan doesn't have vendor lock-in/lock-down of cell phone features. The only thing we're marginally good at is standardized safety requirements, but that gets foreign pressure(i.e., japan banned our beef imports because we dont do enough testing for mad cow).
Every new AT&T activation is a two-year contract. It's not apple's fault. Sorry, please play again.
Just take your iPhone in and Verizon will set you up with an account on their system. Costs per month will be about the same, give or take $30, unless you dont' get unlimited wireless (but you would anyway, right?).
Oh. What's that? You can't use even an unlocked phone on Verizon? Really? Their system isn't the de facto world standard for cell phones? So you'd have to design a special radio version for Verizon, and then a different one for the rest of the world? Hmmm...that's stupid. Oh well - I'm sure they'll be happy to send you a bill every month anyway, even if you can't use te network. As long as your check cashes, it's all good.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Like being able to activate at home without having to wait for a sales droid.
The whole notion of phone activation is very CDMA like and is not part of the usual GSM experience. The only thing that should take activating is the phone account, and then you are free to move your SIM card from phone to phone. I have never need to activate any GSM phone I have got, so why should I need to do this with the iPhone.
The iPhone has got many things right, but this does not make it a perfect phone. There are still missing features, that some people take for granted in GSM phones, like being able to transmit files and contacts via Bluetooth and MMS messaging, amongst others. Hopefully Apple will correct this or the competition will offer something that is even better, for us to lust over.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
They get a better deal than you do!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
For me, it's simple. I cannot afford the iPhone right now (and not for another 2 years). $400 for the gadget, 2-year commitment to AT&T (not a reputable company; caved in to admin demands to turn over its records to the government), another $600 to abrogate existing service commitment. FOOEY!
I don't really care much about carrier exclusivity. I pick my carrier based on the phone more than the other way around. The difference between carriers seems minor to me compared to the features of the phone. AT&T might not be my first choice of carrier, but offering iPhone makes them my first choice.
From a business standpoint, exclusive access to the iPhone has value, and enables Apple to get better terms. AT&T's customer base and profits increased significantly based on the iPhone. It wouldn't surprise me if the money Apple is making based on their exclusive relationship with AT&T exceeds what they would have made by offering the iPhone to all carriers. They might sell a few more phones (although I suspect that most buyers are like me, more interested in the phone than the carrier) but they'll be making less money per phone, because a carrier can't be expected to agree to as favorable terms if they aren't going to have an exclusive deal.
with 14 billion on hand *note that Microsoft HAD 19 billion on hand* The real question is... can their Market Cap afford it?
Actually the keynote announcement included the top two features on my wishlist: GPS (OK, not real GPS, but it does the job) and lyrics on the screen while listening to music.
Of course, there will probably be a flood of new features soon, now that Apple is opening the phone up to 3rd party applications.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but generally I don't think that selling cell phones requires a college/university degree. So as a result I usually do my own research about products, than rely on a person of questionable interest, education, and or intelligence. Sure you can get lucky and come across the engineering student who likes the job and knows a hell of a lot more than you, but you can also get the opposite. :-). He knew every fact I could ask about the car, and most of it's competitors.
Point in case - I was looking at one of the new TX luxury watch line, 770 series (actually made by Timex - cost about $400-500 very neat check them out). Asked the department store salesman about it, and he couldn't tell me crap about it. I even showed him how to work the built in compass several times, and he still couldn't remember which button to press. I've had plenty of salespeople give plain flat out wrong information. Then again, I've also had some that have been spectacular -Porsche salespeople for example
So when someone starts talking about the "experience" and can't give you any hard facts, your knowledge hasn't really increased, and it's hard to make any rational conclusion about the item. It may be better or WORSE than what you previously thought about it.
Just to play devils advocate - I'm a surgeon/geek/former scientist, and so how I choose to buy things is probably very, very different than my musician and actor friends. Neither way of buying/comparing things is the "right" way.
..........FULL STOP.
