Apple Needs to Drop AT&T, and Here's Why
I am thoroughly disappointed with AT&T. I’ve read on numerous sites, and numerous blogs just how freaking frustrating AT&T is with it’s iPhone customers. With more demands for Apple to push the next iPhone to Verizon next year, and more and more setbacks that make not only AT&T look bad, but Apple as well, Verizon is likely to be the next carrier of the iPhone. But why?
THE FOLLOWING STORY IS MY INTERRUPTION OF THE DECISION TO GO TO AT&T BY APPLE, IT IS NOT THE REAL STORY AND IN NO WAY DEMONSTRATES ACTIONS, THOUGHTS, OR OPINIONS BY APPLE INC
Before giving you any reasoning, let me take you back to late 2006. Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, and Scott Forstall, Peter Oppenheimer, and Tim Cook are sitting in a room on the Apple Campus, they are all Apple executives. Steve Jobs mutters a curse under his breath and hangs up the phone on the conference room table, rather violently. The others look at him, questioning, “What has gone wrong?”
Steve informs them of Ivan Seidenberg’s, Verizon Wireless’s CEO, outrageous proposal. Verizon will only carry the iPhone if Apple allows them to install their own operating system, rather than Apple’s iPhone OS, the most advanced mobile platform of that time, with more than a year in the making, Apple has developed a framework called “Cocoa Touch” or Multi-Touch.
The room is silent. Steve slumps in his chair. Tim speaks; “If we agree to Ivan’s proposal, the whole concept ofan innovative and a different phone will be gone.” Phil nods and begins writing down notes, his pencil whizzing across his notebook. He has just had an idea, what he thought at the time, a solution to Ivan’s ill-thought plan.
“Way to point out the obvious.” Steve mutters. Phil is still writing in his notebook. “It appears we will have to argue.” Steve picks up the phone and begins dialing the number.
“Wait!” Phil interrupts. Steve gives him a look; “What do you want?” It says. “We don’t HAVE to use Verizon! Surely there is another carrier, one that we can give a better image by letting them host the iPhone!”
“You’ve seen the ads, they’re known to the public as the best, we’ve no other choice.” Peter says, rather glumly.
“That’s correct, but what about AT&T? They carry other smart phones, like the Blackberry, surely they have a nice image as well.”
“Very true, their “AT&T Raising the Bar” and “Rollover Minutes” commercials are rather entertaining, they must have a good image to the public as well.” Steve says.
“Don’t go so fast though, you’ve heard the things people say about them, dropped calls, slow 3G speeds.” Tim says.
“We don’t need to worry about 3G speeds until next year, AT&T will probably have that figured out by the time were ready to release the iPhone 3G.” Scott points out.
Steve sighs, and gets out his address book. “Randall Stephenson, Randall Stephenson, Randall Stephenson…Ah, I found him, let’s give AT&T’s CEO a little present, shall we?” Steve says with a smile and dials the number on the phone. Tim leans back in his chair, he is unhappy. Scott gives Phil a high five. Peter takes Phil’s notebook and looks at it.
“Brilliant.”
END OF MY INTERRUPTION OF THE DECISION TO GO TO AT&T BY APPLE, IT IS NOT THE REAL STORY AND IN NO WAY DEMONSTRATES ACTIONS, THOUGHTS, OR OPINIONS BY APPLE INC
Now, onto the reasoning behind AT&T’s crappyness. To start, their monthly plans are simply ridiculous. First, an unlimited data plan for the iPhone is required on AT&T. Other smart-phones on AT&T also require an unlimited data plan, but after the first month you are able to change it to your liking.
Also, AT&T is in charge of pricing the plan for the iPhone, not Apple, and therefore have greatly taken advantage of the Apple Communities “Buying Addiction”. Every time a new product comes out, Apple “People” will buy it, doesn’t matter what the price is, we just have to have it.
So how have they taken advantage of it? Well, with the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G, the data plan per month was just $20, but oh, what’s this? AT&T thought it would be nice to earn some extra cash before Apple drops them and raised it to $30.
Another thing I find ridiculous about AT&T is their talk-time plans, for just a mere 450 minutes per month you’re required top pay $40. If you are a business person (and the current iPhone is now more aimed at Business than ever before, Apple even emphasizes that.) you make, probably 3-4 conference calls a month, each around, say, 2 hours. 450 minutes just barely gives you enough time for those conference calls, and you still will be making other calls to family and friends, looks like you will have to upgrade to the 900 minutes plan, an extra $20 out of your pocket every month.
So you are probably thinking, oh well thats okay, I’m, sure everything else will be free since I’m paying so much. Guess what? You’re wrong. If your a texter, AT&T will charge you another $20 per month for unlimited text messaging, and the previous plans are ridiculous, everyone knows that if you consider yourself a texter, you need an unlimited plan, not a 200 messages a month or a 1500 messages a month plan. And guess what, if you don’t pick a plan, you’re charged 20 cents per text message you send. However, little do you know that text messages cost cell phone carriers just under 5 cents to send.
Ok, well the new iPhone has GPS capability and therefore turn by turn directions, so surely I will get that for free, right? WRONG. Its another $10 a month if you would like to make any use of that.
And I’m just getting started folks.
Let’s talk about dropped calls. You’ve heard it all. And it’s true, the people have spoken, and dropped calls just aren’t cool. In fact, to sharpen up their image, AT&T even tried running ads saying that they had the fewest dropped calls, rather than Sprint, but AT&T ended up being sued by their own customers.
When Apple announced MMS (Multi Media Messaging, pictures, movies, music, files) support for the iPhone, the crowd went wild, but the folks from the United States went silent, as AT&T was not on the list of providers that had worked on MMS support before the iPhone 3GS was released, even with a heads-up from Apple months earlier.
AT&T,Least Dropped Calls
We use this term a lot at AT&T—we think the iPhone is a “game changer” in our industry. It will change how people think about these handsets.
-Randall Stephenson, CEO and President of AT&T
Oh.
It certainly has been a “game changer” hasn’t it.
JD Remington Jul 23, 2009 at 12:19 AM in Apple, Technology tagged AT&T, Data, Minutes, Price
Reader Comments (5)
Very nice
nice post! FYI - Apple announced the iPhone for Cingular when they announced the iPhone. Then, between that day and launch day, AT&T took over Cingular.
Good point, but still its going to take a few years for the iPhone to go on Verizon, first AT&T is a GSM cell phone network and Verizon is CDMA, so they might have to redesign the iPhone to fit the new radio. Plus, T-Mobile is more likely than Verizon since it is also GSM, and all it have to do is add support for T-Mobile's 3G bands, plus there is also the chance of Verizon saying no again.
I have to go and don't want to make this comment long. This is a very nice post, but you do have to look at the other side of the road. Verizon also charges most of these fees for the same amount. I'm just saying, look at both sides, and you will see that you will end up having to pay for the features no matter where you go. Its part of the business.
Thank you for feedback and comments!
Eric, posting comment on your post about Verizon and the iPhone.
fenderstrat, good point.