David Bressler

AT&T: The iPhone's Achilles' Heel

I agree with many of the comments about Verizon being expensive with poor customer service, but needed to put my vote in for the author.

After breaking a t-mo contract to get an iphone last October, I had to go back because AT&T hardly functioned as a phone, and I felt like an a** for spending money on a 3G plan and always connecting at Edge, or worse speeds.

For disclosure, I'm in NYC, and when I left NY, in particular in Florida, it worked brilliantly. But, it astounds me... I'm in New York Freakin' City, and I can't get inbound phone calls, or calls that don't drop? Crazy. And, no reason for voicemails to be delayed 12 or more hours before delivery. That has nothing to do with network robustness or speed. That's simply a failure.

And, for those people who tell me I'm too picky, if I can get a T-mo phone connection, I can get an AT&T one... I can't get a T-mo signal where I live in NYC (Tribeca) either, but I have a phone that supports UMA, so from home, make all my calls over wifi with unlimited minutes for just $10/month. Without UMA, I'd have gone to Verizon.

If Verizon get the iPhone, say hi to me. I'll be the guy camping out overnight at the front of the line.

David

What's Better: BlackBerry or iPhone?

Regardless of bias... I think there are a couple of interesting items not touched on:
1. Blackberry browser is quite useless. 3G will mean it will be useless faster, unless they improve it.
2. Why did it take so long for RIM to come out with a 3G phone?
3. Why has it taken so long for them to put together a fund to create apps? Or, at least focus on the development community in a way that encourages interesting applications.
4. Why does it take about 5 minutes for my curve to start?
5. Why can't my phone tell me how many voicemails I have? And, before you suggest I look at caller ID - in NY, in and out of the subways, there is no correlation between missed-calls and voicemails?

Disclosure, I'm a Blackberry user who occasionally misses my Windows Mobile device. Am waiting for an iPhone that my company allows to get email and will switch in a second. I fully expect the iPhone to be frustrating in many ways my BB is not.