AT&T Gets You Ready for the iPhone 3G
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
AT&T is getting ready for the iPhone 3G rush, in part, by posting a series of videos walking customers through the process of activating their new phones. The series called iReady, includes clips for new and existing iPhone owners.
posted by Russell @ 2:10 PM,
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Yahoo Mobile Alerts
Friday, March 28, 2008
Seems odd that AT&T isn't an option when setting up mobile alerts on Yahoo. Not sure why... it just does.
posted by Russell @ 12:24 PM,
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A Free Market is a Happy Market
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
If this is true, the iPhone just became a lot less appealing thanks to AT&T. The #1 most coolest multi-media phone is connected to a network that doesn't permit data transfers or WiFi connections beyond a certain point. According to their breakdown of AT&T's terms for service, you can't use it for
uploading, downloading or streaming of video content (e.g. movies, tv), music or games.And for those that said they would take WiFi+EDGE over EVDO any day, how about this golden nugget:
To ensure that the Wi-Fi Service is not being used fraudulently, AT&T limits your usage of the Wi-Fi Service to 150 uses per monthJust during my normal work week I will connect to at least three networks every day. That seems to mean that after 10 days my WiFi won't work anymore...
But wait, there is more:
If you have a service and you happen to call other 'offnet' services, including wireline phones, or non-AT&T subscribers, you have to 'limit' your use, be charged or be terminated.What?!?! So you mean that if I have an iPhone and I make too many calls to landlines or my friends on other cell networks I can have my account shut down? I use my cell phone as my primary (only) phone - I'd be canceled in a week. (On the brighter side, at least my WiFi would not have been cut off yet).
I know that there are those (Chris) that support locked cell phones and to a certain extent I don't disagree with the idea of exclusivity. But if the cell phone industry in this country was more like those in every other country, the customer would be free to choose their phone and their carrier. A free market is pro-business - it's just not pro-AT&T.
Labels: att, cellular service, iphone
posted by Russell @ 9:56 PM,
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When Worlds Collide
Saturday, June 30, 2007
On the one hand you've got AT&T whose name conjures up images of blue suits, IBM, and my dad. "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM" was the old phrase, and it was just as true for AT&T. They are big, powerful, and I can tell you from personal experience do not rate the individual high on their list of priorities.
On the other hand you have Apple, almost the "anti-corp" in a lot of ways. Until recently not accepted in many business circles beyond graphic design, music, etc... very "artsy" and hip.
So now they are working together and the differences are glaring. Obviously a lot of time and effort went into the launch of the iPhone. It was determined (by Apple I am assuming) that things would go more smoothly if activation was handled through iTunes at home instead of in line at the store. It saved the need to train Apple Store people on activations, and it kept customers from having to wait inside AT&T stores for very long after buying their phone.But then the activations failed. No doubt this is because of the shear numbers of customers trying to activate the phones at once. Since there's probably been nothing like this before, its understandable too. But I'm sure that its hard for Apple to swallow. I can almost picture the conversation in the meeting: AT&T trying to tell Steve that this is the way the real world works... you can't please all of the people all of the time, while Steve sits there and insists that they do. After all, Apple has gained so much market share in recent years by paying attention to every aspect of the user experience (something that easy to do when your user base is small) while AT&T immediately calculates what percentage of failures they will have and moves on.
To the Apple users this can be very frustrating. Dubbed the iBrick by some attempting to create a controversy, the experience thus far hasn't been horrible, its just "not Apple".
Cali Lewis (an obvious fangirl if you watch her show) went so far as to take back her two new iPhones not because of the gadgets, but because of the AT&T double-speak regarding the pricing. I'm sure that she will change her mind soon and go get an iPhone; perhaps she's like me and just waiting for version 2 ('cause you know if Apple stays true to form that will be out sometime before Christmas).
So will Apple end up changing the business inside the behemoth that is AT&T, will it be the other way around, or will the whole thing just end like other similar partnerships Apple has forged in the past?
Labels: apple, att, cali lewis, iphone
posted by Russell @ 10:30 AM,
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iPhone Rate Plans Announced
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The new rates for the iPhone service through AT&T have been published. They are not the best plans I've seen, but they are not the worst. (Kind of goes along with AT&T whole wireless business model)
And according to Steve (by way of Podcasting News) new iPhone owners will be able to take their new phones home and activate them through iTunes themselves. The only question I have is "does the phone have to be activated before you can sync anything onto it?" Not that it really matters I suppose (who would buy the phone and not activate it?) but it just struck me as odd: Once the iPhone is activated, users can then easily sync all of their phone numbers and other contact information, calendars, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, music, photos, podcasts, TV shows and movies just like they do when they sync their iPods with iTunes.Does that mean it reverts to a useless brick if your phone gets deactivated?
posted by Russell @ 12:34 PM,
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2007 Should be a great year for Cingular/AT&T
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
According to an article in The Australian there are already 1 million names on the "please call me when its available" list for the iPhone. Of course, that's no real surprise.They also mention the official launch of Video Share that would enable video conferencing between phones. That's kind of cool, but who really wants to video conference?
Lastly, they've cut a deal with Napster to give Cingular customers free access to theirsubscription service for a year. Now that to me is interesting. I'd been using several subscription services over the past several months including Yahoo's (which is affiliated with AT&T) and Napster. I think the concept is great, but the process fails too many times for me. Perhaps this is what its going to take to get them to fix it once and for all.
Labels: att, cellular service, cingular, iphone, napster, yahoo music
posted by Russell @ 12:05 PM,
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