“In a series of new ads airing tonight, Apple Inc. tries to come to carrier partner AT&T’s rescue,” Jim Goldman reports for CNBC.
“For weeks, Verizon and Sprint have been having their way with AT&T and Apple’s iPhone. One of the year’s best commercials has to be the Verizon ad featuring the iPhone as the newest resident of The Land of Misfit Toys.”
Direct link via YouTube here.
Goldman writes, “The issue, and it certainly resonates, is that while AT&T might have a very nice 3G network, its coverage is rather limited when it compares to that offered by Verizon. The two even got into a legal spat because of Verizon’s very clever “There’s a ‘Map’ for That” campaign, comparing head to head the two carriers’ 3G coverage nationwide,” Goldman writes.
Direct link via YouTube here.
Goldman writes, “AT&T’s answer with actor Luke Wilson is a poor one.”
Direct link via YouTube here.
Goldman writes, “Apple has been the collateral victim in all this. As it has since signing that exclusive arrangement with AT&T, with the carrier constantly trying to play catch-up to iPhone’s technical capabilities.”
“So Apple is fighting back on its own, launching a series of commercials that begin tonight, highlighting the one thing key thing that iPhone on AT&T can do that competitors, including those Android phones from Google, and other handsets running on Verizon and Sprint can’t: Simultaneous voice and data communication. In other words, surf the web, get and receive email, text message all while you’re talking on the phone without having to leave your voice conversation to do it,” Goldman reports. “It’s such a simple message, but such a compelling one. It’s a capability that I take for granted, but rely on so much.”
Read the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Verizon’s wiseassery is going to backfire. The general public was unaware that Verizon’s network was incapable of allowing simultaneous voice and data communication; now, with Apple in the equation, everyone and their mother will soon know.
UPDATE: 5:45pm ET: See Apple’s two new ads here: Apple’s new Verizon-swatting iPhone ads (with video and schedule)
@OpJ
First please register.
Second, The iPhone works great where I live, and if I lived in SF or NY I would get one of those wifi things that let me use my iPhone in my concrete tower. $150 will do it, that must be about 10 minutes of lawyer talk.
BTW I tried the Droid for 4 days. Pretty nice phone but it is no iPhone. Not even close. I was worried about my AAPL shares but not anymore.
@dave smith;
Crawl out from beneath the rock you’re living under, won’t you?
APPLE WENT to other carriers, the OTHER CARRIERS turned Apple down.
I’m happy as a bucket o’ clams watching Verizon eat crow, losing likely a BILLION DOLLARS in revenue, because they’ve got no one but themselves to blame.
It’s not data in the traditional sence. And yes, the article spacifically mentioned SMS. SMS does not require a data plan, and it doesn’t require a data connection to send. Hence being able to send SMS messages while in a call whether it be GSM or CDMA.
the ATT ads SUCK big time..
not very good or creative..
the Verizon ads, on the other hand are quite memorable… and well done..
OpJ,
I live in the Fairmount section and rarely get a dropped call.
All this is a much ado about nothing. No smartphone compares to the iPhone, and if you want an iPhone, you’re getting ATT.
If you think a Blackberry, Droid, or other smartphone is “about the same” as an iPhone, you’re deluded enough to think that it makes much difference which network you have.
“Dan”
The irony is that the company I work for is about to give me an iPhone for my company phone…so I’m going to end up back with both phones anyways.
I think your whole series of posts is pure bullshit Astroturfing, but just in case you are really telling the truth, why would you feel secure on Android which has no security model (and very thin and massively fractured install base) and poo poo the iPhone’s security? It’s by far the most popular smartphone platform of all time and it has not seen a single exploit of any of its stock systems.
I don’t really expect an intelligent answer, I guess I’m more wondering to myself, but perhaps you have a canned answer ready for my question provided to you by your employer. Is it Verizon or Motorolla that you work for? Or maybe even Google? Does Google pay Astroturfers?
the Verizon ads, on the other hand are quite memorable… and well done..
I have to agree with you that the ads are well done. Too bad their network is utter shit, antiquated, crippled non-standard junk, far too slow and far behind the rest of the world.
Their customer service is so bad my dad’s blood pressure went dangerously high recently trying to talk to the cretins that work there, and he’s one of the most calm and reasonable people I’ve ever met in my life.
I just recently cancelled all the remaining Verizon accounts at my apartment (15+ years of land line and internet service) and my parents are discontinuing them at their second home in the mountains. We used to be all Verizon before the iPhone but their horrible service just pushed us over the edge. This is just the final straw.
I have never experienced a company as terrible and hateful to their customers as Verizon, it’s just absolutely stunning, it’s like they want you to go with their competitors. In fact ATT and other network providers should just cancel their ads and hire more Verizon customer representatives, they’d be far more effective means to get people to switch from Verizon than any TV ad.
OpJ: Maybe I have a bad phone…who knows, because when I go to the AT&T;store and complain they just say, “everyone is having those problems.”
You didn’t say where you lived, but I’d raise holy hell. Write to the company, call customer service and ask to speak to supervisors, keep harassing them and let them know you plan to switch from them as soon as your contract expires, ask them if you can get out of your contract early due to bad service even.
I would not expect you to settle for substandard service for the iPhone, and ATT needs to get their act together, they work very well in some areas, but very badly in others.
I would however point out that Verizon if you think they are a salvation would get crushed by the iPhone if they were an exclusive carrier, they don’t have the network to handle the huge demand for data that iPhone users soak up.
I hope ATT can fix the problems with their network, they are spending money on it but I’m not sure they are taking it seriously enough. If people like you keep raising hell, maybe they’ll do something?
They work very well in Orange County (near Los Angeles) for me, and in the Lake Arrowhead mountains also (San Bernardino county mountains).
@twilightmoron
Astrosurfing?
Back in January I bought myself an iPod touch. I was so impressed that I ended up getting an iPhone 3G directly from the Apple Store in March.
I was very happy with the iPhone for awhile, but then I kept hearing about applications I’d love to have that wouldn’t be approved by Apple. I tried Jailbreaking my phone for awhile, and that was cool, but being treated like a red-headed stepchild simply because I wanted to use an application that wasnt approved by apple really irked me. I was also tired of having to wait for the iPhone Dev Team to come out with another hack so I could safely update my iPhone.
The axe fell the day I wanted Google Voice. A lot of times I’m in meetings when I get important voice mails and the transcription would have been perfect. The fact I’m about to have two phones really made that something I wanted. The day I went to download it was the day Apple pulled it from the store. That was the last straw. I’m 38 years old and think that I am old enough to make decisions as to what apps I want to run. All I care about is that they’re not malicious and they don’t crash the phone.
Also, I was tired of owning an MP3 device that didnt simply allow me to connect it to a computer and listen to music directly off of the device. It’s amazing that the iPhone doesnt do something as esoteric as that.
Its simple, The Apple Way isnt MY WAY. You may think Apple is providing the best experience, but it’s not for me.
The Droid is perfect for me. I mean I can pick an MP3 on my Droid and select a menu option that says, “Make into Ringtone” really says a lot about the Droid, and that’s only the start of the things I’ve been able to do that Apple blocked me from doing on the iPhone.
I keep a spare battery with me…I upgraded the memory by using a MicroSD card…more things I could not do with the iPhone. (although I did get around the battery issue by buying an expensive Mophie Juice pack that added considerable weight and bulk to the phone).
Maybe you guys like the hand-holding, but I certainly do not. Especially as a developer.
And finally, I’ll end up with an iPhone anyways because that is what my company uses as their company phone. Right now I’m contracting and will become perm in January.
in my humble opinion, both ATT and Verizon suck.