AT&T’s “Mark the Spot” app for Apple iPhone is designed to provide customers a means to give feedback on network user experiences to AT&T.
AT&T hopes that this application will help contribute toward the goal of providing customers with the best network experience possible and the company “greatly appreciates” those who use the app.
Features include:
• Simple operation
• Submit real-time report with current GPS cordinates
• Submitt after-the-fact reports from other locations
• Choose type of report: dropped call, failed call, no coverage, data failure, or poor voice quality
• Option to submit additional comments
• No charge SMS of successful receipt
Get the free app via Apple’s iTunes App Store here.
ive seen EDGE once in my area…but i drop calls constantly. about time they came out with something like this…now the real question is, will they actually use our suggestions to make improvments?
Way off subject, but can someone who understands the stock market explain to me whatbos happening to apple in the last week? I have only read good things about apple during this drop?
About time. Someone listened to an engineer that said “just make this app and we’ll have all the info we need to track these problems”.
Bloodbath… I realize this is the wrong context, but couldn’t think of a more fitting review.
This is a great idea! I have an area of poor reception near my home I will deliberately try to use my phone in to try to generate errors to report using this app to make ATT aware of issues there.
I am glad they provided this app.
I wonder if this app actually works, or whether it’s a pacifier for those complainers who think AT&T;is doing nothing?
As for Apple stock, it’s probably the Dubai Sovereign Wealth fund, cashing in their shares. I hear they are hard up.
Good to see it’s not just number of bars. I sometimes have problems because of overused networks even though I have full bars.
Tip: I was at a parade in Long Beach CA over the weekend where I apparently wasn’t the only one using ATTs 3G network. Couldn’t place or receive a call if my life depended on it. (Unlike sports stadiums, this location doesn’t normally get that much use and wasn’t designed for that much 3G traffic)
So I turned off 3G on my iPhone and boom! All my calls worked great, even the internet worked!
Too bad the iPhone can’t be designed to automatically try Edge whenever 3G isn’t working.
And exactly how are you going to mark the spot when there’s no accecss there?
@Hotinplaya
Approximately 80% of all stocks do whatever the market does, no matter how good a company’s fundamentals are. If the market drops, chances are Apple (AAPL) will as well, no matter how well it is doing. If the market is heading higher, Apple will not only head higher with it, but will outpace that rise.
In a down market, there are many reasons banks, pension funds, mutual funds, etc. will sell Apple. Among these reasons are meeting capital reserve requirements, raising cash to compensate for other losses, liquidating stock that was used as collateral for other transactions…
Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, Apple’s fall (or rise) is not the result of manipulation, though many people on this site seem to think it is. I think many people on this site look only at AAPL and fail to look at what’s happening in the overall market. The market has made a huge advance since March and the Dow is now hovering between 10,000 and 10,500, which are key psychological numbers. Not to mention that the economy is not exactly booming. The market is due for a correction, which will most likely cause AAPL to fall along with most other stocks.
If you look at what the Dow has done since March and what AAPL, BIDU, and just about any other stock has done in that time, you’ll see what I mean.
I can just hear the new Verizon Spot:
Spotty coverage on your ATT network?
There’s an app for that.
or
use the best network on the planet and we’ll show you another map for that.
@KenC,
I’m sure ATT will be using the data to make decisions as to where to spend there upgrade budget next, but you won’t see results overnight. ATT is behind and people expecting immediate results will be disappointed.
This app is a great way for ATT to cheaply generate usable data. This, hopefully, is a sign that they are working hard to fix their past mistakes.
Oh come on, AT&T;. You’re asking users to report what you should already know and be fixing. Do your own #*@!ing job!
The first thing I thought when I read this was exactly what HowzatWork? had to say: “…how are you going to mark the spot when there’s no access there?” Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, or am I missing something?
Hey MDN, we need some recognition – I made just that suggestion to the AT&T;guys on MDN a couple of weeks ago…!
And it is a good idea, they’ll have incredible feedback to help plug the holes where it’s most needed…
How do you plug the hole if you can’t report the hole to be plugged because you’re in it!
You do it more slowly and less reliably than you would like too!
“Way off subject, but can someone who understands the stock market explain to me whatbos happening to apple in the last week? I have only read good things about apple during this drop?”
Unfortunately, many of us know what this likely means.
Hotinplaya…
I don’t profess to be a stockmarket guru… but I have owned Apple stock for years.
If my memory serves, it always tanks in December, right up to the keynote in January.
It will rebound in March, tank a bit again right before or after the June keynote, then grow until Thanksgiving.
I’ve been using that investment strategy with Apple for 5 years now and made a pretty good profit.
For those questioning how to report a hole you’re in – they note that there is a map you can pinpoint a location on – so you can report it after you get back on the grid.
There’s an app for that too!
I’ll just add, I don’t know WHY it does this, but it does.
I but in late January, sell in mid May, buy in July, sell in mid November.
Several weeks ago, someone claiming to be an AT&T engineer suggested to us that we should report any and all dropped calls, no/poor signal and no/poor data access to AT&T. He said that these user reports are really the most valuable way for them to find out where to build out their coverage. They have only so much resources to drive around and test for signal, data rates, etc.
Everyone who owns an iPhone in the US should get this and USE IT every single time they have an issue. Obviously, in situations when you don’t HAVE a data signal, you’ll have to send the report later (as the app suggests), but in most cases, your call is dropped, your 3G is poor, or you have no voice signal. Try switching to EDGE (turn off 3G), try whatever you can, but keep trying to send that report in EVERY TIME there’s a problem.
I’m sure there will be a number of extremely frustrated AT&T users who will get this app and incessantly keep submitting reports of poor coverage/failed/dropped calls just out of spite, but vast majority will most likely be legitimate, accurate and valuable reports for AT&T.
Hotnplaya asked, “ay off subject, but can someone who understands the stock market explain to me whatbos happening to apple in the last week? I have only read good things about apple during this drop?”
What’s happening is that I’ve got to sell a fair amount of stock by the end of the year and the big mutual funds & hedge funds heard about it, so they’re trying to see me sweat. (It’s working too)
So, if I get no signal where I am, how exactly do I submit this report?
And to all those smart alecs (HowzatWork?, Alderbaran) who asked “how do you report a problem with signal when you have a problem with signal?”, the article is very short, and yet, you didn’t bother to read even that:
Features include:
• Simple operation
• Submit real-time report with current GPS cordinates
• Submitt after-the-fact reports from other locations
@Mark
Nice try, but HotinPlaya is asking about the last few weeks. AAPL is dropping and the Dow is not.
@HotinPlaya
Here’s how AAPL works. Whether it rises or falls depends predominantly on one factor. In the next week to two weeks are people likely to Buy?
When people are excited about future earnings and future products the price rises because the guess is that people are likely to buy in the next week to two weeks.
When people look forward and see that things are settling and not overly exciting you figure that the people who wanted to buy already have bought in, and since there’s no real draw for people to buy in the coming week or two weeks the main exchanges will probably be sellers.
In the latter case the price lowers and lowers and lowers until people look at the price and think that over the next week to two weeks people are likely to be wanting to buy.
AAPL is lowering because all the excitement is already in, and there isn’t anything all that exciting about AAPL until early January when new products are often released.
So expect the price to remain steady or slightly fall up until late December, when the excitement about possible new products (along with inevitable rumors that stoke the excitement) begin to call people in to buy.