Why I Won’t Switch From ATT
Us Apple users are a hardy lot, and we have a long memory as we should. After all, being a Mac user in the dark dog days of the early nineties required a lot of resilience, faith, and some would say lunancy. With the onslaught of Windows we stuck it out, knowing that our beloved Mac was the original GUI computer and far superior to anything else.
In the case of Apple, the company itself embodies many of the characteristics of its dogged fans. And it is this hardy and some would say contrary spirit that has propelled Apple's innovation over the years, and kept its fan base glued to every move the company makes.
It is in this spirit of sticking to my Apple guns, that I declare we should not be quick to switch from Verizon to AT&T.
Without AT&T having the flexibility to launch a product like the iPhone we wouldn't have had the smartphone revolution. (Yes, perhaps AT&T was desperate, perhaps it was in Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, but that's another article.)
Remember what is what like before the iPhone? Carriers picked apart any innovations that handset manufacturers came up with, insisting that they have their own bloatware (aka crapware) on the device, insisting they have their own crappy applications, and often times limiting the functionality of phones to squeeze out whatever revenue they could get.
It was this way of doing business in the US that killed Nokia here, not really giving it a fair chance to compete. And it is this way of doing business that AT&T ultimately turned its back on with the iPhone.
The iPhone had, and has, no AT&T applications. No AT&T logo on the UI. No AT&T crapware applications. Android, which has seen immense success, is still treated to the awful skinning and blotware by carriers.
The iPhone could not have happened without a partner and AT&T was that partner. Lets recap the things that AT&T agreed to that no other carrier would:
- AT&T agreed to give Apple a cut of its monthly fee
- AT&T gave Apple veto power over how and where iPhones were sold
- AT&T gave Apple control over customer service
- AT&T created Visual Voicemail in partnership with Apple
- Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing and marketing of the iPhone
- AT&T let Apple reinvent the in-store sign up process, allowing people to activate their phones through iTunes
That is quite a list! And none of the other carriers, including Verizon had the vision and guts to do what AT&T did.
When I switched to the iPhone I switched from Verizon. Here on the east coast of the United States Verizon has fewer dropped calls than ATT. However, I've put up with it for almost five years because I think I owe ATT a little bit of loyalty. Without a carrier partner like ATT I wouldn't have had a product like the iPhone in the first place.
So, come Mac fans, let's show our roots and stand by our AT&T. What do you think?
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Comments
I completely agree. People have very short memories and forget what the cell phone industry was like before Apple came in and revolutionized it. I also think that Apple gets a bad reputation for poor coverage. I think that’s partly due to the media being based in certain areas like NYC that in fact do have poor coverage. But, I have absolutely no problems in South Florida and had equally good reception on a recent trip to Colorado.
I held out for years because I was a loyal Sprint user, hoping each year that they would get the iPhone. Now, that may actually happen but I wouldn’t break a contract to switch early.
Aloha…
I appreciate where you are coming from regarding loyalty; but at some point the service you are paying for should be reliable.
FYI, I think you need to hit the following sentence with a quick edit :
“It is in this spirit of sticking to my Apple guns, that I declare we should not be quick to switch from Verizon to AT&T;.”
I think you wanted it to read :
“It is in this spirit of sticking to my Apple guns, that I declare we should not be quick to switch from -> AT&T;to Verizon <-.”
peace.
[-NBCraftsman]
Pedant mode on: Please consider proofreading your article or have someone do it for you. A simple spell check would have caught some of your errors.
Thanks!
A year or so ago, a friend of mine stayed the weekend at my home in rural PA. ATT claimed 4-5 bars on his iPhone. But after 10 failed attempts to call his wife in St. Louis (call kept dropping after a few seconds), he gave up and asked for the landline. This was why I chose to stick with Verizon - and now I can finally have an iPhone.
One of the calling features offered by AT&T;is call blocking. This feature allows you to block your number from displaying on someone else’s caller ID when dialing out, block incoming calls from specific numbers or block calls from others who hide their numbers from your caller ID.-Any Lab Test Now
Test now wrote: “One of the calling features offered by AT&T;is call blocking. This feature allows you to block your number from displaying on someone else’s caller ID when dialing out, block incoming calls from specific numbers or block calls from others who hide their numbers from your caller ID”
Blocking caller ID is not an AT&T;feature it’s a feature that any user can control. On GSM all you have to do is preface any party you don’t want to reveal your number by prefacing the number with #31#. If you want to deactivate number presentation on all calls use ##31#<send>. CDMA (Verizon/Sprint) can block CID as well by prefacing numbers with *67.