I made a deal with the devil
I’m not proud of it, but I did it anyway.
Yes, I signed a new contact with “the new” AT&T Wireless. How could I you might ask? Well, it’s simple, the iPhone.
No, I didn’t purchase an iPhone, yet. I’m waiting until after Macworld this January to make that decision, but if the iPhone was available on any carrier, I wouldn’t have gone with AT&T. It just doesn’t work in more places.
But I want an iPhone. It just makes sense for me. Everyday I bring three pieces of electronics to work with me: cell phone, iPod and PDA.
The iPhone is all of that, and unlike every other smart phone out there, the iPhone does the music player part really well, which is crucial to me because I spend hours a day on public transportation and walking around D.C. and Alexandria. Also, the iPhone has by far the best mobile browsing experience. Safari crushes any WAP browser out there.
The one part that some smart phones do better, e-mail, doesn’t matter that much to me. I don’t really care about sending out e-mails to people on a tiny device, nor does work control my life. I do, however, like to surf the Web while I am on the go, and I listen to hours of music a day, which is a big reason why I want to wait . The current iPhone is 8 gigs, but the iPod Touch has up to 16 gigs, leading me to believe we’ll see a 16 (or even higher) capacity iPhone early next year.
Plus, I wouldn’t mind 3G support. A GPS wouldn’t hurt either, but that’s not a major feature for me in a cell phone. I needed a new phone and a new contract new right now, however, because my current contract is up and my current phone didn’t really work.
This whole situation, however, points to a major problem with the U.S. cellular industry. In the U.S., which is not how it is everywhere in the world, many phones and features are tied to certain carriers. AT&T has an exclusive deal with Apple for the iPhone, Verizon cripples features on most of its phones, etc. That’s just how it goes, and that’s not good for consumers.
The whole cellular industry is based off of subsidized phones. If you sign a two-year contract you can get a phone for free or cheap. America is ready, however, for a market where phones are no longer subsidized, freeing us from being tied to contracts for years at a time.
Imagine just purchasing a new phone every few years for $50-200 or so and being able to run it on whatever network you wanted. Don’t like AT&T? Try Verizon. That doesn’t work for you? Try another career the next month.
Yes, I could have purchased my phone from AT&T for “full cost,” without a contract but AT&T wanted to charge me way more than it is worth. It’s a sad state of affairs that ties customers to carriers and phones for years at a time. Plus, carriers like Verizon cripple their phones.
Why? Because they can.
For the record, if the iPhone would have worked on any carrier, I would have went with T-mobile. A man can dream, can’t he?