GSM data is a joke. I'll take my CDMA any day of the week.
It strikes me that the mobile networking situation in the US right now is what our wired Internet would be in had the greedy money-grubbing carriers been in charge of designing it. Your email would reside in central offices, and you would pay $1 to send or receive one (plus $1 per megabyte of attachments). The Web would be a set of AOL-like walled gardens with mutually incompatible content formats. Yay for VCASTrated YouTube! The scary part is that there were projects at former Bell Labs developing systems along that line under the PCS label. *shudder*
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Who cares! Apple missed an entire demographic by bringing out a product that was essentially obsolete on day one. First, it max's its data throughput at EDGE. For a phone that is heavily dependent on data services, this was idiotic. Unless Apple has a nifty trick up their sleeve to 'enable' HSDP at some later date, the iPhone usefulness is limited by this. Shoot, if it had HSDPA they could've integrated a camera and real-time VTC a la iChat (I've used iChat over my tethered V3XX via an HSDPA connection). Second, it has very limited Web 2.0 capabilities. Want to run the Google apps (or similar) you've come to depend upon like Documents, Reader, Talk, etc.? Too bad. Want to write your own? Too bad. The iPhone has some cool stuff, but for the money give me a Blackberry. Yeah, it's EDGE only too, but at least it's useful and can run all my Java apps. Just my two cents, having just come home from the Apple store where I was thoroughly disgusted.
As the only place I only ever tried them is at the store, I could be totally wrong, and the iPhone might really be the best thing since sliced bread. But I can't find anyone willing to actually tell me what's actually so good about it; even here on slashdot the people who claim it's so great often rave about the "experience" instead of compareing it's feature set to another high-end phone.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Suppose, when Toyota brought out the Prius, that the gas filler was square instead of round, and that Mobil gas stations had an exclusive deal to provide gas with square nozzles on their pumps.
Don't you think that would have hurt the popularity of the Prius - especially in areas of the country with poor coverage of Mobil stations - and created a controversy?
Don't you think that a mini-industry of "unlockers" would spring up with square-to-round adapters?
Wouldn't people view Toyota and Mobil as the devil incarnate, and refused to ever do business with either of them ever again?
Forcing consumers who buy one product to also buy another product is outlawed in some countries. E.g. I'm very interested in apple trying to sell an iphone in countries like Belgium (Where locked phones are illegal)
Obviously they both have different uses one is to send a clip of a song or video to a friend to keep, the other is just a short message like an answerphone service. Is visual voicemail like the former or the latter? If it's the latter who keeps their answerphone messages "to browse at their leasure" anyway?
I'd be gratful to hear your reply as I'm looking into buying a high end phone, and want some actual specs. so I can compare it with others?
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
"It frustrates me to no end to hear people gripe about "user choice and freedom" but at the same time they covet the simplicity and elegance of Apple's design approach, not realizing that their interfaces and hardware are what they are precisely because it doesn't allow you to customize the crap out of it and ultimately break it in a million ways. "
Sounds like a KDE vs Gnome flamewar all over again.
It's also having structured, simple unlimited data plans, which is really what makes the iPhone shine.
T-Mobile has had those for half a dozen years for the Danger Hiptop.
It's about expanding the iTunes/iPod/iPhone/iTunes Store ecosystem with a carefully planned strategy.
Yes, that is what it is about: vendor lock-in. And that's why Apple is evil.
It may be that someday, Apple really can't "afford" carrier exclusivity. And you know what? I'd imagine we'll see a change, then, won't we?
You don't seriously believe that Apple has a lot of time on their hands? This isn't the desktop market, where Microsoft's monopoly has slowed progress to a crawl; Apple's features and UI will be cloned and improved upon within six months by a dozen phones, and at half the price.
