“It’s almost time for telecommunications giant AT&T to deliver its third-quarter results to investors,” Dave Mock reports for The Motley Fool.
“The Apple iPhone continues to impress even AT&T’s management, as the recent launch of the iPhone 3G is surpassing expectations. CEO Randall Stephenson noted that ‘In the days following our exclusive U.S. launch of this new device, powered by the nation’s fastest 3G wireless network, customer response has been everything we had anticipated and more,'” Mock reports.
Mock reports, “The company believes the strong Apple brand behind the device will win out against more competition springing up from Research In Motion’s bold new Blackberry and the killer Instinct from Samsung and Spring Nextel.”
MacDailyNews Take:
• Orange suspends UK sales of BlackBerry Bold due to software quality issues – October 09, 2008
• RIM’s new BlackBerry Storm offers mechanical click screen, lacks Wi-Fi – October 08, 2008
• Apple iPhone means business; wins BlackBerry defectors – October 03, 2008
• Needham analyst warns: BlackBerry-maker RIM ‘has head in the sand’ – September 29, 2008
• BlackBerry-maker RIM surrounded by iPhone developers – even in company’s own backyard – September 08, 2008
• It’s here. The new BlackBerry Bold. Twice the price. Half the device. – August 21, 2008
• Telegraph-Journal reviews Samsung Instinct: Not in same league as Apple’s iPhone – August 11, 2008
• Washington Post reviews Samsung Instinct: ‘It only looks like an iPhone’ – July 06, 2008
• Canada’s Bell tries to take on Rogers and iPhone 3G with iPhone wannabe Samsung Instinct – July 03, 2008
• Mossberg reviews Samsung’s Instinct: ‘It’s no iPhone’ – June 12, 2008
• Samsung’s ‘Instinct’ is obviously to make Apple iPhone knockoffs – April 01, 2008
Mock continues, “While the iPhone is helping AT&T sign up plenty of customers, it’s not running away with the market; Verizon is keeping pace. But those high-value customers tend to be sticky (thanks to those AT&T contracts) and pay more to help boost the company’s average revenue per user (ARPU).”
“AT&T looks well-positioned to weather a more constrained consumer spending holiday season,” Mock writes. “The new iPhone has a cheap entry price, and the company is heavily pushing its bundled services to save consumers and businesses money.”
More in the full article here.
That is surprising as it is very hard to find information on AT&T;’s website about the iPhone – Look under the devices tab and it is not there. Just think if they were actually featuring it on their site.
Now, if only AT&T;would work to meet my – and their advertising department – expecations. CRAPPY SERVICE on the best “intelligent Phone” still makes for a poor experience.
“…from Research in Motions’s bold new Blackberry…”
WTF? Does he mean the Blackberry Bold? As a product name “bold” makes sense. (They can’t exactly name it the Blackberry Derivative.) But the way the author used it, as a generic adjective used to describe a Blackberry, it makes no sense at all. There’s nothing about this product that one could describe as “bold” without being sarcastic.
I’m still waiting for AT&T;’s exclusive to lapse before I buy an iPhone. The company is horrible to deal with and they gouge their customers. My son’s 1g iphone suffered a split casing so he spent 2 hours at the Apple store trying to upgrade to a 3g unit. They gave up and sent him to the AT&T;store where he spent 4 more hours while being handed off to 3 sales assistants whose shifts were over. They finally threw him out with a non working phone when the store closed saying come back tomorrow. Great customer service. AT&T;doesn’t deserve Apple and we don’t deserve AT&T;.
All cell phone service providers are evil, have poor customer service and gouge their customers. I don’t know anybody who loves their cellular provider.
Doesn’t AT&T;’s exclusive with Apple go for five years? That’s a long time to wait. I hate AT&T;as much as everyone but there’s no way I could wait until 2013 to get one from T-Mobile or Verizon or Sprint, who are just as shitty to deal with as AT&T;.
@MDN: Why do you affix a semi-colon to the end of every mention of AT&T;
@Growl
I suppose your right, my company requires me to carry a simple Verizon phone and pays for my personal calls so I bought a new Touch and am experimenting with Skype. At least I’m getting some of the iPhone experience.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
I walked into my local apple store this afternoon with a launch-day white iPhone 3G suffering from the hairline crack syndrome.
