Apple May Retain AT&T As Exclusive iPhone Partner > It's about the phone...

reply to fiberguy

Re: It's about the phone...

To be honest, tho... if apple were to go to Verizon in current day, it would actually be a step back for them. While the iPhone was launched on the Edge network, and for millions, it still is... one thing that really makes the iPhone work is the fact that you can voice and data at the same time. Once AT&T's 3G came out, it really changed the shape of the iPhone.

As much as apple would love to launch it all over the place, I see two things that I'm SURE they are seeing..

1) No voice/data at the same time on CDMA

2) I'm not even sure APPLE could support that many new users in their own support departments if they were to have 4 carriers in the US with them..

In the US, the iPhone is considered a top of the line phone.. in some other countries, the iPhone is about the same in line with the free flip phones some of the US carriers give away for free. I think if they did go with multiple carriers, I'm guessing that apple isn't sure THEY themselves could handle it either.. not just yet.

As for at&t service.. to be honest.. I'm in a major market for at&t.. probably have one of their better systems compared to the rest. I rarely see call issues here in the Twin Cities of MN. When people talk about quality and reliability, they always talk about their own experience - which is valid. I know the east coast users see a lot of service problems so when a user like me hears it, I don't see it the way they do.. likewise, when I say the service is fine, others don't see that I have good service.. they see their own troubles.. and again, valid.

In WHOLE, yes, at&t needs improvement.. they need to build out a lot more... but too, when you buy to build a nationwide network, you're also buying the crap from other carriers to which, in my opinion, is worse than building from scratch becuase you're buying into the unknown, just like buying a used car.

I agree with you, tho,... apple locking into one carrier is stoopid.. they should launch more carriers.. however, they're plagued with the problems of US carriers that aren't compatible with each others. The only two carriers that operate a-like is VZ and Sprint, neither of which make the iPhone come to life like apple really wants it to be. However, if they DID take CDMA, they'd have a larger base than what they have with at&t now.

To move into other carriers, right now, and with the fact they have millions of iPhones out there, what happens when those people leave at&t with their existing iPhone experience and find out that their beloved iPhones don't behave the same on another carrier? ... I think that it would harm apple and their customer following. If the iPhone couldn't do voice and data at the same time, for me at lest, I'd see that phone 50% less valuable to me. As much as I HATE at&t as a company in whole, this is the only reason I have not one iPhone, but just took advantage of Sprints recent regulatory charge increase to ditch my HTC hero and ported my sprint based phone to another iPhone. But still, for me, the service works fene where I'm at and where I travel...

Now.. if/when I move to Michigan, south of Detroit, I'm most likely going to be screaming "death to at&t" as Sprint is the carrier with "the" coverage there.