I found the feature set of my Nokia 6030 quite appealing - specifically, the feature where the phone cost $50 and the prepaid plan for a year's worth of minutes was about $100. :-)
No, I don't really talk on the phone that much, so I don't feel it should cost a lot either.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I have nothing against O2 or their price plan, especially now they're going to up the number of minutes and texts. O2 reception here is poor in the part of town I live though. I was with Vodafone for years and had no complaints. Vodafone with the same plan I got from O2 would've been perfect. I can't guarantee that I can make a call without it dropping but that's not a big deal for me and not what I use my iPhone for most of the time anyway.
Andy.
Apple creates value to people who want their technology to "just work" by covering the whole product lifecycle with a system that - surprise - as a result limits choice!
As someone who has a couple of Macs and who maintains a Mac for his parents, I can say: it's a myth that Apple technology "just works". Mac hardware has plenty of problems.
And while the iPhone is fairly nice, there are plenty of phones that are considerably easier to use and a lot cheaper, like the Motorola F3, the Danger Hiptop, or a Nokia 1100 (1 billion sold!).
Hey Steve,
We know that you fly around in your Gulfstream and hang out with your mega rich friends so you have no real concept of what consumers want. While you might think Visual voicemail is cool and being checked out by some t shirt wearing hipster with a PDA in the middle of the store is cool to many people can't be bothered.
You were doing quite well for many years improving your products and getting a good consumer base. The reason you did so well is you did not have an underlying agenda and you just wanted to make good products.
The reality here is you dumped Apple in the toilet once before with your incompatible hardware and your silly BS and it looks like your going to do it again rather soon. This time the market is different and you won't have cool looking black unix workstations to peddle because of Linux.
Get your S**T together Steve or see history repeat itself!
Buy a Virgin Mobile phone (crappy Sprint coverage)
Pay a minimum of $20 every 90 days, no contract.
Perfect for me using the phone for ~5 minutes every 3-4 days
From here on out the going gets tougher for Apple and AT&T. They've made almost all of the easy sales. Apple hasn't released a 3G iPhone yet because AT&T's 3G network stinks. Apple should have released their SDK shortly after shipping the iPhone. It takes a good year or 2 for developers to release good software.
Last week a guy from America was here in our Tokyo office and he wanted to use his iPhone SIM card in a japanese phone, bummer, does not work. It worked with his previous plan, but well, iPhone SIM is so locked down, nothing works. Plus, the iPhone has no G3 so there is no way it will work in Japan anyway.
Another example why lockdown is just plain stupid.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
OK, so I have been with Sprint for over 5 years now. I have watched their network grow in size and speed, and I've tried new technologies such as EVDO and 3G. I've been happy.
I've also been a long time Mac user. I've used both Palm and Blackberry with 3rd party software (Missing Sync) to get it to work with my iCal, Address Book, and Mail. Seems that Sprint and other carriers have been ignoring the Mac crowd for years, from their Broadband cards, to their smart phones.
Enter iPhone. I'm thinking, "Hey! The long anticipated missing Mac based smart phone!!"
Then they slapped the shackles on themselves. ONLY AT&T. What kind of BONEHEAD picked the slowest and shittiest network to release this on?
It IS a matter of network and carrier loyalty to me, and countless others that run in my circles.
As I sit there watching one of the deserter friends wait 3 minutes to pull up a YouTube video, I tell him that it would SCREAM on a 3G network, where devices like this are (or should be) designed to flourish.
Nice job Steve. Should have just sold it by itself, and give the USERS a choice of their providers.
I would have gladly paid the FULL origional price you were asking for that convenience.
Even better, let me buy the phone, and I would treat it like a "world" phone with multiple carriers.
This is nothing new for Apple. I have added it to the list of other great innovations that have never taken off due to poor executive judgment:
Newton
Back To My Mac
iTV
The iPhone is about the design and the user interface and the experience. It's also about convergence, combining a phone and an Apple video iPod and an internet access device (email/web/messaging) into a single piece of hardware.
That said, if all you care about is a feature-for-feature checklist so you can buy the phone with the most boxes checked off (and most of them being things you'll never use anyway), then it's probably not for you.
