A lot of my geek friends are already raving about the new iPhone 4 that has yet to be announced. Many are ready to get their MacHead hands on it as soon as it’s available. Finding out if you’re elgible to upgrade to the iPhone 4 is very easy.
If you’re a current iPhone user; simply dial *639# and hit “Call.” A text message will reply within 60 seconds letting you know if your eligible to upgrade. If you’re not eligible right now, the message states what date you’re able to upgrade with no additional fees. Those who may not be eligible can still upgrade, but there will be substantially higher fees associated with doing so.
Not upgrading to the iPhone 3GS was a smart move on my part, this is a much more revoltionary rather than evolutionary like the 3GS. I’m eligible!
Before I dived into the iPhone pool, I was a customer of Cellular One here in Wisconsin. I was a very happy customer. Good coverage within the state, $49.99 got me unlimited everything and I never had any mishaps with my billing. Cellular One was bought out by AT&T and then re-sold to Trilogy Partners. During the time that AT&T owned Cellular One, I had to re-sign which then put me under an AT&T contract, not by choice. In my area, AT&T has good overall geographic coverage. Sprint is a joke here though Verizon may be a contender in coverage now. My only gripe is CDMA, really Verizon? CDMA is great for rural areas which we have plenty of, but GSM is the system of the future and CDMA is a dinosaur.
The list of why AT&T is the worst cellular provider in the history of telecommunications is long. We won’t even begin to list the reasons. However yet another failure has occurred this month that left many of their customers extremely upset.
If your an AT&T customer I suggest reading this article from TechCrunch and really consider jumping ship from AT&T as soon as you can.
I have spent the last week in the Chicago metro area. From the northwest suburbs of Schaumburg and Elk Grove Village to Grant Park on the Lake Michigan shoreline downtown. This urban immersion has provided some valuable lessons.
iPhone battery life is kind of bad!
Living in the isolated and desolate state known as Wisconsin, it is not often my iPhone use is ‘heavy’. I know most places I go so I don’t use battery-sucking GPS Google maps, I know the good places to eat so no need for Yelp. No long commutes to listen to my iPod. I thought my iPhone battery life was ‘okay’ but certainly could be better. I would plug it in nightly with 30%-40% of battery life remaining after light to moderate use. Being in Chicago I had to consciously think, ‘do I really need to look this up or should I save my battery?’ Leaving for downtown in late morning my battery would dead by 6 or 7 p.m. Between Twitter, Google Maps (w/ GPS), Yelp! (to eat), Photos (snap, snap!) and iPod (1 hr commute in downtown via train), my battery was taking a real pounding.
The AT&T network really does suck!
You’ve read all the grumblings from other metros, New York, San Fran, L.A. and Miami. AT&T’s network is terrible. Do we need to rehash the SXSW incident where all the tech geeks converging caused the AT&T network to crash with the convention in town? I think not. I use the SpeedTest.net app on my iPhone to measure bandwidth. I only got one good result of 2.3 mbps down and 280 kbps up. That was in the fringe suburbs of the metro though. When downtown I was getting varying results between 250kbps-700kbps down and 40kbps-170kbps up. Needless to say I wasn’t very impressed. Yes the speed varied with the time of day, but overall I was unimpressed with the networks ability to handle the data. That is a teaser for my next point!
Digital spread is thick in metropolitan areas.
I had a realization moment while riding the Metra train back to Elk Grove Village this afternoon during rush hour. I was crammed like sardines with business professionals commuting home from work. Everyone around me had ear phones in and either an iPhone or MP3 player in their hands. With about 50-60 people in my car, well over 75% were holding a portable media device. The other 25% were reading the paper, book or using their laptop. During down time, consumers of digital media simply ‘graze’ news, tweets, music, podcasts etc. as they cruise their way to home or work. Many companies want to know how to reach a large mass on social media platforms like Twitter. The truth is because so much information fly’s through our networks, we can’t take it all in. If you tried, you’d burn out before you knew what hit you. Many are ‘grazing’. During proper times they digest what is active in their network at that time and simply turn it off when they need to. I would argue some of the best times to reach those in your network is commute times and lunch. However, peak times to reach your network varies with your networks ‘lifestyle’.
