Verizon getting a CDMA iPhone that runs Windows Mobile, clears acne
September 30, 2008
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Rumors are coming fast and furious today citing unnamed tipsters that Apple is hard at work hammering out a CDMA iPhone for its friends at Verizon to be announced and released next year, the carrier it had initially approached about carrying the… Continue reading
Verizon getting a CDMA iPhone that runs Windows Mobile, clears acne
September 30, 2008
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Rumors are coming fast and furious today citing unnamed tipsters that Apple is hard at work hammering out a CDMA iPhone for its friends at Verizon to be announced and released next year, the carrier it had initially approached about carrying the device back in 2005. Way we see it, though, 2009 ain’t 2005; Apple’s wielding boatloads more power in the wireless biz than it was before the first model launched, the industry’s economics have changed, and technology roadmaps have been rewritten.
So why isn’t this happening, exactly? First, Apple appears to be having no trouble finding enough customers (carriers, that is) to keep iPhone 3G production at a nice clip. Second, CDMA represents a minute fraction of the world’s mobile customer base that GSM / UMTS does — no matter how huge Verizon, Sprint, Telus, Bell, KDDI au, and the remaining CDMA stalwarts may be. Third, CDMA is a dying technology that’ll be completed off in the early part of the next decade as networks make the migration to LTE and other 4G platforms. Fourth, we’ve to believe Apple would sooner pour its engineering efforts into advancing the iPhone platform in the same direction as the world’s networks than divert considerable resources to busting out a one-off special.
Might this mythical CDMA iPhone yet exist? Yeah, Verizon’s a massive carrier, and yes, stranger things have happened — but until Steve and Ivan get on stage together at Macworld 2009, we’re not buying it.
Sony Ericsson laying off 450 employees in Research Triangle Park, NC
September 30, 2008
Filed under: Cellphones
“Planned” and “executed” are two very different things, and while we knew Sony Ericsson was mulling the idea of hacking 2,000 jobs, the hammer has finally fallen in Research Triangle Park, NC. The company will soon be axing 450 employees at its North American headquarters as part of a massive reorganization, with most everyone knowing by the week’s end whether they’ll stay or go. According to Aldo Ligouri, Sony Ericsson’s head of global communications and public relations, the RTP cuts are “part of company-wide changes that Sony Ericsson announced in July,” and in whatever context, he added that “this is our map of how we see things moving forward.” Just to put things in perspective, the outfit only has about 750 workers in the North Carolina-based facility, which is primarily seen as an R&D hub. Tough news to hear, no matter how you spin it.
[Image courtesy of Flickr]
“The Computer” At AT&T Is All Powerful And Humans Have Lost Control!
September 30, 2008
Attention citizens: A machine known only as “the computer” has taken control of AT&T. The humans are powerless to control it — or even to negotiate with it. If it decides that you should be triple billed for phone numbers you don’t need or use, there’s nothing AT&T can do. Gather your children and all the salmonella-free peanut butter you own and report to your basement. Dunk your cellphones, DVRs, Apples and XBOXes into cold water before they rise up and destroy you like they’re destroying reader Patrick.
Patrick says:
In Might, I broke my iPhone. I dropped it and it cracked. I sold it on eBay, expected new iPhones to be announced June 9 at the WWDC. When I found out I’d have to wait until July 11, I purchased a Motorola Q, because all the stores were sold out of iPhones. I would wait for the 3G on July 11.As the date got closer, I went back to the store and asked about my upgrade eligibility for the 3G. They informed me that since I just purchased a Motorola Q, I couldn’t get an iPhone – not at any price. This, we know now, is incorrect, but to fix matters I returned the Motorola in under 30 days and popped my SIM card in a buddy’s old RAZR for a couple weeks awaiting the new iPhone 3G’s. The sales guy at the store said this would cancel my contract obligation from the Motorola and I’d be eligible to get the new iPhone at the subsidized price.
On July 11, I went to my local AT&T store because I knew there would be trouble; my account online was showing me as upgrade ineligible. Despite everything they could see at the store (that I was, in fact, perfectly eligible to upgrade and get the new iPhone), the computer wouldn’t let the transaction happen. Someone at the other store didn’t do the right paperwork when I returned the Motorola Q, and it was causing an issue.
iPhones we’re selling out all around me, so the salesperson and manager stated in order for me to get an iPhone that day, they would create a new line on my account, and then I was to return the following week when they’d have the block on my account removed, and move the iPhone over to the correct line, and delete the newly created line. I begrudgingly accepted this solution, and dealt with the hassle of having a different number for a week.
