For over a year, iPhone 3G customers have had to deal with a stressed and limited 3G network. In my area of Cleveland, OH, there are very few spots that really get a strong 3G signal that lasts - the iPhone is always switching back to the Edge network. With the addition of push notifications and more people switching to the iPhone, which is exclusively carried by AT&T in the United States, the network has been under more pressure than ever.
It wasn’t a shock to me (disappointing, yes) that when Apple announced the new iPhone 3G S at the 2009 WWDC, it was with the footnote that AT&T was essentially holding us all back from the full experience of this new product.
One long-awaited feature that has been incorporated into the iPhone 3G S is MMS picture and video messaging. iPhone users have not been able to send picture or video messages, which to many has been a real bummer! To everyone’s dismay, Apple had to announce that AT&T would be supporting the MMS technology in the iPhone “later this summer.”
Perhaps AT&T can’t figure out what to charge for this feature (assuming that it won’t be free, even though it really should be)? Maybe they are concerned of what havoc all of this extra data will do to their already strained network.
Along these same lines is another new feature that the iPhone 3G S supports: tethering. Tethering allows a user to connect an iPhone to a computer and share the iPhone’s internet with the computer for web browsing and email. It essentially makes the iPhone into a wireless internet card for notebooks.
Not only does AT&T not support tethering right now, but there has been no announcement about what whether or not AT&T even will support this feature on the iPhone. AT&T again is holding the iPhone users back from their optimal experience. In European countries, where the iPhone runs on multiple carriers, these features are available and working.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, AT&T is looking for Apple to extend its exclusive contract with them through 2011. Obviously, this would be great for AT&T and its shareholders, but can this carrier really handle a customer base as large as iPhone users and still meet their unique demands? This observer thinks not.
I saw a shirt recently that describes the Apple-AT&T relationship perfectly. It depicts AT&T as being Apple’s anchor, holding it down and preventing it from being all that it could be. I couldn’t agree more.