The Genius Bar did not even ask to see a receipt, they just took the cracked phone, swapped SIM cards and I walked out of the store with a brand new replacement iPhone 3G. No muss, no fuss.
I love the way Apple stands behind their products. It’s one reason I keep coming back for more!
Thank you Apple.
Bitjockey,
Your son spent 6 hours trying to get them to upgrade your iPhone from 1g to 3g, and he had no luck?
Nice gutter values you are teaching him. How about you just buy him a recent 3g phone and save from him the panhandling skills.
@Growl
It is an HTML byproduct. Ampersands are used to define special characters in HTML. There are ampersand codes for quotes, exclamation points, etc. Modern browsers typically work fine without using the HTML codes for special characters.
If you want AT&T to appear correctly in the MDN forum, you need to sandwich the following in the middle:
Ampersand sign followed by ‘amp’ and then a semicolon (no spaces) ironically gives you an ampersand sign
@Growl;
I’ve had outstanding service from Verizon Wireless for years and promote them every chance I get. In fact, I’m getting ready for the upcoming “Storm” of opportunities.
@Growl
Did you miss this one: “killer Instinct from Samsung.” Mock’s trying to be funny; he’s not!
@McFly
He wasn’t trying to make them upgrade his 1g. The 1g was out of warranty and Apple wanted $199 to replace it with a similar unit. He decided he would rather spend his hard earned money on a 3g, however there is a different AT&T;contract required for the 3g units which is what caused all the problems.
PS. I really appreciate your slamming my parenting skills. Kids need to learn to do business in this world, doing everything for them doesn’t help them at all.
@Bitjockey
So the iPhone 3G requires a different contract, what’s the problem?
If he wants the iPhone 3G, he should pay for the upgraded 3G service that he would get. If he doesn’t want to pay for the 3G service, stick with the original iPhone. At least they gave him an option.
Seems pretty clear to me.
I think the Blackberry Storm in a month is going to be some major competition as it pretty much nails every feature. Apple had the luxury of At&t;and the Bold supposed “software issues” keep that device off the market here for months so the release of a slew of new Blackberry devices is going to make the Iphone start to look old, no matter how many AppStore games they show.
We officially stopped supporting the Iphone for Exchange connectivity due to the lack of security. A jailbreak app was released not too long ago that basically disables all ActiveSync policy so how secure is the device now when we cannot enforce password and remote wipe. Iphone users can still utilize Outlook Web and Mobile access but Apple has only themselves to blame for every company who cares about security and data leakage.
Apple will continue to innovate with the iPhone by adding additional features and applications that should keep them ahead of the pack. Apple has a good advertising campaign and an outstanding reputation for quality service. Let the others play catch-up.
Any time you hear someone disparage the iPhone, that person ASSUMES a stationary target bereft of innovation and improvement. How vapid can one be to believe that Steve Jobs and company will ever sit still and let others catch up to their excellence?
The existence of 3G does not excuse that absolutely awful Edge performance. I’m actually considering dropping my data plan it’s so bad. I only really use the internet when I’m near WiFi.
Seriously, 10 minutes for a webpage to load? It’s inexcusable.
“That is surprising as it is very hard to find information on AT&T;’s website about the iPhone – Look under the devices tab and it is not there. Just think if they were actually featuring it on their site.”
that would change nothing. everyone and their dog knows who makes the iPhone, and they know where to get it, and it isn’t at AT&T;.
just think how windows would sell if they listed it as a product on microsofts site! it wouldn’t change the sales numbers a single unit. it is a known factor. it is like cheerios. you can put it on the bottom shelf hidden in the corner and still sell out every week, because people know it is there and will look for it to buy it. some things are just like that…..
@nytesky
My son is now 22 and employed as an IT tech (Apple of course!), however when he acquired the 1g iPhone back on release day he was still a student with no credit. AT&T;used to offer a pay as you go plan so he went for that. He agreed to having his debit card billed a standard monthly fee regardless of usage. Because he used less than he paid for he has built up a positive balance of over $300 in his account. The new 3g requires a 2 year contract which is he was willing to sign, however the first two AT&T;agents told him he would lose his $300 credit. He wasn’t going for that story and escalated the problem up to the store manager. The store manager didn’t address the $300 issue and instead told him the real problem was that the credit reporting agency was showing two different people using his social security number. He told him he had to contact the credit agency and clear up the matter before coming back to the store.