Adn if you don't use a Mac, don't own an iPod, don't use iTunes, and don't use iPhoto, then it's definitely not for you.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Sigh, I have five lovely mod points, but that is nowhere near enough to mod this entire discussion down as pointless. To summarize a) Apple GOOD! b) Apple BAD!
Three Squirrels
I'm currently in the Philippines on an extended business trip (3 months to go). In the U.S. I use a Kyocera 7135 Smartphone (CDMA) which is very ancient and unreliable at this point in time. I would love to replace it with the iPhone. However, at the moment, as much as I'd love to purchase a U.S. iPhone, I can't primarily because the roaming charges would be outrageous here in the Philippines. I also don't want to have to go through the trouble of trying to unlock the phone temporarily just so that I can use it with a local SIM to avoid roaming charges.
Yes, in 3 months, I can return to the U.S., give in, and accept a locked-down iPhone, but what happens when if I was to travel to Europe or Asia again? Why should I have to pay AT&T almost $2 / minute to use the iPhone in a foreign country? I may be willing to give Apple and AT&T my business for 2 years if I don't plan to travel outside of the U.S., but at the moment that is not an option for me.
Yes, you can argue that I am only one out of so many that Apple will be losing business on, and they are making up for it with the AT&T exclusivity. But I am a potential customer none-the-less. I wouldn't argue that the Apple / AT&T partnership is important from an ease-of-use standpoint for iPhone customers, but that does not mean Apple can't allow people to purchase an unlocked iPhone at their own risk. Clearly, this is about money and stubbornness by Apple to allow customers to use the device freely (albeit unsupported, as the case may be).
> The message is that many and probably most iPhone buyers would like to be given a choice of carrier when they buy their iPhone
No.
The message is that many potential buyers would like to be given a choice to buy this thing. At all. Not everyone who can afford an iPhone is from the US, Germany or France. I can't buy one and use it reasonably without unlocking it.
Its amazing too me how much hatred the iphone/att deal seems to be generating.... If you dont like it, dont get one.... You dont see what the hype is about... ok fine, the phone isnt for you.. move along.
:) I wont even mention the maps app (ok maybe I will) which I use more than anything else when Im traveling. Its just awesome. The att service is great.. service is fine, my billing is simple, and there just aren't any problems with it... period.
:)
For me its as simple as this: I wanted 1 device that had a camera, a phone, and an easy to use music player in it.... And the iphone does this not only really well, but its just freaking cool too
My only complaint is the lack of pics messaging, which seems pretty asinine on a multimedia device like this... But seeing as I don't really text/pic message much, it isn't really a big problem for me... Never the less, it does seem a bit odd.
Anyway... yadda yadda yadda...
I know all you haters are just jealous
The iPhone is about the design and the user interface and the experience.
It's about the usual marketing drivel from Apple, you say??
I had heard there was more to it than that. But maybe it was all just marketing drivel.
Standard iPhone plans currently don't include "pay as you go" as far as I know, although I've heard there's a way to switch to them if you do it the right way- don't know for sure. For people like me who prefer a monthly plan, price is a non-issue, because (in the US at least), iPhone voice rates are as cheap as anything else, and the unlimited data plan is actually cheaper than most (at $20/month). If you don't care about your phone GUI, I'm puzzled why you're even bothering, because that's the point of the iPhone. And if you need to keep your monthly phone expenditures under £10/month, I don;t think the iPhone is right for you.
If you don't even know what visual voicemail does, then why did you say you could "simulate" it with MMS? VV is explained here:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/index.html#voicemail
>> The iPhone is about the design and the user interface and the experience.
> It's about the usual marketing drivel from Apple, you say??
You actually believe that design, UI, and user experience = marketing drivel?
I'd suggest you just relax, enjoy your current phone, and stop worrying about iPhone threads...
T-Mobile offers unlimited data plans. Next.
Simple? Sure. Possible on the iPhone? Nope. I followed the prompts on my iPhone, and still had to call AT&T's VM system to initialize everything. Beyond the VM, not much requires special attention from the carrier... and the VM failed at ease of setup.