The next week I went in and they moved the iPhone to my old (correct) number, and stated they’d do the paperwork to get the billing right – delete the new line, cancel the charges, and fix my bill.
In the interest of keeping this story simple, I’ll summarize it like this:
This never happened. To today – almost two months later and spanning three billing cylces – my account has a huge balance because I continue to be charged for the extra line they’ve added, and a family plan which I don’t need, and an iPhone data plan on the line they created (which, consequently, has no phone even associated with it – the voice and data usage is ZERO!).
I’ve spent countless hours in the store and on the phone and nothing has been done. They say they don’t know what to do. Customer service can’t change or modify my bill. They all say the same thing – the personal won’t let them remove the line or fix the billing. No one – managers, regional managers, etc. – can tell me what I need to do. My bill is climbing at three times the rate it should. The store has told me not to pay the bill until it’s fixed. I’ve never missed a payment but now my account is past due.
I’m just a regular guy, trying to pay my bill and be current. NO ONE IS HELPING ME. I leave messages and call for help and just continue to get the runaround. I want my account fixed so I have the ability to move on. I feel like I’m going to be shut off soon, and this will never be right!
Thanks for any help you can bring to this issue.
Patrick
Even though we’re sure that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is currently quite busy machine gunning terminators in his executive loo, you should probably send his team an EECB. Perhaps there is still one man who can regain control of the personal before it shuts down the life support systems at AT&T…
Here’s his contact information.
Does your iPhone-for-the-masses make you …
September 30, 2008
Does your iPhone-for-the-masses make you feel poor and ordinary? You need the I Am Rich app, which was available for sale on Apple’s app store for about a day (they removed it late yesterday afternoon, unfortunately). Priced at $999.99, it will place a massive red jewel on your screen. Imagine how awesome you’ll look if you put this on a Swarovski-encrusted 3G model—$$$!!! [Technologizer via AppScout]
Verizon getting a CDMA iPhone that runs Windows Mobile, clears acne
September 30, 2008
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Rumors are coming fast and furious today citing unnamed tipsters that Apple is hard at work hammering out a CDMA iPhone for its friends at Verizon to be announced and released next year, the carrier it had initially approached about carrying the device back in 2005. Way we see it, though, 2009 ain’t 2005; Apple’s wielding boatloads more power in the wireless biz than it was before the first model launched, the industry’s economics have changed, and technology roadmaps have been rewritten.
So why isn’t this happening, exactly? First, Apple appears to be having no trouble finding enough customers (carriers, that is) to keep iPhone 3G production at a nice clip. Second, CDMA represents a minute fraction of the world’s mobile customer base that GSM / UMTS does — no matter how massive Verizon, Sprint, Telus, Bell, KDDI au, and the remaining CDMA stalwarts might be. Third, CDMA is a dying technology that’ll be completed off in the early part of the next decade as networks make the migration to LTE and other 4G platforms. Fourth, we’ve to believe Apple would sooner pour its engineering efforts into advancing the iPhone platform in the same direction as the world’s networks than divert considerable resources to busting out a one-off special.
Might this mythical CDMA iPhone yet exist? Yeah, Verizon’s a large carrier, and yes, stranger things have happened — but until Steve and Ivan get on stage together at Macworld 2009, we’re not buying it.
Verizon getting a CDMA iPhone that runs Windows Mobile, clears acne
September 29, 2008
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Rumors are coming fast and furious today citing unnamed tipsters that Apple is hard at work hammering out a CDMA iPhone for its friends at Verizon to be announced and released next year, the carrier it had initially approached about carrying the device back in 2005. Way we see it, though, 2009 ain’t 2005; Apple’s wielding boatloads more power in the wireless biz than it was before the first model launched, the industry’s economics have changed, and technology roadmaps have been rewritten.
