Choir music played as the Apple gods descended from the heavens and bestowed upon humanity
the latest iPhone yesterday. It features minor upgrades, including a better camera, a video camera and voice control (all features that currently exist on other phones), as well as a number of functions that, ironically, AT&T (the only current U.S. provider) isn't supporting. Apple and AT&T are sharing a bountiful offering of bile and annoyance in the various forums for a number of reasons, not all of them legitimate:
- Apple apparently didn't tell AT&T the details before the announcement, so AT&T staff have had no clue how to answer questions from customers who began calling as soon as the news was released. Thus, various apocryphal accounts of what is and isn't allowed are floating around. Fault: Apple.
- AT&T is woefully underprepared for the new release; it can't support the flagship upgrades to the phone (multimedia text messaging, the ability to use the phone as a modem for a laptop when away from a wireless network, etc.) until "later this year." Its exclusive Apple contract ends next year and there are rumors that Apple will decline to renew it, something AT&T would desperately like to avoid. This release has not helped its cause in that regard. Fault: AT&T.
- Rage and enmity, boiling up like an undersea cauldron of volcanic fire, has filled the forums from current AT&T iPhone customers who have discovered, with great gnashing of teeth, that the advertised prices are not available to them. While I could buy a new iPhone this month for $200, a current iPhone customer would have to shell out at least $400 and possibly more for an identical phone. A veritable revolution is forming out of Apple addicts, some of whom have stood in lines on Day 1 for every new iPhone release, who feel they should be rewarded for their customer loyalty by being offered at least the same deal new customers receive (and perhaps some perks) and blame Apple and AT&T for consciously deciding to take advantage of them. On the surface their complaints seem valid; I'd certainly be annoyed if I had to pay more for my next iMac because I currently own one. The difference here is contractual; mobile phone providers (across the board) often subsidize the cost of an expensive phone for subscribers in return for a 2-year contract, with the cost of the phone factored into the monthly bills, allowing the phone company to recoup some of its costs and stay in business. In this case, the new iPhone release comes less than 2-years after the last release, meaning the early adopters are not yet far enough into their contracts for AT&T to have made up for the phone subsidy and making AT&T reluctant (or outright unwilling) to subsidize another expensive phone. Fault: Customers who didn't read the contracts they signed a year ago and now want out of them with no penalty.
When I first saw the announcement I considered buying, but now I think I'm going to hold off, for a couple of reasons:
- This release didn't include some of the anticipated upgrades, like a touchscreen-side camera to allow for video chat (how cool would that be?) and built-in GPS (although at least one app is now offering that).
- I'd have to switch my provider to AT&T, which doesn't have the best coverage in my state (in fact, it's pretty much limited to Omaha and Lincoln, with "partners" covering (most of) the rest of the state). Rumors hold that Apple is going to dump AT&T's exclusive contract in 2010 and offer Verizon a place at the table. Granted most of my acquaintances who are Verizon customers have less-than-positive things to say about the company, but I'm going to be a Verizon customer by default (due to acquisition of my current provider) in the next couple of months, which would give me a chance to review them before locking into a 2-year AT&T contract.
- My current phone works fine, and the monthly iPhone plans are substantially higher than my current plan.
Plus by now all of my friends know that if they text message me, they're going to get an e-mail back instead (since typing punctuation on a Razr is a pain in the ass); once I get an iPhone they'll actually expect me to text back. ;)
Labels: technology
Posted at 2:12:00 PM. |
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Monday, June 8
Blame-shifting
An excerpt from my hometown newspaper's Letters to the Editor section this week:
Friday morning my 10-month-old puggle was hit by a pickup. I just want to know how someone can . . . not be aware of dogs that may be known to be on the road. [Followed by three paragraphs about how careless the driver was.]
After acknowledging the unfortunate circumstances for the pet, my next immediately reaction is to question why someone who admits her pet "means the world to her" and is her "everything" is allowing her dog to roam freely on such a frequency that she expects the rest of the county to take it into consideration when driving near her house. I'm not aware of the pet laws in my hometown, but my current location has some fairly strict leash laws (with civil and monetary penalties) and a Humane Society that collects free-roaming animals (and given that the in memoriam picture accompanying the article in the paper shows a puppy clearly not wearing a collar, the owner would have racked up some considerable fines here). Maybe it's a rural thing to let your animals have free-run of the area, but that seems a calculated risk to me that isn't really the fault of passing motorists.
If you really do love your pets that much, perhaps you should treat them like you do instead of neglecting them and then blaming someone else when something goes wrong.
Labels: annoyance
Posted at 1:23:00 PM. |
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Tuesday, June 2
Photo Update
I know there are a couple of people waiting to see
the engagement photos I did for my cousin Kristin last week. Voila.
Posted at 1:49:00 AM. |
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Monday, June 1
Longevity
Of note today, I've officially been at my current employer for 10 years. That went faster than I'd expected.
Labels: me
Posted at 12:36:00 PM. |
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Bleed for Me
My electric razor gets grumpy when it's overly humid (like it has been for the last couple of weeks) and tends to "stick" to my skin (which is not pleasant), so, for the first time since college, I bought a normal razor to use (at least until the humidity goes down a bit). Then I remembered why I switched to an electric razor. When I was done, I counted thirty-nine places where I was bleeding (none of which hurt, but it looked awful).
Labels: amusement, me
Posted at 11:24:00 AM. |
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