Goldman reports, “‘It’s a hard position for Steve Jobs to be in because AT&T and Apple remain partners, so he can’t be too outspoken in the press,’ said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. ‘But AT&T has limited the iPhone experience.'”
“Many mobile analysts believe that a Verizon iPhone is coming soon, perhaps as early as this fall. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs & Co., who have built their company’s reputation on devices with an unparalelled user experience, have to continue their fractured relationship with AT&T — which has made iPhone customers’ experience less than stellar,” Goldman reports. “‘The frustration that consumers and our clients have towards AT&T is incredible, and this is just another thing to add to the list,’ Milanesi said. ‘Apple must be getting to the point where it is thinking, ‘Enough is enough.””
Goldman reports, “Apple said it sold 600,000 iPhones on Tuesday, vastly outpacing its sales of earlier models. The deluge was 10 times as many orders as AT&T fielded this time last year for the iPhone 3GS, and the company shut down sales Wednesday because it’s already run out of inventory. Pre-orders, which had initially been scheduled for June 24 delivery, are now only guaranteed to arrive by July 14.”
“Though all of that should be good news for Apple, it was far from sunshine and roses on Tuesday. AT&T couldn’t handle the stampede of pre-orders, and online and over-the-phone ordering returned frustrating error messages and busy signals,” Goldman reports. “Many early-bird customers who showed up at retail stores had their information taken down on paper, which AT&T entered into the system manually after the systems were back online… While Apple apologized Wednesday for the pre-order problems, no one at AT&T has uttered the words ‘we’re sorry.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Time for the divorce, Steve. See other people. Play the field.
And, to you faux-pro-AT&T viral whitewashers with your canned “whiner” and “crybaby” talking points: Don’t bother. We can trace IP addresses back to viral marketing firms with the best of them. Your astroturfing attempts will be deleted and your IP addresses will be blocked.
Note to AT&T: Astroturfing is no substitute for infrastructure investment.
It was more of an affair than a marriage, and the fling has just about run it’s course.
Once again consumers in the USA are suffering from the failure of carriers to embrace the global standards of GSM and HSPA. Rather than competing on service while allowing full interoperability with competitors’ and international networks, US carriers opted to try to build out the competition with the result being that there is really only viable carrier in the States that uses the global standard.
Almost everywhere else this is not an issue and it’s a shame that iPhone users all around the world are enjoying competitive plans and all the options such as tethering and possibly including FaceTime calls over 3G while US customers suffer because the regulators did not put the consumer first and allowed such a disjointed mishmash of networks to be created, which has not enhanced competition in a free market but has held it backhand prevented it from joining in on the latest innovations in cell phone technology.
All carriers in France sell the iPhone. No favoritism. Why can’t apple do that here?
Mac4lfe and Vatdoro are right, AT&T;took a chance that no other network would and they are overwhelmed, nobody excepted this kind of success, not even the biggest Apple fans, do you agree?
Here in Austin my AT&T;service sucks really bad. I have to use the Skype app if i don’t want the call to drop many times. Sometimes before they even pick up.
AT&T;to the public: You will get what we got when we get it!
Time for Apple to pay A T & amp ; T’s early termination fee and get other phone companies on board.
Lets get everyone on other carriers so I can have A T & amp ; T all to myself.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cheese” style=”border:0;” />
You are not talking about at&t;, are you? Even though my iPhone is not unlocked, I could see many providers I could choose from when I was in Europe. I did not use them because of the roaming charges, but at&t;phones are compatible.
Apple’s a hardware company; they don’t want to be a service company also. I don’t think people realize how much money is actually involved in setting up infrastructure.
So you petition city planners about putting up your new towers… that takes years, that is if you don’t get stonewalled. But then you still need access to data and running your own fiber is out of the question you so have to lease. And that who ends up being the big players anyway. So you’re back to “pick a carrier.”
People complain about at&t;now… go with iMobile or whatever Apple calls it and you’ll have 10% coverage at best. Apple would be better off buying TMo or Sprint. But again, infrastructure is really not Apple’s business.
I really can’t believe that you guys over there in big important America are still stuck with just one carrier. How did that happen?
Here in little backwards England iPhone owners get to choose to do business with lots of carriers.