So why isn’t this happening, exactly? First, Apple appears to be having no trouble finding enough customers (carriers, that is) to keep iPhone 3G production at a nice clip. Second, CDMA represents a minute fraction of the world’s mobile customer base that GSM / UMTS does — no matter how massive Verizon, Sprint, Telus, Bell, KDDI au, and the remaining CDMA stalwarts might be. Third, CDMA is a dying technology that will be finished off in the early part of the next decade as networks make the migration to LTE and other 4G platforms. Fourth, we’ve to believe Apple would sooner pour its engineering efforts into advancing the iPhone platform in the same direction as the world’s networks than divert considerable resources to busting out a one-off special.
Might this mythical CDMA iPhone yet exist? Yeah, Verizon’s a big carrier, and yes, stranger things have happened — but until Steve and Ivan get on stage together at Macworld 2009, we’re not buying it.
Google patent keeps airwaves competitive by selecting the cheapest
September 29, 2008
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless
Google’s persistent interest in ensuring that the US’ 700MHz spectrum would give rise to a network open to any and all devices reinforced its belief that carriers can and should be nothing more than the proverbial “dumb pipes” — leave the content… Continue reading
Exchanging A Defective iPhone 3G Is A Huge Pain In The Butt
September 29, 2008
Reader Joshua wants to warn everyone that exchanging your defective-out-of-the-box iPhone 3G is a large pain the butt. His girlfriend got her iPhone on launch day but quickly discovered that the speaker was broken. She brought it into the Apple store to have it checked out and an employee accidentally dropped it. At that point, Apple told them they’d just replace to the phone. That’s where things got complicated.
Joshua writes:
My girlfriend was set on getting an 8GB iPhone 3G on launch day, and to make sure, we headed out to the closest mall location in San Jose, CA at 5am. We were the 20th person or so in line, and had no problems getting in.
She was transferring her service from T-Mobile, and surprisingly, it all went smoothly. We probably walked into the physical Apple Store at around 8:15am and were back out to our automobile by 9:15.When we got home, we noticed a problem with our iPhone — the speaker wouldn’t work. No external sounds whatsoever, unless it was docked. We called the Apple Store and I have to state, Apple offers some awesome support. They took her name down and told her to come right back in past the line and they’d take care of us (sorry to everyone who was still waiting).
We rolled back in around 10:30am, and if the next five hours had been up to Apple, we’d have been gone by 10:45am. Funny thing, they were going to try to troubleshoot it, but then one of the Apple specialists accidentally dropped the phone, and stated casually, “We’ll just go grab you a new one.”
Unfortunately, AT&T has a different take on iPhone exchanges. AT&T couldn’t give her a phone exchange because she was no longer qualified for first-time purchase and activation, so they tried to charge her full price ($399 instead of $199, if I recall) for the iPhone because she’d already purchased and activated an iPhone. Then, since they already returned that previous iPhone, AT&T locked her phone number and stated she couldn’t get it back for 48 hours because of that return. After that, it became a worry on both ours and Apple’s part if they were going to charge an early termination fee, and then a new activation fee for the second phone.
Our Apple concierge, Rosemarie, was wonderful in arguing with AT&T on our behalf. Four and a half hours later, Rosemarie was able to widdle it down so that they could get her new iPhone activated with her original number, but they refused to let her walk out of the store with an iPhone for $199. In the end, Rosemarie and the store manager (whose name I didn’t get, but she was also extremely helpful) decided that what they were going to do was charge us for the full price of an iPhone and issue themselves a gift card for the difference of what we would have had to pay. So we paid our part ($231 and some change) and they used their self-issued gift card to cover the rest. In other words, Apple chose to eat the cost on our behalf because of what AT&T was doing.
In the end, we couldn’t have asked for more exceptional service than what this Apple Store gave us. While we waited, specialists noticed us and offered us snacks and sodas and were generally really friendly and empathetic. We were also pretty chill about the whole thing, which I’m sure helped, and by the time we left, they made sure we weren’t screwed with by AT&T.
So, just a warning to anyone else that has to exchange their iPhone. I’m not even generally an Apple/Mac person, but this gives me great faith in the Apple Store’s customer service, and I would definitely say to trust them, but be wary of AT&T.
Kudos to the Apple Store for for spending so much time working this out for you. We hope that AT&T works out this glitch — there’s really no reason why a easy exchange of a defective phone should take 4.5 hours and require the Apple store to issue gift cards.
Is this happening to anyone else?
(Photo: qshio )
Here’s an unverified walkthrough of the “I …
September 29, 2008
Here’s an unverified walkthrough of the “I Am Rich” iPhone app. [TUAW]
