http://tech.blorge.com/Structure: /2008/08/01/apple-screws-us-iphone-customers-extends-att-exclusivity-agreement/ Technology news Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:15:02 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:/2008/08/01/apple-screws-us-iphone-customers-extends-att-exclusivity-agreement/comment-page-1/#comment-212460 stan Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:39:39 +0000 http://tech.blorge.com/?p=6451#comment-212460 I love when idiots make bad predictions. I love when idiots make bad predictions.

]]> http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:/2008/08/01/apple-screws-us-iphone-customers-extends-att-exclusivity-agreement/comment-page-1/#comment-116254 justaguy Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:25:21 +0000 http://tech.blorge.com/?p=6451#comment-116254 Exactly. If you google "ATT sucks", you will find over a million entries. This is not a coincidence. ATT (Southwestern Bell, really..they just took the name in a corporate grab), has been operating on a monopoly philosophy, as opposed to an excellence philosophy for quite a while now. Their landline business is disappearing rapidly due to high costs, incredibly bad (offshore) customer service, and a general "we don't have to care" approach that is evident in every decision they make. So they bought themselves a monopoly on iPhones. Besides the 300$ they pay, and the percentage of usage, and whatever one time fee they paid apple....they have also bought an unending stream of bad PR from customers who are stunned at the costs that ATT builds into the service plans, and are also stunned at the holes in ATT coverage, and the frequency of the drops in ATT networks. But this is how monopolies operate. But ATT is really dumb, IMHO, and Jobs is (still) brilliant. As noted, other carriers are coming out with iPhone clones which are cheaper. Android is coming out this fall, and iPhones are still just iPhones (with annoyingly non-tactile keyboards which won't even go to landscape). iPhone is already peaked, so another year is not big deal. By winter, iPhones will look like overpriced pieces of junk, and Apple will be releasing some other piece of rocking hardware in the near future. Keep the iPhones ATT, and keep screwing your customers and non-customers alike. They'll remember. Remember the Sprint "You can hear a pin drop" commercials, which *just* preceded Sprints complete overselling of its network, massive FCC complaints about its service and its fraudulent billing and cancellation practices? Well, the market remembers. People still hate Sprint. ATT, welcome to your future. Exactly. If you google “ATT sucks”, you will find over a million entries. This is not a coincidence. ATT (Southwestern Bell, really..they just took the name in a corporate grab), has been operating on a monopoly philosophy, as opposed to an excellence philosophy for quite a while now. Their landline business is disappearing rapidly due to high costs, incredibly bad (offshore) customer service, and a general “we don’t have to care” approach that is evident in every decision they make.
So they bought themselves a monopoly on iPhones. Besides the 300$ they pay, and the percentage of usage, and whatever one time fee they paid apple….they have also bought an unending stream of bad PR from customers who are stunned at the costs that ATT builds into the service plans, and are also stunned at the holes in ATT coverage, and the frequency of the drops in ATT networks.
But this is how monopolies operate. But ATT is really dumb, IMHO, and Jobs is (still) brilliant.
As noted, other carriers are coming out with iPhone clones which are cheaper. Android is coming out this fall, and iPhones are still just iPhones (with annoyingly non-tactile keyboards which won’t even go to landscape).
iPhone is already peaked, so another year is not big deal.
By winter, iPhones will look like overpriced pieces of junk, and Apple will be releasing some other piece of rocking hardware in the near future.
Keep the iPhones ATT, and keep screwing your customers and non-customers alike. They’ll remember.
Remember the Sprint “You can hear a pin drop” commercials, which *just* preceded Sprints complete overselling of its network, massive FCC complaints about its service and its fraudulent billing and cancellation practices? Well, the market remembers. People still hate Sprint.
ATT, welcome to your future.

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