“Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired, the US technology magazine, has revealed he was hit with $2,100 in charges for using his iPhone on a recent foreign trip, thanks to a glitch that led him to be charged each time the mobile handset automatically refreshed his e-mail inbox,” Kevin Allison “reports” for The Financial Times.
MacDailyNews Take: It was not a glitch. Read on.
Allison continues, “Mr Anderson said he was travelling in China when he received a message from AT&T, Apple’s US mobile partner, informing him that he should phone customer support to ‘prevent a costly bill.’ It later emerged that he had already run up more than $2,000 in charges even though his iPhone had remained in his pocket for most of the trip, according to Mr Anderson.”
“He said the bulk of the charges were due to the fact that his iPhone was set to check his e-mail account for new messages every 10 minutes. The Wired editor said that he receives ‘hundreds’ of e-mails every day. ‘This is a phone that I wasn’t using,’ Mr Anderson said. ‘I was simply walking around with the phone in my pocket,'” Allison “reports.”
MacDailyNews Take: What part of “Yes, you were using it” doesn’t Anderson understand? Automatic vs. manual does not denote disuse. This guy is editor-in-chief of Wired? On second thought, that actually explains a lot. And, as MacDailyNews reader “schininis” points out below, there isn’t even a Auto-Check Every 10 minutes” setting on the iPhone: “15 minutes” is the shortest option available.
Allison continues, “Mr Anderson said AT&T had offered to put him on a rate plan that would cut his bill to $300, but that the change had yet to go through.”
MacDailyNews Take: So far, AT&T sounds remarkably responsive by proactively contacting the editor-in-chief of a major technology publication who doesn’t understand simple iPhone settings and/or international roaming rates and also quite flexible in offering to drastically cut the phone bill of the editor-in-chief of a major technology publication who, again, doesn’t understand simple iPhone settings and/or international roaming rates.
Allison continues, “AT&T said it was not familiar with the details of Mr Anderson’s case but added: ‘We have international plans for the iPhone so that people don’t rack up costs like that.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, of course they do. Along with many others, we reported it and — drumroll, please — so did Wired. Did we already ask why an editor-in-chief of a major technology publication doesn’t understand simple iPhone settings and/or international roaming rates? Here, we’ll help: Settings>Mail>Auto-Check>Manual. Here’s another one: Settings>General>Network>Data Roaming>Off. As Apple clearly explains below that setting, “When abroad, turning off Data Roaming may avoid roaming charges when using email, web browsing and other data services.”
Allison continues, “[AT&T] said the company required customers to phone in before their iPhones can be activated for use abroad. It said that it frequently negotiates with foreign carriers to lower roaming costs.”
MacDailyNews Take: So, Anderson’s doesn’t even have unexplainable, unbelievable, farfetched ignorance as an excuse? Pity.
Allison continues, “Apple could not be reached for comment.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple probably has a policy against commenting on crazy-ass bullshit FUD.
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
great we can get finally ridicule and criticize apple and the iphone due to a global roaming setting…?
desperation
Come on MDN! Where is the love? Where is the sympathy? Where is the empathy? This could happen to anyone of us. The poor guy is already feeling badly. He already knows that he could/should have left his phone at home. No need to make him feel worst. No need to kick him when he’s down.
Instead of pointing out the obvious. Or poking fun at the guy, I think it would be more productive if we started a fund for the poor guy. I’ll go first. That’s my two cents worth.
I was in Victoria, B.C. this fall and hooked up with Rogers with iPhone for email. I have the minimum ATT plan. The outcome? No additional charges – nada -very happy. No problem. Rogers may be a tough customer but no problem here – and no, I didn’t call ATT to tell them I would be up there. Hey – it just worked – and cheap, too.
Gawd I love the iPhone!!!!
About as tech savvy as Wired’s articles.
Sorry, just had to say that.
Here’s your sign.
Sounds like Mr. Anderson should quit Wired and move to Mother Earth News. They print a lot of low tech articles.
“Allison continues, “Apple could not be reached for comment.” “
They are waiting for replacement keyboards after they sprayed coffee on the old ones, reading this “complaint”.
I have actually heard people complain that the iPhone “counts even one letter as a full text message if you send it (eg. “k”).”
Hello? Every cell phone works that way!
Why would Apple want to comment? The issue is between the cell owner and ATT. Apple is not involved. Besides, Apple is probably busy working on the next round of major fixes to Leopard.
” . . . and “may contain nuts” on packets of nuts.”
Shouldn’t that be on the cover of Wired as well?
Hello? Hello…? H e e l l l l o o o o!? Is anybody there…?
No wonder things are bad in this country. Company’s are run by people that have no clue as to what their industry is all about. And I bet this jerkwad will get a ton of money when he leaves or sells the company to some overseas investors.
