bryan stratton dot com

Okay, now I understand the AT&T hate that emanates from iPhone users in ginormous cities like New York and San Francisco. From today’s Gizmodo:

After a few tests, the Apple Genius determined that Manoj’s phone was dropping 22 percent of its calls, which turns out to actually be “excellent” compared to most iPhone users in the New York area, where a dropped call rate of 30 percent is said to be average.

image © Gizmodo

The article goes on to say that an iPhone in the NYC area that drops three out of every ten calls is considered “fully functional,” and that the issue is “consistent with the service provided by AT&T.” My two take-aways:

1. AT&T is really turning into a millstone around the neck of the iPhone. The arrangement worked when the iPhone launched and Apple needed someone to heavily subsidize the hardware to promote early adoption and a wide install base. But now they’re stuck with a carrier that couldn’t even get freakin’ picture mail to work until late 2009. And if the network is solely responsible for causing the primary function of the device to fail 30% of the time, that’s going to make it tough for the iPhone to remain competitive against all of the also-rans, which might have inferior hardware, but they’re running on superior networks—networks that don’t soak you for a $30 monthly data plan that doesn’t even include text messaging.
2. I assume that the Apple Genius Bar follows some pretty strict protocols about the information that they give out and the way that it’s presented. So if you’ve got Apple’s own Geniuses throwing AT&T under the bus, I have to think that the writing is on the wall. I would not be shocked to see AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity come to an end within the next 12 months, unless something big changes soon.