On one hand, this is great advice. If someone else is really using his SSAN he needs to look into this and I will be the first to commend AT&T;for alerting him to an identify theft sitiuation.
On the other hand I’m not convinced someone else is really using his SSAN. It seems odd that the first two clerks didn’t uncover this problem, but the manager did just as the store was about to close. In the mean time, he has no phone which is critical to his performance on his new job.
I’m not pleased with AT&T;’s inflexibility on this. Why not help out a new young customer that has been paying them CASH in advance for over a year? Ask for a bigger deposit or cut him off when the $300 is spent…. anything but throw him out with no phone. It’s going to take days to weeks to get his id theft issue solved (if there is one) in the mean time he’s out a phone for the first time in 6 years.
I’ve offered to step in and get him a contract, but he really wants to resolve this on his own. He’s a great kid…. (not much like his old man)
Bitjockey
I’ve had fantastically good service at our local AT&T Store. My family was with Verizon for over a decade before we switched to for the AT&T iPhone.
Verizon gave rotten service at their stores with incredibly long lines to get any service at all, terrible selection of outdated and crippled technology compared to other wireless carriers, and indifferent and rude clerks. This was at more than one VZ store.
Not so at AT&T, they’ve been courteous helpful, patient, and resolved numerous problems and issues with both myself, my mom and my brother on numerous occasions in the over year we’ve been customers. My mom had a problem with a charge that showed up where she was “roaming” on a Mexican tower when she was close to the southern border in Cali, and they dropped the international roaming charge when my mom called them.
Verizon never would have done that, my mom had to fight just to get a look at her credit one of the last times she was in the Verizon store before we swiched, the store clerks were rude in that case, the manager was rude, and the Verizon phone people were rude.
I would say from my experience that your son’s AT&T issues were more likely result of bad service at that one store and I’d suggest you call the company and complain about the service at the store and see if they’re willing to do anything to remedy the situation. From my experience AT&T is more interested in keeping their customers than Verizon ever was.
At least give it a shot.
All the telcos suck. They are old school and in it for the money and you can go suck root. Of course they want to woo you every two years, but other than that, go suck.
Their people are all commission, the stores are on a different mgt chain than the service, Its old school think and if it weren”t making billions, it would have died. ;-(
But Apple is truely a bright spot. They have forced the telcos into looking at different approaches, letting the phone companies provide more services, etc. Its a wait and see situation, I guess.
PS. Millions of Verison (etc) customers with NO ATT service are not switching to iPhone. No one knows why???/ I love humor in the morning.
%20I%20would%20be%20using%20one%20of%20those%20other%20phones%20and%20services.%20%20img%20src=http://www.macdailynews.com/images/smileys/grin.gif)
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Actually my ATT service here in East Texas SUCKS…. You only get service on the top of SOME hills. LOL ;But I travel to several near by towns (including Dallas) and the service there is good. So, Life—– what you get stuck with while you are dreaming about better things. LOL
Just a thought.
en
I would imagine that AT & T (like any mobile carrier) is NOT the greatest in every region of the U.S., no matter how often that Randall Stephenson repeats the whole “Nation’s fastest 3G wireless network” line. I’ve certainly had a few bad experiences inside of an AT & T store with store clerks, and there are long phone waits on hold (even when the store personnel calls them). That’s sort of the nature of the beast.
This is very surprising, as you can’t sling a cat without hitting a mobile phone store. The local mall where I live has about 10 kiosk/booths that sell mobile phones. How can they be competitive over one another without offering huge discounts and better customer service? I guess that the reason would have to be that it’s still a sellers market; that everyone is in the market for a cell phone, or at least, a better one, so they can continue to act the way that they do.
As far as AT & T not promoting the iPhone, that’s not true. Go to their web site and it’s listed in it’s own category:
http://www.att.com/gen/landing-pages?pid=3308
And it explains the iPhone pretty well. Obviously the iPhone is a special device at a special plan and price. Apple wanted a special deal with AT & T, so it isn’t covered like their other mobile devices, but is in its own category.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iPhone.jsp
Apple has revolutionized this whole mobile phone industry with their iPhone. Unfortunately, they can only do so much about the selling practices of mobile carriers.