http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a9zcrnZLIDkQ&refer=home I've had both AT&T and now Verizon. Some of my family members have had AT&T as well. I have had nothing but service problems with AT&T some of which are the following: 1) Voicemails that show up without the phone ever ringing. 2) No service in certain areas. 3) Lots of dropped calls. 4) Sounding like your really on a cell phone 5) Driving through Manhattan and suddenly "no service". The list goes on. Now I am reading that it takes 2 minutes to load up yahoo.com which is a popular mail application and homepage for some people. I would be more bullish on the I-Phone if it were combined with Verizon, howeve, AT&T makes me very bearish. Anyone who has had both AT&T and Verizon *knows* which one is the better service. Now for certain folks who dont use their phones extensively for business wont care about a few dropped calls. However, a person who does use their phone extensively for business where their phone is their lifeline will be embarassed by all the dropped calls and no service from AT&T. Part of the BlackBerry's success is Verizon. The reason why corporations arm their employees with BlackBerry's is Verizon which has the *most reliable network*. They can depend on Verizon. In fact, I have a buddy who flies everywhere in the United States and has never had any problems with Verizon. Even when he was up in Alaska in remote regions, he was still getting service. When I was traveling around the south, there were times when I was in the middle of nowhere and still getting service. Why would someone get an iphone if they have trouble getting a signal in Manhattan and it takes two minutes to load yahoo.com? My guess is that there will be some initial sales and then the popularity will fade.
I have always been a little biased, since I worked for Verizon back in the day, but I would like to know the rationale of Apple in choosing Cingular/AT&T when they picked a phone service (or why they had to be exclusive at all). Their service from way back in the TDMA days has always lagged Verizon's CDMA network for both seamless coverage and data speed. I saw in that article that battery life was an issue in choosing Edge but the devices I have used on Verizon's network have great battery life, so I am not sure that is the main reason. I wonder if there are any plans to ever produce iphones for other carriers? Seems like Apple really hamstrung themselves by limiting their customer base to only AT&T.
Verizon didnt want Apples terms. BottomLine... It wasnt apple that passed on Verizon, it was Verizon that passed on Apple. They were unwilling to try a different Business Model...
I Like it. My Wife Likes it... But then they always did say one mans Garbage is another mans treasure....
I do like the I-Phone, do not get me wrong. However, its probably better suited for pleasure then business. When doing business, the cardinal sin is missing a call and not being available. AT&T is simply not a reliable service and I cant count on it to work for me everywhere at anytime like I can with Verizon.
Depends upon your Business.... 80% of my communication is Email... Only 20% phone..... My Cleints know to contact me via Email 1st... then we go voice....
There are fads and there are trends. I think devices such as the I-Phone are the trend , but I think the I-Phone itself is a fad (granted I'm know technical wizard). Apple had great success with the I-Pod, but they were not the first to mkt with a portable digital music player, they just made it better (oh, RIO, where are you?). Rimm's crackberry has been a huge winner because they put a unique twist on a trend (portable wireless data) and got great mkt penetration with a very functional device that is now very entrenched. My guess is that the I-Phone is at the begining of a trend in cell phones but that it is not the killer app that is is being hyped to be. It will be hard for Apple to repeat the success of the I-Pod, but who knows. I guess if I had to make a decision, I would be a buyer of AAPL puts over a short seller on the stock, but at this point I am inclined to ignore the thing period and just watch. Bottom line ................ buys the trends, sell the fads!
From the little that I read on the subject the iPhone was originally offered to Verizon however the profit sharing plan was too skewed to AAPL and Verizon passed on the deal......next rung down the ladder must have been AT&T