Here’s a bad idea; extend AT&T iPhone exclusivity…
It’s not so much that Apple’s current one-and-only wireless partner is more or less evil than Verizon or Sprint or T-Mobile or whomever. It’s more the case that they’re all evil. Wireless carrier loyalty? At $70 a month plus taxes and fees, and all the dropped calls you can eat, beyond geographic predetermination, who cares whose logo is at the top of the statement?
The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T’s chief executive Randall Stephenson hopes to extend his company’s exclusive U.S. iPhone franchise for another year until mid-2011 and he’s said to be in negotiations with Apple to get that done.
When asked for comment on the subject, a spokeswoman for the Cupertino, CA-based company declined, saying only, “We have a great relationship with AT&T.”
Why not another year?
The mothership’s cup runneth over relationship with AT&T isn’t the problem per se. The real question for current and hopeful iPhone users is why can’t Apple also be buddy-buddy with Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, as well? Yes, there are some technical issues, but this is the jezus phone we’re talking about not some Motorola or Nokia P.O.S.
Really, where I live in Northwestern Pennsylvania, Verizon is king and that’s just a fact of life. I don’t particularly care for Verizon, but I’m not going to $70 a month plus taxes and fees for service that’s worse than Verizon, savvy?
In your corner of these oddly unequal United States, perhaps Sprint is supreme or maybe you live in an one of the areas where T-Mobile’s tops? Really, which of us really cares about carriers per se? We want the iPhone and waiting for AT&T to build out their network, assuming that’s even part of their current five-year plan just doesn’t sound like a reasonable option when carrier x, y or z is already here ready to serve.
Wireless carriers are just like so many PC clone makers, each selling some variation of the same old, same old. The difference isn’t them, the difference is Apple’s rich, satisfying secret sauce—the phone that’s a great ultra-compact computer, unparalleled urban Swiss Army knife, peerless media player and wireless contract somewhere after last.
Apple really needs to “just say no” to carrier exclusivity…
What’s your take?
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April 15th, 2009
If the Apple-AT&T exclusivity agreement ended today, the only other US wireless carrier Apple could partner with is T-Mobile. WAKE UP! It’s called GSM. The iPhone is GSM and the GSM iPhone has been deployed worldwide. There is no TDMA/CDMA iPhone because it would work in the US and South Korea and maybe a couple of other bumwad places. Apple believes in economy of scale. When LTE arrives in the US in late 2011 or 2012, then Apple might want to broaden things domestically.
April 15th, 2009
I keep asking the same question. What makes you think that Verizon is willing to play by Apple’s rules? They weren’t before when Apple gave them first crack at the iPhone.
They recently blocked RIM from including WiFi on the BB Storm. They are very unlikely to want to allow Apple to control the software updates and its own app store. That is not to mention things like over the air purchases of Music through iTunes.
It seems unlikely to me that a company like Verizon is willing to cede the control that Apple needs to keep the iPhone the iPhone.
April 15th, 2009
I’ve never understood the “we must use GSM because that’s what Europe uses” stupidity. “Economies of Scale”?!? By that argument, all of Apple’s devices should have Euro-style 50Hz AC plugs on them.
I’ve done a lot of traveling around the country on business doing trade shows. I have several friends that have iPhones. No matter where we go in the country, my lowly CDMA, 2 year old, RAZR V3M (U.S. Celluar, NOT Verizon – thank you very much, Verizon isn’t the only national CDMA carrier out there) consistently gets better reception and call quality in well covered areas (densely populated urban areas) and is usually the only phone that works in rural areas (where an iPhone degenerates into an iPod Touch, like it does for a 70 mile radius around where I live and work).
While simplifying things and going GSM only made sense when Apple was starting out with the iPhone, it no longer makes any sense. GSM and CDMA aren’t so different that a phone’s radio can’t be redesigned from one to the other (see Moto’s RAZR, Moto’s 50 million plus in unit sales RAZR, that is). And since Congress saw fit to let the phone companies go in a million different directions rather than standardizing on one system like our land lines, going with GSM or CDMA exclusively throughout the US simply doesn’t work. The iPhone may be the greatest phone device ever created (and I’d love to have one that would work where I live), but if it won’t work AS A PHONE where you live and work, it’s pretty much worthless.
April 16th, 2009
Maybe this time Verizon is looking toward the horizon?
April 16th, 2009
But why extend the bifurcated network? Too many standards equal no standards. Making multiple phones for multiple networks extends the problem of the cell network taking longer to go to a single new faster standard of LTE.
Verizon has its own set of customer service issues.