What's this have to do with AT&T? Apple's already supporting other carriers in other countries. Why not support other carriers in the US?
Really? I recently (last week) got a company paid for iPhone. I updated the firmware to the latest release. I had to reboot the phone to get it to recognize new mail settings. Seriously, it kept checking an account I had deleted. Or how about the Safari crashes fairly often.
Oh, you want AT&T complaints? The voice quality is TERRIBLE. My other phone is a Nokia 6015i on Verizon. Hands down, the beat to shit Nokia has much better voice quality. The best part? The Nokia is picking up a tower in the next county, the iPhone is picking up a signal from within the city I live in. I get more straight to VM calls, more dropouts, and far worse quality with AT&T despite the phone showing full signal strength and the Nokia showing one or two bars.
The revolution will be mocked
...why on earth does a music store have to be an application instead of a website?
The rest of your post is hard to answer (other than, "Apple likes to control everything because Jobs is a control enthusiast and that's the way to wring as much money as possible"). This, however, is pretty easy.
The reason is: because iTunes is really an application to fill your iPod with music. Most PMPs come with a program to help manage your media. The iPod has iTunes. The iTunes store is there because... well, once you have a vice grip on a market, you milk it for all it's worth. (I hope you like your mixed metaphors shaken, not stirred.) And if you could purchase music from the iTunes store and put it on a Creative Sansa, for instance, there'd be more Creative Sansas sold, and a couple of fewer iPods, because some people don't like Apple or their products, but sure complain when Apple won't sell them an unbundled iPhone.
If the iTunes store were a website (which would be *way* too convenient for customers, and *way* too hard for Apple to control), you'd have to make it so the iPod was just a USB storage device or somesuch, to which you could simply copy your songs and pictures and movies. This doesn't play well with the people who actually *own* the music: the evil one-eyed persian-cat-petting bastards who own and run the world-conquering record companies.
So, until Chuck Norris decides to use his karate chop of justice to break Apple's DRM-chokehold, we are doomed to a world of iPhone-flashing yuppies and children with white earphones.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
It is very true that people don't want to stick to a carrier, because in today's market every other day one carrier is better than the other in terms of services or features they provide and moreover in India there is a big craze for iPhone and most of the people I know here have bought an unlocked iPhone in the recent times. Sachin http://qtp.blogspot.com/
While EVERY modern phone in existence has 3g support, the iphone is inexplicably tied to EDGE. No matter how great the iphone may be, EDGE is not fast enough for modern data. An iphone without 3g support might as well just be an itouch.
Some people care about design and user interface and experience. Others don't. It's not good, or bad, or us vs. them. It's just the way it is. Let him enjoy his checklist.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Fitt's law. You're wrong, Apple's UI team is right. Not an opinion, either. UI design is science, not opinion.
Also, Ubuntu has a very nice UI, but Windows? I remember installing a wifi card in a Windows laptop. At one point, the installation instructions told me to open the context menu on a entry in a subment of the Start menu to get to the card's properties. Really? That's less confusing than Mac OS? You're probably used to Windows and thus find Mac OS X confusing. Fair enough. For somebody who uses both regularly, the winner is obvious.
Again, you're wrong.
I think you don't quite understand how usability research works. This isn't some kind of voodoo where somebody simply determines that something works better than something else. These are valid studies, and there are rules that can be derived from doing these studies which apply to most people. GP mentioned the buttons in dialog boxes: On Windows, the default dialog box is a YesNo box. There's some text, then there are "Yes" or "No" buttons. On the Mac, the buttons contain verbs. For example, if you clean out the Recycle Bin, Windows asks you: "Are you sure you want to delete [your file]?" with "Yes" and "No" as possible answers. Mac OS X asks you something like "Do you really want to delete the Objects in the Trash? You can't undo this." with "Cancel" and "OK" as possible answers (I'm on Windows right now, so I can't check the exact wording). This is certainly not perfect, but it is better than Windows, because "Cancel" obviously cancels what you're doing, while you can't be sure whether "Yes" or "No" cancels the action on Windows. So, did somebody just set up this rule that you have to use verbs in buttons? No, Apple did a lot of usability studies when they originally came up with the Mac interface (read Tog's book on the subject for some interesting anecdotes about this). They found that people were faster and had less errors when the buttons contained verbs, because most people simply don't read the text in the dialog boxes (and if you have done support, as you claim, you'll know this).
