The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, so no blog posts from me since more than a month ago. But it’s time to get back on track, and I have a great topic to get me pumped up about writing again. It’s a rant (I’ve found that my best posts are rants).
I’ve been a happy owner of an iPhone for more than a year, and a fairly unhappy customer of AT&T Wireless for the same amount of time. One of the big problems with AT&T for me is that signal strength in my house is very poor. Dropped calls is something I am used to.
Fast forward to yesterday. I checked my mailbox and one of the letters I got was from AT&T. It was actually one of those glossy brochures filled with stock photography – you know, what they usually send you when trying to get you to sign-up for new services or products.
This time AT&T was promoting a product that I could really use – a 3G MicroCell. Main selling point: it increases signal strength at home. Cost: I don’t remember exactly, and it’s not too relevant. What’s important is that AT&T charges extra for this device, on top of the plan you already have.
All very well, but let’s get this story straight. AT&T owns a network of cell towers that is obviously not able to handle the load in some cases, and does a very poor job sending a strong signal to my house. I am a subscriber and pay around $170 a month for subpar service (iPhone family plan).
Now, AT&T is trying to sell me yet another product/service that wraps around their suboptimal cell coverage, so that I can finally use my cell phone at home reliably.
What’s wrong with this picture? This is like buying a brand new car and discovering that it starts intermittently in some parts of town. After talking to the manufacturer, you are told that there’s nothing they can do except sell you another device for $30/month that connects to your ignition system and addresses the problem for good. I am not the only one unhappy about this.
This MicroCell offers some other services, but their primary marketing message is “Five Bar Coverage in Your Home”, service mark.
AT&T should offer me this MicroCell for free. Watch out AT&T, there are many other players in this industry and I have a feeling they might eat your lunch one day if you are not careful. Too bad the telecom and airline industries share customer service expertise with each other.
And people were in line today, waiting for their turn to buy the new iPhone 3GS. This is the third generation of the phone, it’s been around for a long time. I’m impressed.
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I am convinced that the social experience is driving this more than anything else. What a powerful brand. Apple must be ‘the’ most powerful brand in the world, I don’t care what the specialists say. No, it’s not Google or Coca-Cola.
A while back Opera brought a complaint to the attention of antitrust regulators in Europe. The case had to do with Internet Explorer and how bundling IE with Windows gives Microsoft an unfair advantage in the browser market. That’s fairly old news.
This week, Microsoft made an offer to sell Windows in Europe without their own browser. That’s right, a version of Windows without any trace of Internet Explorer.
You’d think regulators would be satisfied with this offer, but no. According to this New York Times story, the European commission dismissed the offer, saying that “… the move would not further its goal of promoting browsers that compete with Internet Explorer”.
Not only that but “… the commission has indicated it may want Microsoft to distribute Windows with competing Web browsers preinstalled and then allow retailers and computer makers to decide from a “ballot screen” menu which browsers to install.”
I’ve criticized Microsoft in the past numerous times but this time I have to side with Redmond. In my opinion, the commission is stretching its power too much. Enough is enough.
I’ve disagreed with European antitrust regulators before. A while back, there was a draft law in favor of Apple opening up iTunes. I am all for openness. But we can’t forget that Apple built a wonderful end-to-end consumer platform and experience and it should be rewarded in the marketplace for doing so.
Not too long ago, I wrote a post predicting the death of Palm. But maybe, just maybe, their recently announced Pre will bring Palm new life. That’s what I sincerely hope, competition is always good.
There are many questions left unanswered about this new device, but it’s certainly promising. What I really love to see is that Palm is being very open about how the device is supposed to work and even requesting feedback from users and developers in some cases.
If Apple gets an ‘A+’ for design, and perhaps a ‘B’ for engineering, they get a solid ‘F’ for community participation and involvement. They are incredibly secret, to the point that it’s detrimental. Here’s a lesson that Palm, even if in death row, is qualified to teach.
Lately I’ve been reading an increasing number of reports on the web and also in the newspapers about how Apple’s recent product introductions have been plagued with bugs, crashes and a not-so-stellar user experience. First there was the activation problem the day the iPhone 2.0 came out. Then, issues with the iPhone 2.0 software. And yesterday, Mossberg described Apple’s new MobileMe sync service as “too flawed” in his widely read review.
I am pretty happy with my iPhone so far, although I have to say I haven’t pushed its limits too much yet. Yes, there’s been a few glitches here and there. For example, I had my iPhone happily plugged into my MacBook yesterday when all of a sudden an error dialog pops out:
The first thought I had when I saw the dialog was how ridiculous it was. Very similar to the strange and obscure Windows error dialogs I usually make fun of (you can sometimes see them all over the place).
Designing a new phone and mobile OS from scratch is a major undertaking and Apple did an admirable job with the iPhone 1.0. It’s obvious that the need to keep pushing the iPhone at full speed ahead has put a major burden on the company.
It’s nearly impossible to match the expectation of Apple devotees. Apple should just take a deep breath, focus on execution and perhaps lower the pace of innovation for a quarter or two, in order to put the house in order. In a way, it’s already doing that with the Mac OS X.
Ok, I got an iPhone 3G. But I had to work for it more than any other product I’ve ever bought. True, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was for some people, but it’s still a bit silly to wait in line to spend some serious money for a product the day it comes out. That just goes to show how anxious we were to get away from Verizon and their Razrs.
Long story short, Andrea and I went to the Apple Store around 7:30AM the day the new iPhone came out. There was a huge line and it wasn’t moving. We checked two AT&T stores in the surrounding area and those weren’t much better either. We decided to go home and try some other time. We came to find out later that it was taking about 8 hours to get to the front of the line. But, with $200, you could buy a place from someone and wait in line for about an hour. Talk about a just-in-time market.
