Slashdot Mirror
Rumor — AT&T Losing iPhone Exclusivity Next Week
MojoKid writes "An inside source over at HotHardware reports that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on 1/27, coincident with Apple's upcoming press event next week, though it's not yet clear what other carriers will be stepping in to pick up the iPhone. For anyone who has followed the saga, you may notice that you haven't seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement as of late. In fact, they have spent most of their time fighting Verizon's negative ad campaigns. This may not be all that surprising. Inside of AT&T, word is that the iPhone is causing more trouble than ever before. On some level, having the iPhone is hurting AT&T's image. Do you remember hearing about AT&T's 'horrible network' before the iPhone? The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T may finally be tired of taking the heat."
Man you are dumb.
For one the market share for iPhones is still much much larger then all the Android based phones out there. It is second only to RIM Blackberries.
Most mobile application/web development is primarily tested for the iPhone So right now iPhone as more apps.
The iPhone is the standard that all the other phones need to set the bar against.
It isn't about features or technology it is about mindset. Right now the iPhone is still the winner (next year who knows bur right now they are the winner)
AT&T got a lot of new customers just because people wanted the phone... For the most case this is opposite... People search for the plan they want and get the phone. If AT&T looses iPhone exclusivity it would really heart them. Well lets go with the other ones instead they may have better coverage or faster network. Spring G4 iPhone would be cool. Perhaps Verizon my have a cheaper Service. Perhaps t-mobile will allow tethering.
Android is still second fiddle... I for one like to see it grow and give apple a good run for its money however you have to be an idiot to think the iPhone is irrelevant.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I was there for the switch to 3G in OH and though the service is fast, the batteries don't last (heh); my phone(s) would be dead with very limited surfing.
The batteries don't last in a lot of EVDO phones either. That's the fault of stupid phone manufacturers who switched radio chipsets without bothering to improve battery capacity or power consumption in the rest of the phone.
The real problem seems to be that AT&T has very limited 3G coverage, while their EDGE network has very good coverage. Unfortunately, as you allude to, they had to degrade the EDGE network for the 3G iPhone. The 3G-EDGE failover problems actually have nothing to do with the iPhone and everything to do with GSM. This has never worked very well, not even in other dual band phones. EVDO to CDMA fails over pretty seamlessly, though in the very early days of EVDO back around 2005 or so, several phones (like the Moto Razr) had problems failing over as well.
My blog