Another example is the menu bar you mention. You complain that the "universal" menu bar on the Mac is dumb. That's an opinion. Usability tests have shown that it is, in fact, faster and less error-prone than the "menu bar inside the window" solution on Windows an Linux. Why? Because you can't overshoot the top-of-window menu bar. According to Fitt's law, entries in the menu bar have infinite size. You just jam the mouse to the top of the screen, and you'll hit the menu. Again, the Mac's solution is not perfect, especially if you have multi-window setups, but it is better than the Windows solution, despite of your dislike for it.
Which leads me to my final point: Unless you do studies, you don't know what solution is best, which is probably why you consider usability research BS. Results gained from studies often don't fit personal experience. The reason for this is not that the research is BS; the reason for this is that you can't evaluate usability objectively when you're observing yourself. A great example for this is keyboard shortcuts. People who use keyboard shortcuts think they're faster than using the mouse. Actually doing usability studies shows the mouse generally wins out, except for some specific, often-used shortcuts like Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V. This is science; hundreds of tests have shown this again and again. Your personal experience does not fit the actual facts. You can't evaluate usability based on your feelings (although a happy user is, of course, important, too :-).
Then the GP is right. MMS can do exactly the same thing the Apple are touting.
I MMS the wife. Her phone says "Inda has sent a message" she chooses to see/hear it at her convenience.
In fact, MMS can do so much more and it's not nearly as expensive as everyone thinks it is.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
With the iPhone, the caller doesn't have to know or do anything about MMS or have an MMS-capable device. Visual voicemail works all the time, with any call, from any phone in the world.
Yeah, that's a great solution, beating out both OS X and Windows. Unsurprisingly, as Nautilus was originally designed by Eazel, with Any Hertzfeld as the UI designer (I think). Susan Kare was also at Eazel. They had some great UI designers and did awesome work.
I didn't know that about keyboard shortcuts, that's very interesting stuff there.If you're interested in this kind of thing, I would suggest Tog's book where he talks more about keyboard shortcuts and the usability tests Apple did on them. UI design is absolutely fascinating.
http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/iphonetariffs
http://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Nokia/N95 And if you need to keep your monthly phone expenditures under £10/month, I don;t think the iPhone is right for you.
I don't need to, I currently choose to; I'm looking int the high end phone market to see if it meets my needs (maybe I can ditch my PDA & mp3player etc.)
If you don't even know what visual voicemail does, then why did you say you could "simulate" it with MMS? VV is explained here:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/index.html#voicemail
From that description (it idn't tell me anything I didn't already know) it seems I was correct MMS can achieve exactly the same effect as Visual voicemail.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
I would suggest that 'The iPhone is about...' is marketing drivel. It's not even proper English, just the kind of blather Apple's marketing is good at churning out. Whatever they attach to the backend of that sort of hype is just the backfill.
http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/iphonetariffs
http://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Nokia/N95 And if you need to keep your monthly phone expenditures under £10/month, I don;t think the iPhone is right for you.
I don't need to, I currently choose to; I'm looking int the high end phone market to see if it meets my needs (maybe I can ditch my PDA & mp3player etc.)
If you don't even know what visual voicemail does, then why did you say you could "simulate" it with MMS? VV is explained here:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/index.html#voicemail
From that description (it idn't tell me anything I didn't already know) it seems I was correct MMS can achieve exactly the same effect as Visual voicemail.