Hey Algr and any other idiots who are trying to defend this Wired dumbass or somehow put blame on Apple for these high roaming charges: ANY EMAIL EQUIPPED PHONE THAT HAS A SETTING TO CHECK EMAIL AUTOMATICALLY WOULD DO THE SAME THING.
Wake up and get a clue already. These are the same people who make a long distance phone call when roaming and then are surprised it cost them $20. Roaming has always been expensive, whether for data or voice. If you didn’t know this by now, then you have no excuse.
@Second Opinion
It has, didn’t you read MDN take on it. THEIR IS A SETTING THAT ALLOWS YOU TO TURN ROMING OFF FOR DATA APPLICATIONS. Just like Windows and Blackberry. This guy did not change the setting so, again, who’s fault is it?
If you had a clue, you would even know that said setting even has a CLEAR warning about turning it off when abroad to AVOID SUCH CHARGES!!!
You are the one that needs a second opinion.
We strongly suggest you change to our $300 international roaming plan which …
– You want me to what!?
Sir, if you continue to use your phone overseas, as you are currently doing, you could wrack up…
– I’m not using my phone; I haven’t made any calls since I left Dallas!
Is your phone ON NOW sir?
– Of course it’s on but I haven’t had to use it yet…
We’re trying to prevent you incurring a large bill…
-With a $300 plan!?
Er…you’ve already spent a couple of thousand sir….
-Whaa~t? How can that be? I’ve neither made nor received calls!
Well, you see sir, the way it works is like this….
MW: not
If I were Anderson, I’d worry that the individual responsible for deciding on my continued employment at Wired would read this story!
It’s a stupid iPhone quirk. Apple should have programmer the iPhone to recognize when it’s roaming…not that big a deal to implement. Instead, its customers are left to deal with the quirk, sometimes learning the hard way.
And of course the sheep (MDN and many of its readers) chime bitterly chime in – probably jealous of a legitimate publication.
More of the same poor taste from MDN. Old news!
Personally I think this was a deliberate article by Mr. Anderson, and I don’t think he’s an idiot.
I actually think it was done to point out the ridiculousness of the roaming charges from AT&T;and 3rd parties. It’s a shame that people jumped on him here and think him an idiot – I think he was probably hoping for some sympathy and a public backlash against AT&T;.
However, if someone at a non-tech related magazine had done this, it might have come off a bit better.
Pity really, coz AT&T;really need to do something about these sorts of charges.
“It said that it frequently negotiates with foreign carriers to lower roaming costs.”
Well, perhaps AT&T;do negotiate and get lower rates, but do they actually pass this onto their customers? If they can afford to drop his bill from $2000 to $300, it shows just how fat their profit margins really are.
At least Apple is on the ball and added an international data roaming switch so you can turn it off (thank-you Apple.)
Speaking of magazines, I discovered last night that ZDNet is very helpfully redirecting my iPhone to their crippled mobile site! It is impossible to bypass their redirection.
The mobile ZDNet website is designed for dumb smart phones with small screens and poorly designed, crippled browsers not the full browser of the iPhone.
By crippled, I mean that the mobile version of ZDNet will not allow one to read comments or make comments. The scope of articles is reduced, grpahics are not displayed, and links are limited. With my iPhone, ZDNet’s mobile home page is limited to ten current articles of the editors’ choice. There is no link to their blogs. When you link from an outside source to one of their blogs, the page has no links to the comments on that blog. I cannot find any link to contact ZDNet to complain. The mobile version doesn’t allow that.
What do they not understand about the full internet browsing capability of Safari on the iPhone?
It’s obvious… The editor-in-chief of “Wired” magazine is not required to understand wireless technology.
Once again, MDN fulla BS.
So ATT’s the GOOD GUY here?
You guys are really, REALLY, FANBOIZ.
“Scotty, beam me up. here’s no intelligent life down here.”
@MeanGuy
“Once again, MDN fulla BS.
So ATT’s the GOOD GUY here?
You guys are really, REALLY, FANBOIZ.”
And you Sr., probably have never handled an iPhone, or at the very least, not long enough to find the widely published feature that allows you to turn off DATA roaming to SPECIFICALLY avoid this kind of situation. If this feature was not added by Apple, which it was added on the FIRST software updated, you could criticizes ATT and Apple all you want. But the fact is that ignorance is NEVER a good defense or excuse, much less for someone purportedly intimate with technology.
“THEIR IS A SETTING”
Then make it the default option. Problem solved.
@Second Opinion
Let me get this straight. The editor and chef of Weird Magazine was not aware that traveling to China and having his iPhone check his e-mail automatically every 15 minutes, which in turn is NOT THE DEFAULT SETTING ETHER, would in fact incur additional data roaming charges? Funny how he was able, all by him self, to figure out how to have the iPhone check his e-mail automatically, but did not bother see what other setting might be pertinent.