So much attention is given to new media and websites like YouTube, Hulu and Ustream. Nielsen, the leading ratings company, released a report putting things back in perspective. The numbers of mobile video viewers has risen, time spent watching videos online has jumped, but television still overwhelmingly dominates as the medium of choice.
2008
116 Million Internet video viewers averaging 2 hours per month.
9 Million mobile phone subscribers (viewing hours not rated)
2009
131 Million Internet video viewers averaging 3 hours per month
13 Million mobile phone subscribers averaging 3.5 hours per month
Each statistic is quite a substantial upward trend. Many logical factors can explain the increases. Video capable mobile devices like the Blackberry Storm and iPhone are becoming more widespread. I’ve personally noticed this trend first hand. Being the tech geek I am, in high school (2000-2004) I was one of very few kids who toted a ‘smart phone’. Most of my friends had your typical Motorola flip phone or Nokia candy bar. Now it seems all my friends and younger kids I know own Blackberry’s, iPhone’s and Sidekicks. This shift towards mobile convergence devices is being fed by the Internet and affinity to social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Internet viewing hours will continue to rise as President Obama pushes for nationwide broadband access and Hulu and YouTube continue to get more mainstream press. A perfect example is the Discovery Channel show ‘Mythbusters’. Earlier this year they had a ‘YouTube’ episode with user-generated content and myths. Take a look at this graph about YouTube’s hit count comparing April 2008 vs. April 2009.
264,710,806 in 2008… up to 440,273,651 in 2009. That’s nearly double the amount of hits in a year.
All these statistics are fine and good, but now lets unveil the ‘big momma’ in video viewing.
Television still overwhelmingly dominates as the medium of choice. Respondents report viewing over 153 hours of video on the television each month.
I can stream movies on Hulu via my laptop and watch YouTube on my iPhone. However, neither option beats watching a Blu-Ray movie on my 46″ 1080p television! Comfort still beats convenience, at least right now.
Down time in public places, it happens to us everyday. The tech savvy geek in us tells us to grab for our iPhone to tweet, compose an e-mail or instant message friends. It is this reason that many of our significant others hate the iPhone with every breath in their body. What use to be casual conversation and cute stories is now mute silence and clicks on a soft keyboard. I’m guilty as charged. My significant other and I composed this ‘iEtiquette’ for iPhone users.
– While at eating a meal in public, leave your iPhone in your pocket on silent until the check arrives. He or she will be greatly appreciative as meals are a prime time to make small talk and talk about how each other feels.
– When driving in the car, refuse the urge to have an ear bud in or be synced into your cars audio system with your latest Audible book or podcast blaring. Not only will it save your significant other a boredom inspired headache, but also allow them to converse with you. Time in the vehicle is often another ‘hot time’ to communicate in our busy lives.
– Birthdays and Anniversaries. These days come with more anticipation and expectations than others. Though we all hate going off the grid, we must POWER DOWN the iPhone on days like these. Do you really want to risk it? I know I don’t!
– Post physical endeavors are very much a ‘no iPhone zone’. After letting your inner excitement and ‘O’ face come out, the last thing you want to do is grab for your iPhone and start twittering. We have decided a ’1 hour’ time frame would be reasonable before grabbing for your phone again. P.S. – Turn off the ringer and tweet notifications while engaged in physical activities with him or her! That is merely a side tip!
Live by these folks, don’t make the mistakes that I did. Don’t let my personal anguish and and heartache go down the drain for nothing. If you practice the steps above, I’m sure it will make your relationship much less stressful!
AT&T announced that it is scurrying to upgrade its mobile network in anticipation for the new iPhone hardware that will hit shelves in June.