As I said before -- if you actually believe that design, UI, and user experience = marketing drivel, then relax, enjoy your current phone, and stop worrying about iPhone threads...
Yes you need a computer to use the friggin phone - because its a lot more than a phone.
Look, I've got a simple flip phone, and it works fine by itself. But the whole point of the iPhone is to put your media collection on your phone. Unless your media collection is a stack of LPs, you probably already keep it on a computer. I can't picture anyone getting home with the iPhone, opening the box, slapping themselves on the forehead and going, "What?! I need a COMPUTER!?!"
I WISH I could hook my carrier-crippled phone up to my computer. Maybe then I wouldn't lose my contacts every time my phone kicks the bucket, or have to back them up by keying them into a file manually.
Thanks for all that, you've been the most informative source of info on the iPhone that I've come across.
It seems as though it's not the device for me, I happen to like Nokia's interfaces, so if I can get a high-end Nokia that can give me a good camera and decent mp3 player for cheaper than an iPhone, then I can put up with "bear skins and stone knives.".
Secondly visual voicemail in the way you describe it is redundant for my purposes as I delete my regular voice mail as soon as I've listened to it; I only keep stuff sent via MMS so there's no real need to be able save & listen to it in an order other than that which I received it. And as the iPhone is the only mobile phone in recent years that isn't capable of MMS, so I would end up with a pretty inbox, but one that was always empty.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
As an answer to that, you can't vote with your wallet because there's nothing around that comes near the iPhone in form or function. You have Windows Mobile/Blackberries that come close until you actually use that crap, you have Sony Ericsson which comes close in functionality but certainly not ease-of-use. What all these complainers really want is an iPhone that is not locked into AT&T for whatever reason. So far, it's not here yet, it might come (hopefully sooner than later) but until then you're stuck with Windows, Symbian or something else proprietary. However, we'll hopefully have Google's phone soon and maybe the Neo1973 will finally get off the ground but until then we're stuck.
Disclaimer: I've had a Windows phone once a few years ago, that thing was slow and sucked battery and couldn't even get synchronize my IMAP account, it was somehow locked into Microsoft Office/Server products so I had to use Outlook (not Express) and a proprietary ActiveSync. I had it for a total of 2 weeks and then gave it away to somebody. I've also owned a Newton, HP and Palm products, the Newton and Palm actually did some good stuff but missed the cell phone functionality.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I notice that the parent post reached 5, and then was marked "overrated" hours after posting to bring it down to 3. This happens consistently with articles critical of Apple, and always hours after the original posting. It's almost as if Apple has a system which watches for criticism of Apple and then sends someone in to mute the criticism.
With visual voicemail, if your wife wants ALL incoming voice mail treated like MMS, she can have that, instead of just getting it when someone happens to send her an MMS.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
As with the original Mac the raw hardware performance largely fades into the background. EDGE is slow, sure, but even in slow mode the iPhone browser beats the tar out of the using the lousy-to-the-point-of-useless browsers on other 3G-capable phones I've used. What the hell good is a fast network connection on those things, when you can't even use it?
In terms of using the thing as a phone, I figure it's worth waiting for both 3G and the AT&T exclusivity arrangement to work itself out. In the meantime it's possible to get most of the usefulness of the device without AT&T, by far the major suckage point of the iPhone, even though it does mean giving up even EDGE support. I bought an iPod Touch as a replacement for my Palm T|X, now that Apple has come to its senses and shipped it with a full set of applications. The improvement in interface versus the Palm series (a product line that has thoroughly stagnated over the last three years) is really hard to overstate. I don't know what Apple's expectation of market is, but their "music player" is the best PDA on the market by leaps and bounds. (With one major misfeature: Needs a louder alarm!) I kind of wonder if Apple might, in the years before the AT&T contract expires, produce an iTablet that is pretty much the iPhone without the phone, or the iPod Touch with cellular data support. I have a Kindle as well and the EVDO support in it is brilliant where it is integrated well (Amazon store support) even though its web browsing feature is super-primitive to the point of being a "really need to know right now" limited tool. It could be an interesting product, although perhaps not mass-market enough.
