Why Apple Needs To Dump AT&T
3As someone who has owned every single iPhone (generation-wise) that has come out in the past few years, I can tell you that Apple could have done a much better job when it comes to choosing a carrier for this hot gadget. Not giving consumers too many options is never a good idea, and Apple has done just that by making AT&T the exclusive service provider for iPhone. A lot of industry experts have been calling for Apple to dump AT&T for months. Whether it’s been service outages or dropped calls, AT&T hasn’t endear itself to iPhone owners in the past few months. But can Apple dictate terms to the wireless carriers as some believe it could?
Apple iPhone is too good of a gadget to have an exclusive carrier. That’s why the antitrust review of Apple – AT&T contract by the Congress has been interesting to watch. I don’t believe that Apple should drop AT&T completely. But there is no question that folks should have the option to get iPhone from other carriers if they want. There were talks a few months ago about Apple building a nano iPhone exclusively for Verizon but that hasn’t materialized yet. Add to that the fact that AT&T is trying very hard to extend its exclusive deal with Apple by another year, and we have got an interesting situation.
AT&T has been a good partner for Apple. It has helped the company bring iPhone to millions of homes. But Apple doesn’t owe AT&T any favors. The relationship has probably worked out better for AT&T than Apple (except if you count the fact that AT&T’s reputation has taken a big damage by all the negative talks about its service online and offline). Apple should not and probably will not dump AT&T anytime soon. But it’s never too late to bring other wireless carriers to the table. It’s not just good for business. Apple owe it to its customers!
Your take: will we ever see a Verizon iPhone?
Apple needs to ditch AT&T permanently. I have so many more dropped calls with this terrible provider than I had with T-Mobile or Sprint. (Sidenote-Sprint is terrible too for their customer service, but I didn’t have to hit redial as often).
T-mobile was always courteous and had great service. I hear great things about Verizon as well. AT&T is awful. I have been getting voice-mails hours after they were left and that is unacceptable. Lose them Apple, please for the sake of all those geeks you depend on, geeks like me.
Bryan, first of all you said you hear not that it’s true. Second of all as a geek, I pray to all the gods that the iPhone is not exclusive on VZW (I refuse to use a locked down phone). Second of all not able to global roam would be a living nightmare, I have an iPhone in the USA and have to have another phone outside not a great feature. And while other phones support GSM (Storm), guess what no data overseas, and by adding all that chipset meants a thicker phone.
Now I’m the other side of the coin I have not had a problem with my ATT service, and VZW get’s no coverage where I am at, live and work. So then I would be in the same boat as you.
If Apple wants to create different devices for different carriers that’s fine, but don’t say it should go away from 1 carrier because you don’t like them for everyone I meet on the web that hates ATT, I meet more people in real life that like the service.
As for industry insiders they really need to get a new hobby then the constant bashing of ATT, for allot of us it simply works and works great.
I’ve used Sprint for a long time – as mentioned, customer service vacuums (although better the last couple of times I called) – even so, not as bad as AT&T was when I last used them many years ago! I would love an iPhone, but I’ll give up my cellphone *entirely* before I’d go back to AT&T. At one point, my password was “H8H8H8ATT” (hate, hate, hate,…)