“We have the infrastructure capability to go to 7.2 [Mbit/s], and we’ll have the capability to go 14.4 and 20 in the next couple of years, so I think there’s coverage we’re going to improve, there’s quality we’re going to improve, and there’s speed that’s also going to get improved.” – AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega
Reports revealed that half of the mobile data that AT&T routes is attributed to the iPhone, and Net Applications is reporting that more than two thirds of all mobile web data is linked to the widely popular mobile hardware. AT&T has stated it is expecting a ten-fold increase in mobile data traffic on its network with the release of the new iPhone this summer.
The network upgrade was obvious when AT&T purchased a large batch of Juniper routers, which has been confirmed by AppleInsider. The routers are optimized to handle streaming video and mobile broadcasting solutions like those being offered by Ustream.tv and their ‘mobile stream’ iPhone application. Apple has reportedly set a strict deadline that asks AT&T to complete the upgrade, quality test it, and have it ready to go live no later than May 31st, 2009.
AT&T is also working hard on upgrading their coverage and service to their customers. They are transitioning their 3G network to new frequencies (850Mhz) . The longer wavelength, lower frequency 850MHz band has been growing in popularity among mobile providers because it provides greater coverage area using fewer towers and better penetration through walls and other barriers, such as foliage.
The iPhone truly has a set of rules all its own. Have you tried to obtain an iPhone while under contract with AT&T already? They have about 50 hoops for you to jump through, making it nearly impossible to purchase a handset for less than $500. Apple and AT&T have restricted the terms on the iPhone like no other handset sold before in order to turn a decent profit. But now Apple wants to tell its customers what do to with their hardware once they purchase it. Seem too far fetched to be true, it’s not!
The iPhone was designed to use software only from the Apple iTunes store, which would allow Apple to control what apps were available and which were not, and also turn a decent profit in the process. The ‘Jailbreaking’ of the iPhone allows users to use applications that are obtained by other means outside the iTunes app store.
Essential applications that the iPhone can’t do out of the box include video recording, turn-by-turn directions and free tethering to a laptop. Supporters of the jailbreak see the iPhone more of a handheld computer or a gateway device to the Internet. They feel users should be able to put any applications they want on the device.
This isn’t purely a groundswell of pirates looking to make a quick buck or steal some code. Major players around the Internet are voicing support for the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s fight to have the U.S. copyright office allow jailbreaking. The latest company to voice their support is Mozilla, developer of the popular Firefox web browser.
“This is not us criticizing Apple, But it’s the principle of the thing. Choice is good for users, and choice shouldn’t be criminalized. The Internet is too important for all of us for that.” said Mozilla CEO John Lilly in an interview with ComputerWorld.
Do you think Apple has right to tell you what to do with its device? Absolutely not! I have not jailbroken my iPhone because it is still under warranty, however after that is up, I assure you I will. I loved to tether my old Palm Treo 750 and shoot video on the fly. My biggest gripe is with the tethering. I regularly need to jump on my laptop on the go, and now I can’t with my iPhone.
Why would they not have a $0.99 app for this? Apple and AT&T plan on charging their users an extra $30 to tether their iPhone. Customers already pay $30 for the unlimited (oops, 5gb) data plan, now they want another $30 on top of that? No dice! My monthly bill would skyrocket to near $120 per month for a phone that is on the cheapest voice plan available from AT&T.
According to iPhoneDownloadBlog.com, Every three years, the office and Library of Congress ask if anyone has any suggestions for revising the DCMA. This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is petitioning for the privilege of hacking smart-phones, which could allow iPhone owners, for example, to legally jailbreak their iPhones.
Apple should not tell their customers what do to with equipment they purchased. The iPhone is not under a lease! Is Apple being a corporate bully, or do they have rhyme and reason for their choice, I want to hear your side of the story!