As an aside, I can only hope that touch-style UI design takes off. It's nice to see all the other vendors scrambling to make products with those kinds of interfaces, having been caught flat-footed (although you want to skip some of the other first-gen devices; the Touch phone that Verizon is selling right now ... let's be charitable and say it feels rushed). On small form-factor devices it is the difference between "works great" and "is practically unusable". Moreover I would absolutely love a 24" touch display for my desktop, that would make Photoshop way, way more convenient (mice suck, the tablet is a big improvement but it takes a lot of training to get used to writing down there while looking up here, and the Wacomm monitor/tablet that offers the best ergonomics on the market is ridiculously expensive). The interface is vastly superior to the mouse.
So, getting back to my original reason for replying, I don't see that the iPhone hardware is really all that mediocre. There are a couple of design decisions, like EDGE and the fixed battery, that annoy a subset of the population but in the greater scheme of things appear to make little real difference (especially in the US which has narrow deployment of 3G networks). In terms of display, and interface, and application performance, and WiFi networking the devices thoroughly embarrass the competition. This is so much the case that I often wonder if the people complaining about lousy hardware have actually used an iPhone. It works more smoo
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
So no, it doesn't cost £600, it costs rather less than that. But it does cost something, and if that's not something you're prepared to pay, don't get an iPhone. It's not rocket science -- the iPhone isn't aimed at the frugal end of the market.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Using slick marketing phrases like 'The iPhone is about...' is drivel. I don't see how you can defend it. Your High School english teacher is frowning.
But Slashdot isn't nearly the nerd hangout it was five years ago. It's filled with slick shills now.
But Slashdot isn't nearly the nerd hangout it was five years ago. It's filled with slick shills now.
So your real problem here is grammar. Geez.
I've been at Slashdot > 5 years, and a lot longer than you, judging from your number. Unfortunately grammar complaints have a long history here.
Here's a clue: You can't judge by number. It's easy to get a new account when you get tired of your old 'handle.' They didn't even used to LIST the number up at the head of each comment. Another symptom of deterioriation.
My complaint was not a grammar complaint. It was a 'slick language' comment about Apple Marketspeak. They've been doing it for years.
Mac shills do NOT have a long history here. Just four or five years...
By making sure they pissed of the EU market.
In the UK they are far below expected sale of the gadget and price cuts are imminent.
They got wrong the pricing (as they did in the US) and they are underestimating the EU consumer, which in general is more informed about mobile telephony than their counterparts in the US.
And the reason Apple has not approached Asia at all is that any lowly gadget in Japan, Korea or China offers better value for many.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You have been brainwashed with marketing buzzwords and are completely unable to explain in objective terms the advantages of the gadget.
No wonder the Apple fanboy is a subject of derision.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And here you are, defending the privilege to be screwed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You need a computer, iTunes, Internet connection, and the most expensive contract in the market.
A high intensive chicken production factory also just works, that does not mean the end product is necessarily good for yourself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you're saying the real future of navigational interfaces for the masses lies in developing multi-buttoned mice that bear a marked resemblance to an F-16 fighter pilot's control stick?
"Let's see, does this button turn on the MP3 player or drop the thermonuclear weapon?"
"Oops."
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
In theory it would be great to have a choice of carriers for the iPhone. In reality, though, the only US alternative to AT&T in GSM carriers is T-Mobile, which sucks so bad they make AT&T look good in comparison. The only choice I'd be really interested in is Verizon, whose excellent network I do miss terribly. But that's not a realistic option because 1) I don't think it would be worth the investment required to produce a CDMA-variant of the iPhone, 2) this would violate Apple's 5 year(?) exclusivity agreement with AT&T, 3) Verizon is probably still too smug to give in to Apple's demands for branding/marketing restrictions, revenue sharing, and affordable flat rate price plans.