[Macworld]

Post your comments for AT&T: With partners like this... here

[drimwit]

I would be shocked if Visual Voicemail is not available though all carriers who have a deal. Despite Apple's marketing spiel, it's not rocket science. Open a data connection to the appropriate server and ask what messages there are, then use that information through the standard voice mail phone number to retrieve the actual voicemail. Viola! Having Apple maintain voice mail servers would be a logistical and technological nightmare, and it would also be pointless. Right now all Apple has to say to the carriers is this is how we discover the server to query, here is the format of the query and this is the response we expect.
Ideas like this and the magnetic power connectors are good but seem obvious in hindsight. Either way they're not very high on the technology totem pole, even if they are a boon for users.

[Jon Seff]

The other thing the partnership brings is the ability to activate the phone through iTunes. Not sure how that will work with multiple carriers either.

[drimwit]

That certainly might change, given that, for instance, in Australia they typically sell unlocked phones as a part of a plan and you don't get the phone until you have signed your life away for two years. So activation might be separate from contractual obligations. Also they might start selling locked phones, which would be a mistake, but its certainly possible.
Also I might add that if Visual Voicemail is not patented it may well start arriving on other phones, but it may be of limited use since not all phones are sold with a data plan, as the iPhone almost certainly will be.

[alansky]

Apple's iPhone partner policy is no mystery. In the beginning, mobile carriers didn't want to risk hitching their wagons to a radically different, untested product from a first-time mobile phone maker unless Apple sweetened the pot by offering them an exclusive contract for some period of time. But things have changed. Mobile carriers worldwide are evidently quite willing to jump on the iPhone bandwagon with no special inducement required thanks to iPhone's spectacular success. Apple hasn't changed its viewpoint or its objectives. It did what it had to do to get the iPhone airborn. Now it's time to soar.

Apple's contract with AT&T, on the other hand, is binding until it expires, whenever that is. After that, my guess is that everybody gets to play.

[wiseman]

@ alansky

Quote

{quote}
Apple's contract with AT&T, on the other hand, is binding until it expires, whenever that is. After that, my guess is that everybody gets to play.{quote}

That's not true. Apple's agreement with AT&T is for 5 years from introduction, but there are provisions for either party to cancel under various circumstances.

[scottbayes]

<< But I can’t imagine that Apple, which places such a premium on delivering a clear, consistent message to its customers, can be terribly pleased by this “Yes! No! Maybe! Ask again later!” approach to public relations>>
No, Apple would never, for example, announce that Airport Extreme could host Time Machine backups to an attached USB drive, then "oops! not", then "well OK, sort of" in a later rev, but "unsupported".
Crystal-clear, unambiguous messages, that's Apple.

[Wondercow]

wiseman said:

@ alansky
> {quote}
> Apple's contract with AT&T, on the other hand, is binding until it expires, whenever that is. After that, my guess is that everybody gets to play.{quote}


That's not true. Apple's agreement with AT&T is for 5 years from introduction, but there are provisions for either party to cancel under various circumstances.

Source?

[vfx2k4]

AT&T won the lottery, they brought absolutely zero to the iPhone table other than available cell towers. Their service blows, they are a far less innovative company than Apple and their contracts are Faustian. That Apple selected them for the iPhone is merely a cause of picking the lesser of all evils. One day we'll all be using wifi and wimax to make all our calls over the net and AT&T wireless will wither away to its long overdue death. And that's spoken as a longtime customer...

[adobephile]

vfx2k4 said:

AT&T won the lottery, they brought absolutely zero to the iPhone table other than available cell towers. Their service blows, they are a far less innovative company than Apple and their contracts are Faustian. That Apple selected them for the iPhone is merely a cause of picking the lesser of all evils. One day we'll all be using wifi and wimax to make all our calls over the net and AT&T wireless will wither away to its long overdue death. And that's spoken as a longtime customer...

This post is nothing but angry exaggeration. I've been a happy AT&T Wireless (Ameritech while in Chicago) customer for almost twenty years.

[Edgejr]

Macworld said:

can be terribly pleased by this ?Yes! No! Maybe! Ask again later!? approach to public relations.

Sounds like PR by the Magic 8 Ball!



http://en.wikipedia....ki/Magic_8-Ball

[Jeffco8]

While AT&T may not be the best PR company in the world to deal with, I can say that I am much happier with AT&T service than I was with Sprint / Nextel.
As a corporation I would think AT&T would be embarrassed by the flubs, but their lack of any clear direction means they must not care.

[jaaps]

Perhaps a wider, global perspective? I think Apple has to give up it's policy to team up with providers. We've been waiting for a year now and non of the providers in the Netherlands want to make a deal, neither in most other European Countries, let alone in asia or the middle east...
Wifi acces is never unlocked (we have other rules in that matter) so who cares...
Apple should just sell the darned thing unlocked and focus on building better phones:
– longer battery life
– better Mail/Ical/ToDoList integration
– spam filter?
– 3G networking (is already comming)
– GPS chip and solution

[somonster]

i live in hawaii, and both at home and when roaming on the mainland (california, washington) i had horrible connections with AT&T. Static and dropped calls were my personal experience (7y ago).
i switched to what's now known as verizon, and from day one i had much better, more consistent reception.
"nextel subscribers are hard to locate" on the network around here.
i loooove gadgets, but i will never own an iphone if it requires leaving verizon's network. :(