- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
There is a lot of pent up lust towards the iPhone moving to the Verizon Wireless network. However users should beware because the iPhone 4 is already outdated and will soon be moving to technological graveyards. Every summer Apple releases a new version of the iPhone. That means in a mere 6 months everyone will experience a form of post purchase dissonance because the iPhone will be moving toward bigger and better features, even possibly 4G.
What people do not realize, is that right now cellular technology is switching to 4G. 4G will lead to faster data connections which hopefully will translate into better service for all. Since 4G is fairly new, there are a few downsides such as data costs, lack of standards, and lack of hardware maturity. Currently the price for data is $50 for 5GBs and $80 for 10GBs. The only devices that support 4G on Verizon are laptop cards because voice standards were not complete to allow for phones. Finally devices are fairly new so they are more bulky and battery life takes a pretty large hit with 4G.
If you could, I would suggest you hold off on a new iPhone. You have waited for years and should be able to wait a few more months. I think it would be stupid to buy an iPhone using old technology which would be obsolete in six months and unless you could afford it.
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
After years of anticipation, Verizon Wireless finally announced, in cooperation with Apple, that they would get the iPhone 4. This announcement has been something that I have been waiting for two years now. Years of unreliable service due to the unanticipated amount of data usage on AT&T‘s cellular sites has left many iPhone customers unhappy with their wireless service. When the iPhone 4 launches on Verizon, it will be interesting to see how many people switch from AT&T to Verizon. It will also be interesting to see how many current customers on Verizon Wireless were holding back from switching from AT&T, knowing the pour quality of service, that finally purchase the iPhone. Personally, i’m waiting to see what issues arrise on the Verizon Wireless network because of the influx of new iPhone customers.
As an AT&T customer with an Apple iPhone 4, I have been relatively pleased with my service over the past year and don’t see a reason for switching. Many other people however are having consistent connection problems that render their phones useless. It is especially bad for dense, highly populated cities, for AT&T to offer reliable service to all of their customers. My mom for example has a very difficult time getting signal, even with a MicroCell from AT&T. Her wireless service is horrible and the only reasonable service she has is through her land line.
Beginning with the iPhone, the amounts of data that carrier networks have to support has skyrocketed. AT&T simply wasn’t able to supply wireless resources for the demand that the iPhone would place on their towers. I noticed this a couple of years ago. There was a time where dropped calls were the norm and in urban settings in Orange County, CA signal and bandwidth was hard to come by. Now AT&T’s quality of service has at leased improved somewhat. This could very well be the fact however that I am very close to a reliable cellular antenna. However at work, they have installed more attenea’s so that iphone users can get better service where on a normal to busy night, iPhone users could not get data service of any kind.
The wireless capacity at cellular sites are not the only issue. This past year while pre-ordering devices through the AT&T website, their servers became overwhelmed which created chaos of many duplicate and lost pre-orders. This resulted in long lines for customers desperate to get an iPhone, that were not able to pre-order. Then on January 11th, Current Verizon customers were seeing issues visiting their customer portal to check for upgrade eligibility because Verizon’s website servers could not handle the load. Every year at launch time we see incredible lines of people waiting (as I did last year) in order to purchase or upgrade to the next version of the iPhone. Then within several hours, around the world there are thousands upon thousands of device activations going through network servers of AT&T at the same time. Every year we see AT&T’s servers become overwhelmed and result in many unhappy customers that cant use their phones for hours and sometimes even days.
- Image by Photo Giddy via Flickr
I believe that all signs point to “yes” as it will be the day that Steve Jobs will take the stage at the World Wide Developers Conference as he has the past two years to introduce the new iPhone. Information from those familiar with manufacturing processes have concluded that the iPhone should be ready. AT&T has a vacation restriction in effect for June. AT&T store representatives are telling people it should be coming out in the next month. Last and most convincingly, AT&T has modified its data plan offerings which will be available on June 7th.
I will be hoping to hear of the following features on the fourth generation iPhone: a forward looking camera, higher resolution rear camera, camera flash, higher resolution display, micro sim, bigger battery, same chip used in the iPad, design like the “stolen” prototype, and I would pray for an upgrade in storage, battery life and memory. I will be crossing my fingers for a file system accessible to all apps, cloud syncing, wireless syncing to iTunes, and free cheaper tethering (okay that’s not going to happen as AT&T has announced their plans). Cloud syncing probably will not happen because of the new bandwidth caps instated by AT&T. I cannot wait to hear what other new unannounced features the iPhone OS 4 will bring.
Will other carriers get the iPhone? I hope so. I think it would be good for everyone to even out the data usage of iPhone customers a bit. There have been rumors of CDMA iPhones in production and major employees at Verizon working on a big ad campaign but nothing is for certain. My best guess is that CDMA phones will come later this year in order to give AT&T some sense of exclusivity during the begging of the new launch.
In other news there have been some rumors that they may announce update other Apple products on the 7th. It is possible that they may update or introduce something new like the next generation Apple TV but I do not think they will sell them right away as the next generation iPhone will take remarkable resources. iPhone launches are most likely the most busiest set of days for AT&T stores and Apple stores. I don’t believe they could afford to sell another new/updated product on the same day.
AT&T’s CruiseCast was discontinued.
A pretty interesting new option in automotive entertainment but definitely an expensive one is AT&T‘s new service called CruiseCast. The idea is that you can mount a satalite receiver on top of your car and get TV in your car while traveling. This antena connects to a box which converts the stalite feed and then routes that to TVs mounted in your car.
In order to get the service you have to shell out around $1,300 and then pay a monthly fee of $28. You could buy each of your 4 kids a new 32GB iPhone 3G S and still have some money over to help pay off the additional data charges. They would be able to choose their content better and play video games on them when they get bored. The funny part is they advertise it as 40 channels plus which seems like just a portion of the channels that you get with a basic satellite package however 20+ of those channels are music channels which means nothing being that you have a radio or hopefully some way of playing your own music. However what is interesting is that they claim to have a coverage area of the whole entire United States. And in case you are traveling through a tunnel of in between New York City skyscrapers, the equipment buffers the video so that you can go 3 minutes without signal until you would know.