Thanks to our dog barking at squirrels, we woke up at 6:45AM on Saturday July 12th and decided to give the iPhone another try. We went back to the Apple Store and the line was smaller, but still not moving. I walked over to the AT&T store in the same mall as the Apple Store and there was just one guy in line! Before 10AM, the AT&T store opened and we got our iPhones.
This being my first iPhone, I am still learning how to get the most out of it. But the user experience is great. I thought the whole set up experience in particular was incredibly well done. I downloaded apps from the App Store without a hitch.
Two days after buying the iPhone, I took a quick trip to NYC. I was really hoping to use the iPhone to get situated in Manhattan, but it could never find my location. Blame it on the tall buildings. Somewhat expected. Being able to check email and browse the web on the road anytime has been terrific.
I’ve been having a few issues sending email from the iPhone, but other than that, things are good. I am still hoping I will be able to share the iPhone’s 3G data connection with my MacBook some day. That would be the icing on the cake for me. Looks like you can do that with some Blackberries and the Nokia N95.
(Image courtesy from http://theiphoneblog.com)
For the last two years, I’ve been tied to a 2-year contract with Verizon. I’ve got a Razr, which might have been a premium phone in the past, but leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion. The software is horrible, the phone is completely locked up, Bluetooth is severely crippled. The list goes on and on.
So, next July 13th, when my contract expires, I am going to walk into an Apple store and get myself a new iPhone. I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while now, and the price drop makes it so much easier to take the plunge (even though the voice+data plan will be “considerably” more than what we pay now). In fact, we will probably get two phones, one for me and one for Andrea.
$199 is a really good deal for this phone. It’s now competitively priced with the Blackberry and offers the functionalities that smart phone users demand (Exchange compatibility among other things). On top of that, you have the great Apple design, hardware, media ecosystem and an incoming onslaught of third-party applications. It’s definitely a good package.
If I were Nokia and RIM, I would be getting seriously fidgety by now. This is a tough game to play and my guess is that the first casualty in the smart phone wars will be Palm. They’ve been struggling for a while. What about Windows Mobile? They will probably stick around longer since they are subsidized by Microsoft’s other money making machines. Apple’s been making the right moves and their media exposure (ads, iPod momentum) sort of eclipses the competition.
I am on my way down to Brazil for a few days, but I had to get connected along the way to learn more about the iPhone SDK event of today.
Very exciting! This is going to be a really fun ride.
Thanks for coming to MacWorld 2008. It costs an arm and a leg to fly these days, so I appreciate that you came to San Francisco today. Let’s get started, we have lots to talk about.
This keynote will be a bit different from previous ones. We are not announcing any new products this time. We already have an awesome line of computers, a great personal operating system, tons of innovative applications from us and third-party developers, the best selling music player in the universe and a phone that reinvented the category. It’s pretty clear that in terms of product development, we are doing quite well. Unfortunately, we’ve slacked off in other areas. We are starting to address some of the problems today.
First of all, We’ve realized that we need to be more open with our technologies and eliminate any roadblocks that lead to lock-in. This is company policy from now on. When talking to Phil and the boys in Cupertino about this, we were kind of surprised at how successful we’ve been over the last decade without a major push in this direction. It’s time to give back, before it’s too late. So, starting today, all the media in the iTunes Store is DRM-free. And we are adopting a “keep-it-for-as-long-as-you-please” Netflix model fo movie rentals. Also, the iPhone is now available for sale without a long-term contract with a telecom carrier. Buy the phone, slip a GSM card in and off you go – same price.
Now let’s talk about the Mac. There’s been several reports of quality degradation in our products, especially MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Lots of them are showing up in our repair facilities with hard drive problems, motherboard problems, memory problems. Starting today, we are ramping up investment to make sure we continue producing the most innovative AND most reliable personal computers in the world. We are also adding more “geniuses” to our bars.
Have you guys ever heard of ThinkSecret.com? Since I came back 10 years ago, I’ve been paranoid about keeping all of our product developments and announcements super secret. We’ve worked hard to suppress rumors, but I now realize this has been somewhat of a bad strategy. This is especially true moving forward. Enough is enough. We are not going to be announcing our plans in advance from now on, but we are also not going to be shutting down fan web sites. And Apple employees are now allowed to blog and become part of the web community at large. The police-state is over. ThinkSecret.com will resume publishing today.
Finally, developers. Developers are important, more important than we’ve realized in the past. Starting today, we are bundling a premium developer program membership with every Mac we sell. And we are making it easy for developers, even the small ones, to promote their software in our stores and our web site. We are also releasing an SDK for the iPhone today. The SDK gives you complete access to anything you might want to build with the iPhone. We are going to give all the Linux mobile OS supporters a run for their money.
Oh, one more thing. Apple is joining the OLPC initiative. It’s time to get serious about education again.
Andrea and I headed to the mountains for July 4th. We spent some time in Laramie and Casper. Good quality time with the family and just very relaxing overall. Here’s one of the things I did:
I hadn’t gone fishing in many many years. Caught some trout, three if I am not mistaken. But they were too small, so we just tossed them back in the water. But we caught enough fish for dinner that day.
I really thought that I wasn’t going to hear from the iPhone in Wyoming, but then Andrea’s brother showed up with one, so I got to play with it for a bit. Very nice design and package, extremely slick all around. But the keyboard is awkward, maybe it would get better after a few days.