Forgot to take out those spaces didn’t I.
Apple needs a world-class carrier partner.
What they got was ATT.
Now ATT’s GSM network may be world standard. However their service and coverage is not.
(I for one never bought the “Verizon turned Apple down” story. Apple doing CDMA in the USA and GSM everywhere else. No way.)
What is all this garbage about AT&T;taking a chance? Anyone remember the cost to the consumer of the very first iPhone? Not much subsidy existed there at all (I don’t believe there was any!). AT&T;may have taken a “risk” – but it wasn’t much of one with consumers footing the bill for the entire phone AND then locking in to a 2 year agreement. Give me a break on all the “risk” talk, please.
But, will Apple boot that randy Al Gore off the board now?
How is everyone so certain that the train wreck that happened is entirely AT&T;’s fault? I was trying to get my order placed (I eventually did) on Apple’s site and it gave me errors mostly during the order placing process, long after I’d been approved in the first step. Although I did have to try several times to get thru that step, once I did it was more painful to get the Apple Store online to follow through and give me a confirmation which took about 3 hours. So, I ask again… What role did AT&T;play in that experience? From what I can see, this was an issue of an overwhelming demand that even Apple didn’t see coming! In the end it was a success and Apple is selling every phone it has available and will continue to sell this new iPhone out for at least a month or more!
Time to divorce Apple, too. Jobs has run that company like a paranoid dictator. His actions actually stifle the company’s growth capability. Unheard of profit margins for a computer company which inhibits expansion because of overpriced products.
One reason for this clusterfark lies directly with Jobs. Because of the leak of “stolen” iPhone, Jobs chose to release early. Not only was the low supply of available product of Apple’s habit, but the early release left ATT and APPLE unprepared to process an obviously limited amount of orders.
Blame ATT all you want. In my case they are a big part of my decision to leave Apple. But it is Jobs’ arrogance and continued disregard for average consumers outside his crowd of Beemer-Buddies that has finally made me file for divorce from Apple.
@Handsome Smitty
Ahh. A man of obvious intelligence. Welcome back my friend.
@ Handsome Smitty,
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way to the shitter.
Spouting the competition’s talking points won’t win you much sympathy around here.
They’ve obviously never met my ex-wife.
I’m living in Japan so I can’t really comment on AT&T;’s mobile service. However, I will comment on people’s blasting AT&T;about the pre-order problems. TEN TIMES! Does anyone read? I don’t think ANY company could be prepared for a TEN TIMES increase in requests! 600,000 phones pre-ordered/sold in ONE day! What other computer/consumer electronics device can draw like this? As others have said, “this is not bad problem”!
@ knowhowe
It’s really simple, knowhowe. The iPhone here in the US, in England, Spain, Germany, Japan, Australia…and everywhere else might never have happened if Jobs and ATT had not entered into their “strategic marriage” that included exclusivity for what most believe was a 5 year period. Is it possible that you’ve forgotten that the hardware manufacturer/network carrier relationship was totally redefined by Apple with the iPhone? Verizon and others wouldn’t play ball with Apple. Only ATT – for all their faults as a carrier – had the vision and balls (and maybe desperation) to run with Steve Job’s gamble. It was only because of the success of the iPhone in America that Apple didn’t have to make horrible exclusive arrangements with carriers in other countries (did at first, but not long term). Best guess is that we’ve got about one more year of exclusivity with ATT here in America. After that, and when carriers all switch to compatible 4G technology, we’ll see the iPhone on most carriers I suspect and hope.
AT&T;should of know this traffic was coming. They offered more than half of all current iphone users in the US the opportunity to upgrade to the iPhone 4 for free.
It’s time for the iPhone to make it onto other networks in the USA.
From what I can tell, apples servers crashed as well.
“From what I can tell, apples servers crashed as well.”
Sauce was everywhere.
@Mac4lfe
T-Mobile is expanding it’s HSPA+ network (up to 21 Mbps) to cover roughly 45 million people in the U.S. No reason why this wouldn’t make an excellent destination for iPhone 4.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/06/16/faster.3g.available.to.45.million.more.people/
In most urban areas, T-Mobile coverage and service are stellar and it’s offerings are far cheaper than at+t or Verizon. The joke is on who?