I had the chance to purchase an iPhone over the summer. I instead purchased a Palm Treo 750 with a Windows Mobile Professional OS. Windows OS, yea I know, scary! I like the WM OS because of its seamless integration with software I use all the time, such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel etc. It comes in handy when my laptop dies or I want to study on the way to a test. The OS itself was very unstable and had memory leaks galore, but I lived with it and was rather happy. I felt that Windows Mobile was pretty neat. I felt it was ‘enough’ to do what I needed it to do. I found Chris Pirillo’s Ustream recording about the exact transition I took from Windows Mobile OS to the iPhone. It’s 10 minutes long but highly recommended!
I finally decided to take the iPhone plunge and see what the hype was all about. I do state that it is over-hyped to a degree, but what makes the iPhone so desirable is customization and its scalability.
When you purchase a ‘traditional phone’, it comes pre-installed with applications that the manufacturer feels its demographic will find useful. On some handsets, there is some room for customization by downloading a few scarce add-on applications that will eat up your handsets resources pretty heavy. Not to mention the very small amount of space most devices have when compared to the iPhone.
The iPhone plays to our societies desire for customization. It comes pre-installed with your ‘usual’ bells and whistles like: Calendar, Contacts, Call History etc. That’s merely the front cover to the book known as the iPhone. From there users can login to the iTunes app store and begin searching a database of thousands of applications from A to Z, doing stuff you wouldn’t believe could be done on a handset. It can range from something as simple as an application known as the ‘iFlashlight’ which increases your screen brightness all the way and whites out your screen, to an application that can tell you today’s cheapest gas in town or 3D virtual mapping of a mobile social network.
When I dive into the app store, I’m making my iPhone essentially ‘mine’. I am adding applications that I will find useful and making it do what I WANT IT TO DO and it is unique and unlike anyone else.
As more people start purchasing iPhones, the app store has more users rating and reviewing applications, more developers will be apt to design applications as use increases, and the apps and tools that connect iPhone users together will be stronger because more people will be using them. The long term popularity of the iPhone will heavily fall on Apple and their 4G and 5G handsets that will be coming down the line. But knowing their track record, I’m not fearing they will make a ‘Vista’ and really screw up.
Even though you purchase the iPhone, your phone really keeps evolving as more apps are released. What your handset ‘can do’ is constantly evolving and new possibilities are realized literally every day.
The 4G iPhone is rumored to be on tap this summer with a dual-core processor.
There are some user interface things I would change with the handset, it is by no means perfect. But overall I would give the user interface a 4 out of 5. One of the biggest disadvantages of the handset is battery life when you start using data intense applications. But you can’t be slim and sleek with major battery life, at least not yet with current technology. There are some really cool iPhone covers that will trickle charge your battery and 3X your battery life while protecting your handset, pretty neat.
The biggest draw for me minus being a gadget geek; the iPhone and its applications looks to solves life’s everyday problems. Marking your GPS location on map where you parked your car. (Dan, Matt, Anyone) We’ve all been there walking around some downtown metro for an hour looking for a parking garage named Lot 4454. Tip calculator for those Denny’s runs, turn-by-turn GPS navigation to help you around in places your unfamiliar. We’ve all heard that song where we just cant remember who it was by and it drives you INSANE. With the iPhone, just hit a button, and within 10 seconds it will tell you what song it is, the artist and where you can download it from. In a new city and have NO IDEA where a good place to strap on the feed bag is located? Grab you iPhone and great reviews from other users just like you on the best places to eat. You don’t even need to type in your location, the GPS will automatically know the exact street corner your standing on. Find a review you like, click ‘Let’s go there’ and the iPhone will give you walking directions to the location with a map. Or maybe you just want to kill some time on a flight playing the guitar, drums, piano, maybe even a beat box. You can do all that on the iPhone.
While not perfect, I’m now sold on the iPhone ….
iPhone, solves life’s dilemmas, one problem at a time while delivering a quality handset.
Before I dived into the iPhone pool, I was a customer of 
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